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You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.

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Your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.

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Hi, I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks, The Kid Counselor.

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This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get

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a master class in child-centered play therapy

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and practical support and application for your

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work with children and their families.

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In today's episode. I know I promised last time that I was moving on to filial,

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but I'm actually going to do one more parenting podcast.

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Sorry for not telling the truth, but I have a reason.

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So I've been doing a lot of discovery calls for

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people interested in the Play Therapy Professional™ Certification program.

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And I'm hearing the same thing over and over and over again when I'm asking

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about what they feel

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they would like the most training in the most help with

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where they feel their skills are lacking. What I'm consistently hearing

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across the board is being able to communicate with parents

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and what the

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system looks like to do. So,

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and I know that we've spent a month and a half or so on talking with parents.

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So I'm hopeful that that has given you all

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some indication of what that looks like. But

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I want to hit home another point that I don't think,

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I think I might have mentioned it a few times, but

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I'd like to dive in a little bit deeper

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because I think when we talk about parents and

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making sure that they are engaged

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that they have buy in

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that they truly understand the process.

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They are willing to be patient with the process.

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They can handle an uptick in behaviors or regression

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or things getting worse before they get better.

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There's all of these considerations for the why behind

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sharing with parents.

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But I think we have to have the right mindset and this is where I think I've

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missed the opportunity to really drive this point home. So

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one more bear with me. I promise we're moving on to filial next. But I want to

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make sense of this a little bit. I think this will be really helpful.

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And my disclaimer is that

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I run a private pay, private practice

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and I know that a lot of the people in my six figure play therapy coaching program,

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a lot of people that I'm speaking with about the Play Therapy Professional™

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certification,

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many of those individuals and probably many of you as listeners

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are not necessarily

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private pay and you're not necessarily private practice.

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So there are lots of you working in schools,

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there are lots of you working in agencies and organizations,

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there are lots of you working in private practice that accepts insurance.

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So I do want to make it clear,

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my entire system is based on a private pay, private practice model

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and with

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the involvement of insurance and with working in a school,

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the dynamic is inevitably different.

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So I do want to acknowledge that and it's not to say that

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the process of scheduling consultations and communicating

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and the value of those things.

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It's not to say that changes

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when it's not private pay, private practice.

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But one of the things that we're able to do is offer it for free

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and that becomes part of the perceived value that they get.

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And in other environments, I know that that's not necessarily the case

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and or without them having monetary investment in the process,

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sometimes they're not emotionally and mentally involved in the process.

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Either so often school counselors complain that they can't get

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parents to meet with them no matter what they do

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because their child is seen for free and it's when they're at

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school and they really don't care to know what's going on.

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They just are happy to let the child receive play therapy.

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So those are some of just things I wanted to throw out.

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I do realize that the environment and the pay structure

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influences having those parent consultations, et cetera.

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But

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moving forward with the idea that best practice

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is having an initial parent consultation

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to

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start the process before you even meet with the child for the first time.

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And then every five sessions with the child scheduling a parent meeting,

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knowing that those are best practice standards in the child-centered

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model.

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I want to share a mindset thought with you.

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This is something that I find actually very interesting,

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Eric and I kind of had a little revelation a while back about this

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and it has transformed the way we talk

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about this and communicate with clinicians about this.

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Here's the idea

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we work with kids

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who are our clients

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and I know that I've mentioned this before.

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We're in a very unique situation where we're not working

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with the person who pays us as a client.

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So that creates a very unique dynamic,

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little bit of a barrier and obstacle to overcome

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because we pour all of our time and energy into our relationship with the child,

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but that's not the customer. So here's where this unfolds

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our client is the child, but our customer is the child's parent.

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So when we talk about customer service,

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when we talk about an excellent customer service experience,

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when we talk about having a customer service mindset,

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we talk about pleasing our customers

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over delivering to our customers. Exceeding expectation, ex

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my gosh, exceeding expectations of our customers.

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What does that mean?

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That's all geared to the parent?

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So when we understand

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that

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the client

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and the relationship we have with the

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client is paramount and it's hugely important,

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but it is equally important to have a relationship with our customer,

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which is the child's parent.

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So if you are having issues with getting, buy in, getting patience,

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getting understanding,

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if your parents are pulling the child before

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their natural termination.

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So they're only 12 weeks in and the parent

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decides they're not going to bring the child anymore

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if they continue to complain about all of the problems and the

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issues and the behaviors and they don't think play therapy is working

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there

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presenting to you

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their pain points

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and part of customer service, whether your insurance, whether you're school,

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whether you're private practice, this, this is universal

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customer service

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is doing everything you can

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to prevent pain

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to the customer or to fix pain for the customer.

