A play therapist reasoning aloud about raising children
Andrew Barnett, a play therapist in Asheville, North Carolina, takes on questions about children from a child-centered angle: screens, divorce and the anxious questions kids put to adults. He says openly that his views are still forming, so the show plays as a practitioner reasoning through a problem rather than lecturing on it.
PRESS PLAY
Playful Parenting Podcast is the work of Andrew Barnett, a play therapist who lives and works in Asheville, North Carolina. Everything goes through one lens. He approaches children, and play therapy, from a child-centered perspective, and he applies it to the ordinary pressures of family life. The show has run under two names. Play Time mixed parenting with Child-Centered Play Therapy and children's mental health, and Playful Parenting turns fully to parenting. Recent titles range widely, from 'S2E3: The Complicated Dynamic Around Children and Technology' to 'Ep75: Divorce and Family Separation' and 'Ep80: The Shadow Side of Empathy'. Technology is a subject he openly comes back to. He admits he covered it not long before and says he could record something on it every week, because the tools keep changing. Instead of issuing a ruling, he says he tries not to hold a finished view. He goes through what a phone now makes possible, from maps and shipping to every book and every recorded song, and concludes that children's fascination with it is no surprise. He also compares it with his own childhood, when he too wanted to watch TV much of the time. The divorce material is frank about why parents rarely separate casually. He names the social stigma, the guilt, and a mythology that treats the nuclear family as the best arrangement for children. In 'Ep80: The Shadow Side of Empathy', one passage turns clinical. There he tells a child's genuinely curious questions apart from anxious ones, and describes a felt difference he has had to learn to notice. As he puts it, the anxious child is locked onto the adults in the room and trying to build safety by asking, even when the space is safe. That practitioner's eye is what separates the show from general parenting talk. He is also candid about his own working life, including months of telehealth sessions that left him feeling less connected to the work. Home life breaks in as well; one sign-off is interrupted when his baby starts crying. His sign-offs point to a Patreon and to a child-centered children's book series that he lists among his work. A listener comes away less with a method than with a way of thinking about children openly rather than with certainty.
Made for: Suits a parent or caregiver who wants to understand children from a child-centered angle and would rather follow a play therapist's open-ended reasoning than be handed a set of rules. It also fits someone curious about play therapy and the emotional lives of children.
What sets it apart: Andrew Barnett brings a working play therapist's eye to everyday parenting questions and openly avoids settling into fixed positions on subjects like technology. His clinical observations, such as telling a child's anxious questions from curious ones, sit beside candid moments from his own family and working life.
Playful Parenting is the newest season of Play Time made for those who are looking to parent in a different way than they were parented and who could use some support in figuring out what that looks like. Season 1 of this podcast is called 'Play Time' and while it has parenting content, many of the episodes are also about Child-Centered Play Therapy and other topics related to the mental health of children. Season 2 of the podcast is dedicated exclusively to exploring parenting. Andrew is a father and play therapist who lives in Asheville, North Carolina who is likely currently stewing over how to create a more child respectful world. For more work by Andrew, check out barnettchildtherapy.co…
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A warm, funny reflection on children's pull toward technology and the old problem of what they are ready to know.
Technology lands here as a question about children, devices, and a species still catching up with its own inventions. Andrew makes his uncertainty part of the point, admitting that an older take on technology would probably leave him feeling ashamed, doubtful, and insecure.
Parenthood and bodies, told one honest story at a time.
A play therapist discusses the challenges of telling the truth to children about the world.
["Playful Parenting\u2019s Andrew compares children and technology to earlier panics over radio, comic books, and television.", "He says the core parenting problem is that screens give adults a break while also triggering guilt about screen time.", "Andrew argues that app makers and game designers build addictive loops, and real-time multiplayer games make interruptions feel socially costly to children.", "He closes with a Garden of Eden metaphor, casting the internet as a modern tree of knowledge and linking that to parental limits, search history, and monitoring apps."]
Andrew Barnett explains why a therapist's tears can crowd out a client's emotional experience.
Andrew Barnett discusses the debate about returning to school during the coronavirus pandemic from a child-centered perspective.
The host dedicates an episode to tears, reflecting on his mother's emotional vulnerability and introducing his child-centered play therapy perspective.
A child therapist discusses the potential therapeutic use of psychedelics for healing trauma in children.
A child therapist discusses child-centered play therapy and parenting, with this episode addressing children who see or hear things that aren't there.
A child therapist introduces a podcast about play therapy and child-centered parenting, emphasizing allyship with the Black community.
Andrew Barnett discusses emotional respiration and challenges the notion that the goal is to maintain positive affect, aiming for inner peace.