Below are some examples of how the THERAtivity approach works to connect with children and teens through creativity.

Meet Josh a competitive hockey player who lost his motivation

Josh is 8 years old. His parents were concerned because he was having difficulty getting up for school in the morning. He had lost interest in his usual activities. Josh used to play rep hockey and no longer wanted to go to practices or games. Josh’s teachers expressed concern for Josh as well. During the assessment, Josh and his Mom and Dad identified that Josh liked to sit in his room alone and build intricate LEGO towers for hours. Josh’s parents were concerned about this as it was not a social activity, and he spent more time with LEGO than doing his homework.

When Josh attended sessions, he and Alyse worked on building a LEGO tower to represent Josh’s worries. Josh used different colours to represent each of his worries and although Josh was very proud of the tower that Alyse and Josh had built together he felt very powerful when he was able to knock down his tower of worry.

After four sessions Josh felt comfortable telling his Mom he was worried about disappointing his parents in hockey; he liked hockey but didn’t want to play as much as he had been. Josh’s parents connected with him and rather than pushing their will on him, they were able to problem solve together. Ultimately, Josh registered for a house league team where he excelled.

Three months later, Josh continued to excel at hockey and could not stop talking about how much fun he had when he was there. Josh decided to move all of his LEGO into the family room. Josh and his Dad liked building different structures together. Josh’s parents expressed they were happy “they had their old Joshy back”.

Meet Sarah: dealing with family conflict through music

Sarah, a 15 year old has been fighting with her parents, achieving poor grades at school, and she no longer wanted to spend time with her peers. As part of Alyse’s assessment, Sarah revealed that she spends a lot of time in her room listening to loud music, which causes conflict between Sarah and her parents. Her parents are unaware that while she is in her room she has been writing music lyrics. During the sessions, Alyse and Sarah worked together to determine how she could effectively use her song writing as an expression of her emotions.

Alyse worked with Sarah to help her become comfortable enough to share her lyrics with her parents. Sarah’s parents also benefited from THERAtivity by being able to see and appreciate more of Sarah’s unique strengths, improve their relationship, and find more effective ways of communicating with each other.

Three months later, Sarah explained that her and her Dad took weekly drives, they would listen to Sarah’s choice of music, and they would talk about the music. They didn’t have a schedule or any place to get to. Sarah reported she looked forward to this special time with her Dad. There is a consistent reduction in conflict at home. As well as a steady increase of positive interactions and Sarah’s grades are improving. Sarah still doesn’t want to spend a lot of time with peers but Sarah and her parents felt that, at this point, their family dynamics were a priority.

Meet Edwin: A master Lego builder, getting suspended for violence at school 

Edwin, 9 years old, had a younger sister, Lisa, 5 years old. Lisa was born prematurely and she was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease. The whole family spent a lot of time in and out of the hospital as Patricia was a single Mom and has a small support system. Patricia was a strong advocate for childhood polycystic kidney disease and spent a lot of her spare time fundraising and educating in the community. Edwin had recently started hitting and biting at school, he received 2 suspensions in one month.

Edwin loved video games, he played a lot at home. His favorite game was Call of Duty, a first person shooter game. During Edwin’s intial sessions with Alyse he described the video game in detail and articulated he liked the power he had when he played the game. Alyse and Edwin brainstormed what other things in his life were powerful. The first thing that Edwin thought of was Batman. Alyse and Edwin used figurines to act out different, socially acceptable ways to use power.

Patricia, recognized that she never gave Edwin any choices at home which caused a lot of conflict. Patricia and Alyse worked on how she could give Edwin developmentally appropriate decisions.

Three months later, Edwin had not been suspended. Patricia was happy because she recently had a report from Edwin’s teachers that he no longer was physical with his peers but instead had become more of a leader in the playground during recess.

Meet Trish: Creative story writing to deal with difficult emotions from her parent’s divorce.

Trish’s parents contacted THERAtivity because Trish, 9 years old, was being physically and verbally aggressive with her Mom. Trish’s parents, Chris and Lucy separated when Trish was 7 years old. Trish lived with her Mom and visited her Dad on weekends. Trish and her Mom explained that they really enjoyed reading stories together before bed or after a fight. Alyse worked with Trish and Lucy on creating their own storybook together. Alyse requested that “the anger” (what Lucy described the problem as) be a character in the story. Through writing this story with Alyse, both parties were able to identify what they did to make “the anger” grow. Lucy and Trish worked with Alyse and both developed alternative ways to interact with each other. Consequently, Trish didn’t need to use aggression with her Mom to get her attention and the number of incidents decreased.

After three months Trish and her Mom still had disagreements but they were able to communicate with each other. There were zero incidents reported of Trish being physically or verbally aggressive with her mother. Both Trish and Lucy reported separately that they enjoy spending time with each other now, and from time to time will bring out the story they wrote in therapy.