Kathy Eugster, MA
January 30, 2026
In my book, Play Skills for Parents, I describe a range of playtime skills that parents and caregivers can use when engaging with their children. I have written previously in other blogs about these skills; however, because they are so important, I wanted to revisit them and offer a helpful refresher. The purpose of this blog is to review these skills and remind you just how simple and effective they can be to use in everyday play.
The playtime skills I outline are grounded in well-researched play therapy approaches. These approaches have been shown to be effective not only for families with children experiencing challenges, but also as educational and preventative tools that can benefit all families.
The goals of using these playtime skills are:
- To support healthy child development
- To strengthen the parent-child relationship
- To empower parents by teaching them a clear and practical set of skills to use with their children
Below are the basic instructions for each skill:
Empathic Skills
With these skills you will notice and objectively acknowledge your child’s actions, feelings, words, and strengths so your child feels understood and accepted.
- Describing Skill: Watch your child and describe your child’s actions and play activities out loud using neutral and objective Describing Statements (“You’re lining up all the cars.” “Now you’re putting a hat on the dolly.”).
- Feelings Identification Skill: Watch your child’s face and body language, and when you notice a feeling coming up in your child, or a feeling being expressed through the toys, without asking your child a question, make a Feelings Identification Statement that identifies that feeling (“Looks like you’re feeling confused.” “Those dinosaurs seem to be feeling angry with each other.”).
- Paraphrasing Skill: When your child tells you about something that is going on in the playtime or about something that has happened outside of the playtime, respond with neutral and reflective statements by paraphrasing, which is capturing the content and meaning of what your child said by rephrasing it using slightly different words.
- Encouragement Skill: When you notice your child is working or has worked hard on a task, instead of praising your child, encourage and empower your child by acknowledging your child’s feelings, strengths, or efforts in doing something (“You’re feeling happy with how that turned out.” “I can see you’re working really hard on that.” “Sounds like you know how to count.”)
Autonomy Skills
The objective of using the two Autonomy Skills is to allow your child to take control and to lead and direct the play activity. If unsafe or destructive behavior arises, you would not use these skills. Instead, you would use the Limit-Setting Skill to prevent or stop the inappropriate behavior.
- Independence Skill: During playtime, give your child opportunities to take responsibility for making their own choices and decisions without being directed by you. When using the Independence Skill, you will refrain from:
- Telling or suggesting to your child what to do or not do
- Advising, coaching, teaching, or correcting your child
- Asking questions to your child
- Making judgments or expressing approval or disapproval
- Directing your child in any manner
- Following Directions Skill: When your child asks you to join with them in play, for example, by asking you to do a task such as drawing a house, inviting you to engage in imaginary play together, or requesting to play a game together, you would respond by following your child’s directions and doing what you think your child would like you to do.
Play Structuring Skills
The objective of using the two Play Structuring Skills is to provide structure and direction to help your child develop and learn by challenging, guiding, and supporting them in the exploration and mastery of new skills through fun play activities.
- Engagement Skill: Stimulate your child’s interactive engagement with you in play by initiating and maintaining a connection with your child in a fun and playful manner. You may want to increase your emotional intensity.
- Regulating Skill: Encourage regulated play by directing your child to a calming, soothing, and nurturing activity in order to regulate your child’s emotional intensity and nervous system. Regulate your own actions and nervous system to “co-regulate” your child’s nervous system.
Limit-Setting Skill
If your child intends to do, or is actually doing, something unsafe or destructive, use the Limit-Setting Skill to prevent or stop the inappropriate behavior.
Step 1: Setting the Limit: Communicate the limit to your child, identifying inappropriate and/or appropriate behaviors (“No throwing hard toys!”). Step 1 can be repeated several times. Supplemental parts to Step 1 include:
- Acknowledging feelings (“You’re angry, but you’re not allowed to throw toys.”)
- Redirecting to a more appropriate behavior (“Throw this foam ball instead.”)
Step 2: Providing a Warning of a Consequence: If the inappropriate behavior continues, give your child a warning of a specific consequence (such as the removal of a toy, ending a specific activity, or ending playtime altogether) that will happen the next time the limit is broken. (“If you throw the toy again, I will take it away for today.”) Step 2 is not repeated.
Step 3: Enforcing the Consequence: If the inappropriate behavior happens again after the warning has been given in Step 2, you will enforce the consequence immediately. (“Since you chose to throw the toy again, I will put away the toy for today.”)
Putting it All Together
When you are familiar with the above skills, I like to introduce two different styles of parent-child play: Child-Directed Playtime and Parent-Directed Playtime. These two styles of play are based on two separate “roles” that you can take on in playtime: directive or nondirective.
Child-Directed Playtime
The overarching role that parents take on in Child-Directed Playtime is a nondirective role where you let your child direct the play activities and follow your child’s directions as long as the play remains safe and non-destructive. Use the following skills:
- Autonomy Skills (Independence and Following Directions Skills)
- Empathic Skills (Describing, Feelings Identification, Paraphrasing, and Encouragement Skills)
Switch temporarily to a directive role as necessary to use the Limit-Setting Skill, then return to a nondirective role using the Autonomy and Empathic Skills.
Parent-Directed Playtime
The overarching role that parents take on in Parent-Directed Playtime is a directive role where you will lead, structure, guide, and direct certain aspects of the playtime. Use the following skills:
- Play Structuring Skills (Engagement and Regulating Skills)
- Limit-Setting Skill when necessary
Switch briefly into a nondirective role at times by interspersing the Empathic Skills (Describing, Feelings Identification, Paraphrasing, Encouragement Skills) throughout the playtime in order to support a strong and connected relationship.
You may want to consider this:
If you are interested in learning more about parent-child playtime, please see my book, Play Skills for Parents: Connecting With Your Child Through Play.
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Copyright Kathy Eugster, MA, 2026.
Please feel free to pass on this article to anyone you think might find it useful.
Contact me at: keugster@telus.net