Child play therapy in Melbourne

What we mean by play therapy

"Play therapy" gets used for several different things in Australia, so let us be precise about ours. At Therapy & Play Co., play therapy meansplay-based occupational therapy: structured, goal-led therapy delivered by an AHPRA-registered occupational therapist, where play is the method rather than the reward at the end. Your child experiences an hour of climbing, building, pretending and games. Underneath every one of those games sits a clinical reason it was chosen.

That is different from counselling-style play therapy, where a child processes feelings and experiences through play with a therapist trained in that specific modality. If what your family needs is that kind of emotional or trauma-focused work, we will say so and help you find it — being upfront about fit is part of the job.

Why play, and not drills

Because play is how children actually learn. A four-year-old will not do ten minutes of finger-strengthening exercises — but they will happily squeeze, roll and pinch playdough for half an hour if there is a bakery game attached. A seven-year-old will not practise "frustration tolerance" from a worksheet — but they will meet frustration a dozen times in a board game, with a therapist beside them turning each one into a rep.

Play also solves the motivation problem that sinks so much therapy with children. A child who wants to be in the room tries harder, persists longer and comes back happily next week. Over a term of sessions, that difference compounds into the outcome.

What the research says

Play-based approaches to children's therapy carry decades of clinical research, including large reviews spanning hundreds of studies across ages, settings and goals. Rather than compress all of that into a paragraph, we wrote it up properly:our plain-English tour of the major reviews links every study it mentions, so you can check our reading rather than take our word for it.

The short version: the evidence consistently favours approaches where the child is an active, motivated participant and where parents are involved in the work — which is exactly how our sessions are built.

What a session looks like

From your child's side: toys, games, movement, mess, and an adult who plays properly. From yours: a goal you helped set, a therapist choosing each activity against that goal, and a debrief about what we saw and what to try at home. Theplay therapy service page walks through the practical details — ages, session length, where sessions happen and how funding works.

Sessions run in the clinic, at home, at kinder or school, and by telehealth acrossMelbourne's inner north west and inner west. For younger children especially, parents usually stay in the room — you are part of the therapy, because the skills have to live in your week, not in ours.

Who play-based therapy helps

• Toddlers and preschoolers building first skills — talking bodies into cooperating, managing separations, toileting, sleep and mealtimes
• Children starting school — sitting in a group, following instructions, managing a bag and a lunchbox, early pencil work
• Primary-schoolers — handwriting, friendships, big feelings, coordination, confidence in the playground
• Children with a diagnosis — autism, ADHD, developmental delay and more — where therapy follows the child's goals rather than the label
• Children with no diagnosis at all — a pattern that has been nagging for months is reason enough to ask

Unsure whether what you are seeing warrants therapy? Our guide tothe signs worth noticingis the honest place to start — including the signs that usually resolve on their own.

Getting started

No referral, no diagnosis, no waiting for paperwork —get in touch and tell us about your child. Fees are published on the fees and funding page, NDIS self-managed and plan-managed participants are welcome, and Medicare rebates are available with a GP plan. If you would rather read more about occupational therapy broadly first, ourguide to children's OT in Melbourne covers the whole territory.