10 Psychological Games For Children: How To Use Them, And What They Are For
In psychology, working with adults is not the same as working with children. Children do not have the same capacity for concentration or attention, they may see the psychologist as a strange adult and, added to the fact that they do not come voluntarily, the consultation may seem like a place similar to school, where they are deprived of leisure .
Given that in order to establish a good therapeutic alliance with the patient it is required that they pay attention and do their part, working with children requires applying tools that help the child pay attention and not be afraid to express themselves or relate to the psychologist.
Psychological games for children They are all those strategies and dynamics that allow psychologists to interact with children, contributing to their development and offering them help to manage their emotions. Below we will talk more about these techniques.
Child and educational psychologists use many methods and techniques to help them get closer to the little ones, and to contribute to their development Among these techniques, games cannot be missing since the playful element is a fundamental aspect to make the therapy attractive, in addition to helping to liven it up and preventing the child from thinking that the therapist’s office is nothing more than another environment such as school or extracurricular activities where they are deprived of their free time.
Within play therapy, psychological games for children are any recreational activity carried out in the context of therapy that allows unblocking emotions, generating trust with the therapist, establishing a safe space in the consultation in addition to learning values and strategies to face the day. a day. These activities are especially useful for the little ones, not only because they are attractive to them but also because they allow them to break down certain communication barriers, since many boys and girls barely know how to express what they feel and how they experience it.
This type of recreational activities They can be used on boys and girls between the ages of 4 and 11, allowing you to detect and analyze your defenses, level of frustration tolerance, strengths and difficulties, emotions, aggressive behaviors, fears, dependency and social skills. All of them aim to help the child express themselves, develop and resolve their emotional conflicts in efficient ways, in addition to channeling their energies and releasing them in a constructive way.
Main benefits
Among the main benefits of psychological games for children we have:
1. Conflict resolution
Many children bring to consultation specific problems that they repeat and do not know how to solve. These games can teach conflict resolution skills through play, role-playing, and symbolism
2. Emotional management
Emotions are states that manifest themselves in people of all ages, but in childhood they are experienced in an especially overwhelming way as their name, function or how to regulate them is not known. Through psychological games we can give labels to these emotions and teach them a self-regulation mechanism.
3. Social skills
Children do not come into the world knowing what to do in order to relate appropriately to others It is through the acquisition of norms and values that they learn the most appropriate way to interact with other people, something that is not always learned at school or in the family. Psychological games for children help them acquire social skills in a controlled environment and then apply them in real life.
4. Relaxation and release of tension
Many boys and girls have problems manage your anxiety, aggression or various tensions Fortunately for them, in the consultation, psychological games can be used to learn relaxation techniques and release of tension, either by spending energy on something constructive or learning to channel and express those tensions artistically.
No matter how small they are, Boys and girls can suffer self-esteem problems, especially if they do not feel understood or valued The professional can apply games in therapy that help the child see her abilities, identify her strengths and learn the positive points that define her.
6. Therapeutic alliance
For a treatment to be effective, it is necessary for the patient and professional to establish a therapeutic alliance.
This alliance is somewhat difficult to establish in the little ones since they do not come of their own volition Through psychological games, psychological therapy is “camouflaged” with recreational activities, making the child see the psychologist as someone with whom they have a good time, wants to understand them, and helps them feel better. In short, psychological games help build trust between the therapist and the child.
Examples of psychological games for children
There are many psychological games for children. We could make a very extensive list of all of them and, also, the versions and varieties of oneself that psychologists have been applying since the moment they were conceptualized. Next We will see a few of them, included in different typologies and mentioning the main characteristics of each one
1. Games of symbolic expression
With symbolic expression games we refer to those in which the ability to project symbols and metaphors of both the patient’s feelings and deep experiences is put into practice. The boy can represent what he sees and feels in his closest environment through recreational activities for him and very revealing for the psychologist.
1.1. The home corner
In “the home corner” You can use a toy house or the corner of a room that will represent the child’s own home With the elements given to you, you will be asked to represent the roles and relationships that occur in your home, actions that allow us to learn about the problems related to your most important attachment figures, in addition to possible problematic interactions at home.
1.2. Dramatic role-play
Dramatic role-play is a psychological game, also used in adults, in which the patient represents himself how someone in his immediate environment behaves or the person who is causing him the most discomfort.
It is by imitating different characters from their daily lives that children communicate to us how they perceive those people what they think they think of them and what behaviors stand out the most.
2. Body expression games
Children learn about their world through motor exploration, that is, moving and physically interacting with their environment. Body experience is essential for development since, before reflecting or learning through books or data seen in class, they do so using their own body as a tool for acquiring knowledge. The problem is that this tool can be damaged through mistreatment, abuse or inappropriate contact.
Given that the body is the main means of learning and expression in childhood, any attack on it that causes the child to stop using it to understand their world is a serious danger for both the acquisition of new learning and for expressing themselves. It is for this reason that it is necessary to identify any type of body rigidity, whether caused by a traumatic event or simply due to personality characteristics of the patient. Through psychomotor games we can improve the child in this area.
2.1. Controlled aggression
Aggression is not synonymous with evil, but with the desire to release tension, shyness and insecurity Many children who do not want to do any harm engage in aggressive behavior because they do not know how to manage this discomfort since they are very young.
