The Role of Play in Building Resilience

Watch our VIDEO SHORT by Brittany Christiansen, LPC-S, RPT HERE

Resilience is often described as a child’s ability to “bounce back” from challenges—but for children, resilience isn’t taught through lectures or advice. It’s built through experience, relationships, and most importantly, play.

Play is how children make sense of the world, practice coping skills, and discover their own strengths. In play therapy, play becomes a powerful pathway for helping children develop the emotional flexibility they need to face life’s ups and downs.

What Is Resilience in Children?

Resilience is not the absence of struggle. It’s the ability to:

• Experience difficult emotions

• Adapt to change

• Recover from stress or adversity

• Maintain a sense of self-worth and hope

Children don’t develop resilience by being shielded from all hardship. They build it by having safe spaces where they can explore challenges, feel supported, and regain a sense of control—this is where play plays a vital role.

Why Play Is Essential to Building Resilience

Children often don’t have the language to explain fear, grief, anger, or confusion. Play gives them a developmentally appropriate way to express these experiences without needing words.

Through play, children can:

• Try out solutions to problems

• Rehearse difficult situations

• Release emotional tension

• Experience mastery and competence

• Regain a sense of control when life feels unpredictable

In this way, play is not just recreational—it’s regulatory and restorative.

How Play Therapy Builds Resilience

1. Play Creates Emotional Safety

In play therapy, the child leads. This sense of choice and autonomy helps children feel safe enough to explore vulnerable feelings. Emotional safety is the foundation of resilience—children can’t grow stronger if they’re constantly in survival mode.

When a child feels accepted and understood in the playroom, they learn:

“My feelings are manageable, and I am not alone with them.”

2. Play Helps Children Process Stress and Trauma

Children often replay stressful experiences through play—using toys, art, sand, or imagination. This repetition isn’t random; it’s how the brain works through unresolved experiences.

With a trained play therapist present, children can:

• Gradually make sense of what happened

• Regulate overwhelming emotions

• Move from helplessness to empowerment

Over time, this process strengthens a child’s ability to cope with future stressors.

3. Play Builds Problem-Solving Skills

Whether a child is building a tower, navigating a pretend conflict, or figuring out how to fix a “broken” toy, play naturally encourages flexibility and persistence.

These moments teach children:

• It’s okay to make mistakes

• Problems can have more than one solution

• Effort matters more than perfection

These are core resilience skills that transfer to real-life challenges.

4. Play Supports Emotional Regulation

Through play, children practice experiencing big emotions in manageable doses. They learn how excitement, frustration, fear, and relief feel in their bodies—and that these emotions can rise and fall safely.

Play therapy helps children:

• Identify emotional cues

• Tolerate distress

• Return to a calmer state

This ability to self-regulate is one of the strongest predictors of long-term resilience.

5. Play Strengthens the Child’s Sense of Self

In play, children discover what they’re capable of. They get to be strong, creative, brave, silly, or nurturing—sometimes all in the same session.

This builds:

• Confidence

• Self-trust

• A belief in their own abilities

Resilient children aren’t those who never struggle—they’re the ones who believe they can handle struggle when it arises.

I use play therapy because...

The Role of the Therapeutic Relationship

Resilience doesn’t grow in isolation. In play therapy, the relationship with the therapist models consistency, empathy, and trust.

Through this relationship, children internalize:

• “I matter.”

• “I can rely on others.”

• “I am worthy of care and understanding.”

These internal beliefs become emotional anchors children carry into the world.

Why Play Matters Beyond the Playroom

The skills children develop through play therapy—emotional awareness, flexibility, self-regulation, and confidence—extend into home, school, and peer relationships.

When children are given permission to play, explore, and be understood, they are better equipped to:

• Face challenges

• Navigate change

• Recover from setbacks

• Grow into emotionally healthy adults

  
  

Final Thoughts

Play is not a break from learning—it is how children learn to cope, adapt, and grow. By honoring play as a central part of emotional development, we support children in building resilience that lasts far beyond childhood.

During Play Therapy Week, we celebrate play not just for the joy it brings—but for the strength it helps children discover within themselves.