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So

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maybe one of the reasons

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that

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you are struggling in your communication with parents

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is your mindset needs to shift

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to delivering value

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to your customer, which is the parent.

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If you don't sit down in that parent consultation

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and provide them with value

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if they don't walk out of there and they don't

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feel that they've gained something from that meeting with you,

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that was a missed opportunity.

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You don't just sit down with a parent in a parent consultation

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and say, ok, well, let me tell you what we've been doing together in play therapy.

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That's not value for the parent.

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That's just trading of information.

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You want the parent to walk away

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with new tools,

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new skills,

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new ways of thinking,

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a new perspective,

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a new approach,

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a new level of understanding

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you have to give them value.

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So part of the parent consultation process

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is 100% value driven.

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And when a parent feels the value of meeting with you,

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they will also feel the value of you working with their child.

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It can't be flippant, it can't be haphazard, it can't be

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lackadaisical and you're not really that concerned.

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It's just I have to check a box that I have to

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meet with you so that I can tell you what's happening.

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You need to help them feel that as they walk out the door,

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they feel better than they did before they came in.

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So they have a new outlook, they have a new

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impression of what's happening.

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And really let's let's get down to the heart of what we're doing here.

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We

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are always trying to communicate

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hope and transformation.

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To families

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that is the most important thing

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that we can do

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is help them feel that they can have hope.

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And that transformation is the outcome that

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we will arrive at in the near future

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when we can change our mindset.

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And when we can approach everything from a value

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laden perspective

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and that we instill hope and transformation

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in our parents when we have meetings with them,

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then all of a sudden

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they

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start changing their behaviors and attitudes and investment.

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If you can clearly communicate

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the importance

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of what is taking place

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as well as

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what they can cling to

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in the meantime, while we're not quite there yet.

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Now, all of a sudden

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they are going to be more patient, they will have more understanding,

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they will be more bought in and invested.

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They won't pull their child early.

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They will be understanding of behaviors when they come up. Why?

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Because you've taken the time

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to not only communicate those things to them,

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but you've also given them value along the way

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because it's all about the customer service experience

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and our parents are our customers.

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So if you have been historically treating parents as

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means to an end, possibly or an afterthought

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or,

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a

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necessary evil, I say that kind of tongue in cheek. But

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I know a lot of therapists that are like, oh my gosh,

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if I could just only work with kids and never deal with their parents,

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my job would be so much better.

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I've heard that a lot actually.

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And look, parents aren't always easy to deal with. I get it.

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We have some doozies right now. Oh my word, I could tell you stories,

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but

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I know that dealing with parents, it's not always easy.

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But if we don't understand

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that they are our customer,

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then we've missed the opportunity to deliver

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the value, the worth, the hope, the transformation,

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all of those things. And I assure you

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parents feel the difference

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when you approach every interaction, every meeting, every text, every email,

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every lobby exchange

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with

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I'm delivering you value

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and I'm clearly communicating to you what's happening

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and I'm making sure that you are the most prepared you can be

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to take us on this therapeutic journey. When you bring your child to me every week,

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it's a totally different engagement.

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Then if you're really only focused on your work with the child in the playroom

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and they're your client, I get it.

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We are client

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centered, right? Child-centered, client

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centered,

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we have to be focused on the child,

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but we can't miss the opportunity and the necessity

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to focus on the parent as well.

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So client is the child, customer is the parent. You have to have that mindset.

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That has to be a huge shift

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in the way that you think about your work as a child-centered play therapist.

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So I hope that that is helpful to you.

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And I know I deviated from my, we're moving on to filial plan, but

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I had way too many conversations in the last week about this very topic

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that I really felt compelled to make sure that that

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was clearly communicated as we wrap up the parenting section.

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So

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please keep that in mind. Your customer experience

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is really, really that important and that is all geared toward the parent.

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All right, so

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please visit playtherapynow.com

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if you would like information about everything that we're doing,

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you can get on the newsletter, you can sign up for the CCPT Collective,

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you can sign up for the filial training that is coming up at the end of March.

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If you need CEUs and you need APT credit and you need

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knowledge about how to conduct filial therapy specifically with

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Landreth and Bratton's child parent relationship training manual.

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Then this is going to be an awesome opportunity for you.

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So make sure that you sign up seats are limited.

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APT restricts how many live attendees can be on any training at any given time. So

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make sure you go to playtherapynow.com, you can get caught up on all of that stuff.

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You know, how much I love y'all. Thanks for spending time with me each week.

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We'll talk again soon. Bye.

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Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.

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For more episodes and resources.

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Please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com