Fortunately for them, there are several games within the consultation that allow them to release that energy in a controlled place. Whether through controlled fighting or simply physically venting against an object, children can release their desire to attack.
“Safe” weapons can be used, such as foam swords with which to hit a brother or person with whom you have had an argument, always with proper protection and in the consultation. The intention is not to do harm, but to discharge energy, have fun and relax.
2.2. story theater
Stories are not comics without morals. All of them share values that are useful both in childhood and in adulthood. In addition to the classic stories, Many psychologists have created open-ended stories that help children reflect about what is the best ending that can be given to them.
Among the most basic values that can be taught through stories are the difference between good and evil, being generous, not trusting strangers or preventing an adult they do not know from touching them in inappropriate places.
In story theater the idea is to find stories that are meaningful and moralizing for children. The psychologist reads a story without reading the ending. Afterwards, we try to make the child internalize how far he or she has come in the story and proceed to represent the story, leaving the child to develop the ending freely.
All this It not only serves to transmit desired values, but also serves to detect any problem related to the way you see things For example, we can intuit that if a child prefers to make the story end badly, it means that there is some type of problem such as depression, low self-esteem or negativity.
3. Emotional expression games
You cannot talk about children’s therapy without mentioning games in which the little ones are helped to express their emotions.
3.1. Face table
This game simply consists of show a table with faces showing different emotional expressions, such as being sad, angry, happy. The little one’s task is to point to the face that corresponds to how he or she feels now.
This technique is especially useful for all children, especially because their emotional spectrum is very broad, but their way of expressing it is not so broad, that is, it is difficult for them to explicitly say how they feel, but there is no doubt that they feel it. Discovering a clear way to express their emotions can be a real relief for little ones.
You can also be asked to try to imitate the expression of each face, using a mirror to see yourself and learn what the name of each emotion is and what feelings it carries behind it.
This activity is quite recurrent in cases of children with some type of Autism Spectrum Disorders for whom it is very difficult to identify emotions in others, although it is a skill that, not without limitations for this type of psychopathology, can be improved.
4. Games of artistic and intellectual expression
Not only is emotional expression and management intended with this type of game, although in essence most of them contribute to this. In addition to regulating emotions, the development of artistic and intellectual skills can be encouraged with games that, if applied, also They help us detect possible developmental problems or inability to imagine and be creative
4.1. plastic arts
Among the favorite recreational elements of the little ones are plastic arts items, which are very useful in psychological therapy since many children communicate better through colors, shapes and drawings that plastically represent how they feel.
Through art the patient is given the option to express what you otherwise do not know how to express You can use paint, drawings, plasticine, clay, colored sand… All of these elements can help the boy or girl express how he or she feels.
The creations you make in the consultation must be preserved by the psychologist who will present them in each session The objective of this is to comment on them, to see to what extent they have changed from session to session since they reflect how the boy or girl feels, what degree of control they feel they have over their life and how improvement may be occurring in therapy.
Tangram and other puzzle games can be perfect for stimulating different fundamental learning skills such as spatial orientation, spatial structuring, visual-motor coordination, attention, visual perception, spatial logical reasoning, visual memory, figure perception. and background…
Tangram is a very old and easy-to-acquire game of Chinese origin that, in its traditional version, consists of 7 pieces: a square, two large triangles, a medium triangle, two small triangles and a trapezoid. These pieces can be combined in a multitude of ways and for this reason it is said to promote the skills we have mentioned.
Likewise, you can also use puzzles, puzzles, Lego-style piece games… all of which promote the child’s creativity and ingenuity which, in turn, can serve as a tool to facilitate the diagnosis of an intellectual or sensory problem. They are not diagnostic tools in themselves, but they help detect if there is a problem and carry out a deeper observation.
5. Games to improve self-esteem and social skills
Below we will see a few games that help the boy or girl know how to value the best characteristics that define him or her, in addition to learning who values him or her and acquiring new social skills.
5.1. I am…
The “I am…” game is one of the best to increase the patient’s self-esteem, since it helps them to be aware of the qualities they possess. The game consists of the child bringing a photo of themselves that will be the center of attention during the session The photo is put on a piece of cardboard and around it we put different positive characteristics and strengths of it.
We will start with the most basic and neutral, such as hair color, eyes, skin tone… but progressively we will move on to qualities that do have an emotional value and that are valued as socially valued traits, such as being kind, sharing. toys with his brothers, being good at studies…
5.2. Mirror
Very similar to the previous activity, only This time, take a full-length mirror and ask the child to stand in front of it His task is to say what he likes most about himself, both physically and psychologically.
The psychologist will help the child to notice his different body parts and also actions that are related to them, such as writing with his hands, playing soccer with his legs, singing with his neck…
It will also be the psychologist’s task to note down possible physical or psychological complexes that the child may have expressed having, in addition to detecting associated emotional problems.
5.3. who value me
Finally, the activity of “those who value me” It consists of the boy or girl bringing photos of their family, friends and important people in their social environment or, if this is not possible, drawing them
The photos or drawings of all those people will be pasted on a piece of cardboard and you will be asked to say what activities you do with them, why you have a great time, who values you, how you express it, what you would like to do with them or She, what is it that she doesn’t like so much…
This activity aims not only to detect how he believes his close environment values him, but also aims to detect problems in relationships with his attachment figures, the child’s lack of social skills with adults and other children, as well as other interrelational issues.
