Art Therapy

AJ had her last session at the play therapist's today. The therapist has been teaching me how to do the play therapy with AJ. The last couple of sessions have been me doing it with AJ at the therapist's office with the T observing and giving feedback. She feels I'm ready to do it on my own, so from now on we'll just do it at home.

It's been really interesting watching how AJ uses the various toys and activities to process her feelings. Here's a picture she drew today.



She said, "It's a giraffe that's unhappy because he doesn't like having colorful spots. He wants to have plain spots like everybody else, so he's very sad. He doesn't like being different. He doesn't know yet that he's special."

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We had a good little conversation about it, and how people feel like that sometimes too, yet it's often their differences that make them special.

When we got home, we had to rush to secretly wrap up the picture, because AJ decided it would be a gift for M&M. She's quite proud of it.

I'm proud of her--not just her creativity and expression, but also the way she's learning to process through the things that bother her, and the wisdom with which she so often resolves things.