Sand play is part of play therapy that was first introduced in the 1920s and revived at the end of this decade. This method is a kind of indirect therapy game in which the therapist plays a facilitating role and clients can freely create their emotions and mental images using sandboxes and various miniature objects inside the sandbox.
History of sand play therapy
The history of sand therapy goes back to Margaret Lonfeld, a pediatrician. Lonfeld used the world's technique, which included a box of sand and miniature objects, to treat his clients.
After several years of using the world's technique to treat clients, Calf, a student from Lonfeld, made other technical and analytical advances, such as using a variety of miniature objects, dry sand, delayed interpretation, and a new approach. Invented to work with children.
Calf play therapy sand is a non-verbal, symbolic method based on people's creative experiences in which the child expresses his conflicts, tendencies and emotions by building his world in a sandbox. During the creation of this scene by the child, the therapist plays the role of a silent observer. Interpretation does not take place until the child has made a box of sand for a certain period of time. In fact, the game's sand pays attention to the inner world and emotional needs, and allows the mind to recall the repressed memories of its past in the present. Therapeutic sand is effective in reducing cognitive, social, and emotional problems.
Stages of sand play therapy
Children organize the sandbox in different ways to show ideal or worrying situations and solve problems. This technique includes three stages of chaos, struggle, and settlement, which are revealed in sand play sessions.
• The chaos stage represents the emotional turmoil in the client's life that is characterized by placing objects in the box without constructing them. This stage may continue during the first session or the first few sessions due to uncomfortable feelings.
• In the fight stage, the battle takes place without a winner, but gradually with the emergence of the hero, organized and finally the domination of good over evil. Eventually, in the settlement phase, life returns to normal, which is demonstrated by balancing objects and placing them in the right place. It is at this point that the authorities merge their feelings full of the chaos of the past and come to generality and integrity.
The importance of sand play therapy
Today, play sand is so important that it is considered as one of the essential items in the playroom in all child counseling and psychotherapy clinics. Sand should be available in two types, dry and wet, so that the child can touch both types and understand their differences and similarities.
In the sand, the child digs and builds a corridor (tunnel). He builds towers, hills and houses and plays fantasy games. The child can be the architect of his own existence and create his own palace in the sands and fill his world with people and relatives who have made and paid for his mind. He can choose or give up something. It can also create or destroy.
He can also build a mountain with the power of his imagination and climb to its summit safely and from there tell the whole world: "I can build a mountain for myself or I can level it with soil, here I am growing up!"
The child can bury dolls that symbolize father, mother, sister, or brother, with which he or she feels hostility, hatred, or jealousy, and pass them through a dump truck full of sand, thereby his or her inner feelings. Show.
The child can build a trench with sand and show off his feelings through a toy gun, or build a road and use a bulldozer, grader and dump truck to build, or cultivate a farm. It will also build roads and bridges for cars to pass through, then destroy them or bomb them with planes. In a few minutes he can dig a ditch and steer a boat, in the next moment he may build a dam and soon destroy them and destroy the ditch and the castles. In the sand, the child is not only mentally drained. It gains and satisfies the inner self, it is also effective in cultivating his imagination, initiative, creativity and constructiveness.
Skills and concepts that children learn while playing sand
• Some sand creates good opportunities for children to achieve general harmony and flexibility through drilling, filling containers, pouring, lifting and carrying sand.
• Through sand play, they understand the concepts of weight and capacity.
• Identify sand particles and their adhesion properties.
• Making objects with sand and comparing wet and dry sand.
• Understand the wetness of wet sand, which, if slightly moistened with sand, will form a container.
Understand concepts such as whether sand dissolves in water like salt. Does it pass through the filter?
• Understand geometric and spatial concepts.
• Developing the child's imagination, initiative, creativity and constructiveness: Children can make a story about it while immersed in a sand castle and immerse themselves in their imagination. The creative process flourishes in children at such times.
• Through sand playing and experiencing sensory experiences, he learns many concepts such as digging, pressing, digging, tunneling, spreading, dividing, and reversing; It also understands the concepts of words such as deep, deeper, inner, outer, and inner, and becomes internal to it.
Children use and train their large muscles to build large sand dunes, ditches and sand dunes.
What parents need to know about their children's sensory problems
Adaptation of the environment for children with sensory sensitivity and sensory avoidance
1- For a child who has high hearing sensitivity, choose a place in the classroom that-Be quieter.
2- For a child who has tactile sensitivity, cut the internal brands of clothing to the skin do not stimulate his body.
3. Know the symptoms of sensory sensitivity well so that you can help the child in this situation to regain his composure.
4- Provide a separate play environment for him, away from other children's games. It's crowded reduces sensory stimuli.
5. For the baby, use soft sheets in the bathroom or let the baby own the sheets to select.
6- Keep the child's tools and clothes in one place so that the child does not have to removing them will have a lot of displacement.
7- It is better to have a specific place for the child to eat.
8- Use curtains or awnings or soften the light bulbs with bubbles.
9- It is better to use one food item in each meal. It does sensory stimulation reduces a lot (like taste, texture and color).
10- To wash the environment and baby clothes, in the bathroom and toilet from perfume products
And do not use fragrant. It can be annoying for the child.
11. You can use soothing music with a soft voice kurds.
12- Be careful if the child has underwear, strap, elastic or ... that puts pressure on his body, pick it up or fix it.
13- Set up a food program for the child that the child with the tastes, smells and textures of food do not be offended otherwise.
14- Make a regular plan for the child's daily activities and put it on the wall of his room stick to let the child know what else to expect after each task.
15. If there is going to be a change in the child's daily schedule, let the child know that with do not be surprised by new activities.
16- From chairs with appropriate size and fixed and inelastic seating (chairs that do not sink too much) use.
17- Babies with high sensory sensitivity do not want to be hugged, because in the arms of people they usually receive more tactile and motor stimulation. It is better to put these babies in be in their own place.
18- Note that the child should not be in the path of the fan or air conditioner.
19- Limit the time to attend family gatherings or friends or for one child provide a place away from the hustle and bustle of the crowd.
20. Limit the use of television, radio, and audio. Their voices can be heard by the child be unbearable. You can give the phone to any member of the family to use listen to your favorite program from it.
21- Reduce ambient noises by closing the door or window.
22. When the child is restless with excessive sensory stimulation, give him a calm environment and avoid dilution.
23. Put a simple curtain in front of the toy shelf to reduce visual stimulation.
24. Use soft phones for children when there is a lot of ambient noise kurds.
25- Pay attention to the temperature of the baby's food; The closer to ambient temperature, the better for him is.
26. Be careful what kind of lamp your child does not like (fluorescent lamp, or halogen). in this way, you can use lamps that the child can tolerate the light.
27. Pay attention to what gender or texture your child likes. By doing this you can avoid provocations avoid touch annoyance.
28. Make time for the child to be alone. This is a good condition for a child organize sensory information entered into the nervous system. This place is better it has fewer windows and is suitable for children to play and relax.
29. Pay attention to the taste, smell and texture that the child likes in food and include them in his diet use.
30- Provide a small and narrow space for children to play (such as a tent or castle). This stimulates reduces the environment and provides a safe environment for him to play.
