Connecting with Administrators and Families Around Trauma-Responsive Guided Play
helps reduce feelings of shame by encouraging children to express their hopes, fears, needs, and dreams in a safe space.
( For suggestions on ways to partner with families and administrators in the implementation of guided play strategies, see the box below.)
Reflections on Practice
As Ms. Lori settled beside Marco and followed his lead, she demonstrated the heart of traumaresponsive guided play: Meeting children where they are while gently and intentionally scaffolding their learning and growth. This approach requires educators to continuously reflect on their practice and to ask critical questions about how their guidance sustains all learners, such as
› Am I creating predictable structures that help children feel secure while still preserving the child agency that makes guided play effective?
› How do I recognize when a child’ s behavior during play signals a need for additional support rather than correction?
› Are my interventions building children’ s capacity for self-regulation, or am I inadvertently creating dependence on adult direction?
Educators can consider integrating guided play environments with predictable structures, multiple entry points, and responsive adult scaffolding, including for children who have been exposed
Connecting with Administrators and Families Around Trauma-Responsive Guided Play
To partner with administrators and families, educators who want to introduce guided play to help children process trauma can consider
› Creating play-based communities within their schools. These groups help undergird collaborative guided play planning and implementation( Nell et al. 2013). They also allow educators to share resources and traumaresponsive materials like stress balls, calm-down timers, and emotion cards( Fields & Davis 2025). As teachers look for books, webinars, and other professional development offerings to strengthen their practice and communities, they should know when a situation is beyond their scope of expertise and involve specialists.
› Documenting guided play outcomes to share with colleagues, administrators, and families. These data should show how guided play encourages problemsolving skills, collaboration, executive function, task switching, and critical thinking( Cavanaugh et al. 2017; Brown et al. 2020; Skene et al. 2022). These skills are particularly important for children who have experienced stressful or traumatic experiences.
› Organizing family workshops or informational sessions that draw connections between play and academic skills( Erdman & Colker, with Winter 2020) and that deepen families’ understanding of trauma-responsive practices. Families can share about their children’ s play at home and in their communities, and educators can highlight when and how they facilitate play to promote children’ s sense of security and overall growth. Educators can also connect about ways to foster self-care and what is feasible in each family’ s context( Keown et al. 2024).
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