WORKSHOP 1 · UNDERSTAND THE CYCLE

Breaking the "Naughty Kid" Cycle Using Play Therapy Principles

3.5 hours · Live · Dates announced soon

Why does behaviour persist — or even escalate — despite well-intentioned behaviour management plans? Because we focus on the behaviour instead of what's driving it: the child's internal self-talk. When a child's story becomes "I'm bad", "I mess up", "nobody wants me around", behaviour organises around identity rather than choice.

This workshop gives you a clear framework for understanding how shame-based behaviour cycles form, and how repeated adult responses unintentionally feed them. Drawing on ACT-informed thinking, strengths-based practice and play therapy principles, you'll develop explanations of behaviour that go deeper than "naughty" and that strengthen your assessments, formulations and case discussions.

💡 You'll learn to:

✓ Identify the adult response patterns that contribute to shame-based self-talk
✓ Explain how a child's self-concept drives ongoing behaviour patterns
✓ Reframe behaviour using ACT-informed thinking — beyond compliance and defiance
✓ Use play therapy principles to inform assessment, formulation and decision-making

👤 Best suited for: Social workers and professionals involved in assessment, formulation and decision-making — and anyone who keeps hearing a child described as "naughty".

WORKSHOP 2 · RESPOND AFTER BEHAVIOUR

After Behaviour: The Path to Shame or Growth Through a Play Therapy Lens

3.5 hours · Live · Dates announced soon

Behaviour management tells us what to do in the moment. But what happens after the behaviour? Accountability is often misunderstood as consequences or emotional distance — and for children already vulnerable to shame, those responses can communicate judgement about who they are, rather than guidance about what happened.

This workshop creates space to examine how accountability is commonly understood, how shame quietly enters adult responses, and how accountability can be upheld in ways that support growth. Using ACT-informed values-based decision-making and play therapy limit-setting principles, you'll learn to hold firm boundaries without blame, humiliation or withdrawal — keeping the behaviour separate from the child's identity.

💡 You'll learn to:

✓ Tell the difference between accountability-based and shame-based responses
✓ Recognise how shame is unintentionally introduced through consequences and punishment
✓ Apply values-based, ACT-informed reasoning to post-incident decisions
✓ Set therapeutic limits: acknowledge the behaviour, state the limit, offer an alternative
✓ Explain accountability in ways that build responsibility rather than escalation

👤 Best suited for: Professionals responding to behavioural incidents in statutory, school and community settings — anyone whose role involves deciding what happens next.

WORKSHOP 3 · REPAIR THE RELATIONSHIP

Rebuilding Connection With "Naughty" Kids Using Play Therapy Principles

3.5 hours · Live · Dates announced soon

When you're continuously managing challenging behaviour, connection is usually the first casualty. Interactions become corrections. Warmth becomes transactional. The child feels rejected, behaviour escalates, and everyone ends up more disconnected — including you.

This workshop focuses on relational breakdown over time, not individual incidents. Using an attachment lens, ACT concepts of avoidance and burnout, and child-led play therapy principles, you'll examine how connection erodes, why reconnection is a professional practice rather than an emotional accident, and how play — the child's natural language — rebuilds trust and safety.

💡 You'll learn to:

✓ Recognise the signs of relational erosion with the children you find hardest to reach
✓ Notice your own patterns of avoidance, fatigue and emotional withdrawal
✓ Use child-led, play-informed engagement to rebuild relational safety
✓ Sustain connection without over-functioning, rescuing or abandoning boundaries

👤 Best suited for: Professionals working with kids and parents over the long term — and it holds real value for parents navigating the same dynamic at home.