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Dr. Kim Van Dusen | Parenting Through Play: Building Better Behavior and Deeper Connection with Your Kids




You Don't Have to Be a Play Mom — But Here's Why Play Might Change Everything


I'll be honest with you. I am not what you'd call a play mom.

I don't love sitting on the floor doing voices for toy figures or building elaborate pretend scenarios that go on for forty-five minutes. I connect with my son in other ways — silliness, conversations, movement, our own little rituals. But sitting down to "play" in the traditional sense? Not really my thing.


So when Dr. Kim Van Dusen started talking about play therapy and how it can transform the way you parent, I was curious — and a little skeptical. And then she said something that changed the whole frame for me.


You don't have to sit on the floor. You don't have to be that kind of parent. Play isn't a specific activity. It's a language. And once you understand that, everything shifts.


Who Is Dr. Kim Van Dusen?

Dr. Kim is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a registered play therapist, and the founder of The Parentologist — a family and lifestyle brand that brings a therapeutic lens to everything parenting. She has a private practice specializing in children from toddlerhood through elementary school, a podcast, and now a book: Parenting Through Play: Creative Strategies for Building Better Behavior, Deeper Connection, and Positive Communication, hitting shelves May 5th, 2026.

She didn't set out to work with children. She was pursuing couples therapy when a colleague mentioned play therapy and something clicked. After two years of additional coursework on top of her doctoral program, she found the thing she was meant to do. And everything since — her practice, her platform, her book — has been about getting these tools into the hands of parents who need them.


What Play Therapy Actually Is

Play therapy is an evidence-based therapeutic modality that meets children where they are — which, developmentally, is not in a chair making eye contact with an adult and talking through their feelings.


Children's brains are still forming. Their prefrontal cortex won't be fully developed until around age 25. Talk therapy assumes a level of verbal processing that many kids simply don't have yet — and for some children, especially those with anxiety, ADHD, autism, or selective mutism, talking is genuinely inaccessible. So instead of forcing them into an adult modality, play therapy meets them in theirs.


Through sand trays and miniatures, through puppets and games, through storytelling and creative expression, children process, heal, regulate, and connect. Dr. Kim has used these tools with children who are nonverbal, children going through divorce, children navigating trauma, children with big behaviors and even bigger feelings. And the evidence behind it is solid.


The Myth That Play Has to Look a Certain Way

Here's the part that resonated most with me — and probably will with a lot of moms.

We have this image in our heads of what playing with our kids looks like. It's sitting cross-legged on the floor, fully engaged, present and energetic, for a long stretch of time. And if we can't show up that way — if we're too tired, too overstimulated, too running-on-empty — we feel like we're failing at connection.


Dr. Kim wants to dismantle that entirely.


Play, in the context of what she teaches, is about playful moments woven into the ordinary texture of your day. It's the silly voice you use to get them to put their shoes on. It's the game you make out of cleaning up their toys. It's the way you respond when they're escalating — with curiosity instead of a consequence. You're not performing play. You're speaking their language.


And here's what makes this more than a feel-good idea: the connection you build through those small playful moments is the foundation that makes everything else work better. When a child trusts you, when they feel safe with you, when they know you're on their side — they respond more to redirection. They're more open to consequences. They're more willing to listen. The play isn't a reward for good behavior. It's the infrastructure that makes good behavior possible.


The Sand Timer Meltdown Strategy

This is the part of the conversation I know every parent of a toddler needed to hear.

Dr. Kim's tried-and-true meltdown intervention involves one simple tool: a sand timer. You can get a set on Amazon for under $10 — one minute, five minutes, ten minutes, all color-coded and visually satisfying for kids.


When a child is in the middle of a meltdown, trying to talk them through it doesn't work. They're flooded. The window is closed. So instead of fighting it, you give it a container.

Set the timer. Tell them they have five minutes — or ten, whatever they seem to need — to feel everything. They can cry, stomp, punch a pillow, yell. Name what they're allowed to do. Then set the timer and let them go.


Here's what Dr. Kim has noticed: they watch the timer. And usually, within a minute or two, they're done. They've discharged what needed to come out, and now they're ready to come back. Meanwhile — and this is the key part — you haven't abandoned them. You've stayed close. Maybe you've started setting up a game or making a snack nearby, so they know that when they're ready, something good is waiting.


Once they're regulated, you can talk. You ask what they were feeling. You name it with them. You ask what they might do differently next time. You build the emotional vocabulary and the self-awareness while they can actually absorb it — not while they're in the middle of a flood.


For the Overtired, Overworked Parent

Dr. Kim has a whole chapter for the exhausted parent who genuinely cannot get on the floor and play right now. And it's full of ideas that are beautifully low-effort.


Let them put on a fashion show for you. Let them give you a spa treatment. Have them perform a dance recital while you sit on the couch. You're connecting through play — they're in the lead, you're the audience, and you might even get a shoulder rub out of it.


The point isn't to perform enthusiasm you don't have. It's to stay in relationship, even when your tank is low. And that matters more than most of us give ourselves credit for.


What's in the Book

Parenting Through Play draws on three evidence-based frameworks: play therapy, solution-focused therapy, and positive behavior interventions and supports. Dr. Kim weaves them into practical, chapter-by-chapter guidance on the things parents actually struggle with — anger and defiance, tantrums and meltdowns, getting kids to listen, setting limits and consequences, navigating picky eating, making homework and chores less of a battle.


It's not theoretical. It's not complicated. It's written for the modern, everyday parent — including the ones who don't consider themselves play people — with the goal of making these tools feel accessible and immediately usable.


If you're reading this before May 5th, 2026, the book is available for pre-order right now. Pre-orders genuinely matter — they signal to Amazon and bookstores that demand is real and copies need to be stocked. You can order at theparentologist.com or wherever you buy books.


The Takeaway

You don't have to overhaul your parenting. You don't have to become someone you're not. You just have to be open to a small shift — one that says play is a language, and learning a little of it can change the entire dynamic between you and your child.


Less defiance. Fewer tantrums. More connection. It sounds almost too simple. But the evidence is there. And so is the book.


How to Connect with Dr. Kim Van Dusen







 
 
 

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