Child Psych Podcast Episode #109  

[Tania Johnson] Hello everyone and welcome to the Child Psychology Podcast. I’m Tanya Johnson, a  registered psychologist, registered play therapist, and co-founder of the Institute of Child  Psychology. Today, we are incredibly excited to have Paris Goodyear-Brown join us. Welcome,  Paris!  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Thanks for having me.  

Introduction:  Paris Goodyear-Brown, Author – “Parents as Partners in Child Therapy” 

[Tania Johnson] Oh, we’ve been so excited! As I mentioned, I’ve been devouring your book this past week.  But before we get into that, let me do a quick introduction. Paris is a licensed clinical social worker,  the creator of the TraumaPlay™ model, the founder and clinical director of Nurture House, and the  executive director of the TraumaPlay™ Institute. She is an internationally renowned speaker, a  prolific author, and a master clinician. Over the past 25 years, she has specialized in treating  trauma, attachment disturbances, and anxiety disorders, often helping angry, dysregulated, and  depressed children and teens. She is an academic instructor of psychiatric mental health at  Vanderbilt University, a guest lecturer for several universities in Middle Tennessee, and travels  worldwide to help clinicians, parents, and teachers better serve children from challenging  backgrounds. Paris has written several groundbreaking books, and as I mentioned, the one I have  been reading this past week is called Parents as Partners in Child Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide.  Paris, I feel like if we had all the time in a beautiful universe, we could probably do a podcast on  each and every chapter—it is so full!  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Well, thank you! I’m glad you think so.  

[Tania Johnson] I’m not sure that doing a podcast on each chapter would keep each of us in our, as you discuss in this book, optimal arousal zone.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Well, I find that working with the parents is really where it’s at. It’s also the most challenging part of our work because I didn’t realize before that you were a registered play therapist. I’m a registered play therapist supervisor.  

[Tania Johnson] Oh, incredible!  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] So, the shared belief in the power of play, in all of this, is key in our TraumaPlay™ Model. What we’ve found is that many clinicians know how to work individually with kids very well, but that’s already a lot—to manage both their autonomic nervous system and ours.  Then, to bring a parent into the mix and hold all three nervous systems is, you know, a lot. And parents themselves need so much support. It’s really important for our trauma work.  

Roles in TraumaPlay – Safe Boss, Nurture, and StoryKeeper 

[Tania Johnson] Paris, you have this beautiful visual in your book where you talk about the ‘cascade of  care.’ That concept resonated with me so deeply—when you invite parents into the play therapy room, the therapist draws this cascade of care into the parents, who then pass it along to the child.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Yeah, yeah. There are three roles in TraumaPlay that we, as therapists,  are always trying to embody first for the parents, so they can absorb these roles and then pass them on to their children. These roles are ‘Safe Boss,’ ‘Nurturer,’ and ‘StoryKeeper.’ What we’ve found  is that simply talking to parents isn’t enough; they need to feel liked, supported, and honored.  When we embody these roles for them, they can, in turn, become the Safe Boss, Nurturer, and StoryKeeper for the kids they care for.  

[Tania Johnson] Oh, that’s beautiful. I really want to talk about the storykeeper today, but before we go  there, could we briefly touch on what the roles of safe boss and nurturer incorporate for parents?  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] So, we’ve taken attachment literature from the last 70 years and distilled  it into what we believe are the three primary roles of parents. Throughout the day, parents move in  and out of each of these roles many times: Safe Boss, Nurturer, and Story Keeper. If you imagine these roles as a triad of therapist and parent functions, we place Safe Boss at the top. In terms of brain development, think about it from the bottom up. The reptilian brain stem is always asking,  ‘Am I safe?’ The limbic brain is asking, ‘Am I loved?’ And finally, the thinking brain is asking,  ‘What can I learn from this?’ The role of Safe Boss focuses on regulation first because co-regulation by a parent always precedes self-regulation in a child. I think it’s worth repeating: co-regulation always precedes self-regulation. This Safe Boss role is therefore foundational for  everything else. For example, have you ever tried a VR headset? My son has one, and he wanted  me to try it. When you put it on for the first time, the system says to set your boundary and confirm  your guardian. You then use the haptic sensors to draw a circle around yourself. Until those  boundaries are set, you’re not free to play, explore, grow, develop, or challenge yourself. That’s why the Safe Boss role is so critical—it provides the boundaries children need to feel safe and  begin exploring.  

Therapeutic Powers of Play and Storytelling  

[Tania Johnson] That’s a lovely analogy! So, we set boundaries so our kids can explore and play, which is  the important work of childhood.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Yeah, yeah. And what we find is that some parents are really good at that piece. When they come in, we do a lot of assessment—we call it dyadic assessment—observing  parent-child interactions through play. Some parents come in strong in the ‘safe boss’ role, able to  provide a lot of structure for their kids, but they might need a little more support in providing  nurture. Other parents, who are very strong in nurturing, might need a bit more support in being  the safe boss, in setting structure for their child. These times together help us understand how to  build out a parent’s toolkit a bit. The nurture dynamic, and really all of the cascade of care, is based  on the idea that you can only give what you’ve received. For instance, in my own childhood, I was  pretty ‘adultified,’ celebrated for my independence and exploration. So, as an adult, it was easy for  me to support my own kids in their independence and exploration, but I also had to learn to welcome their neediness and to delight in it as much as in their achievements. For parents who  may not have received that kind of nurturing themselves, offering support can make a big  difference; it’s those small moments—like appreciating a child’s beautiful brown eyes, sharing  snuggles and loves, and just being connected—that really foster a nurturing dynamic.  

[Tania Johnson] I love that word—delighting in it. It just lights me up. I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s so beautiful.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] I think that in the field of play therapy, there are about 20 core agents of  change, which we call the therapeutic powers of play. However, I believe all of these can be  encapsulated in delight. When families have been through hard things, there is often a stripping  away of delight, leaving behind a lot of distress. Parents are often exhausted, and I don’t think it’s  too strong a word to say they may even feel disgusted, either with the child’s big behaviors or with  their own feelings of helplessness in trying to impact or shift them. So, protecting space for delight  is crucial—it helps parents and children experience some of what they may have been robbed of.  It also helps foster and adoptive parents provide the attachment experiences that a child might not  have received if they had suffered abuse or neglect early on.  

[Tania Johnson] So, we start with “Safe Boss,” then “Nurture,” and finally, we move into “Story Keeping,”  which is more cognitive but involves all three levels.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Yes, right? In my mind, we can’t until we’ve answered those bottom-brain questions, those lower-brain region questions: Am I safe and am I loved? Once we answer with  ‘Yes,’ moving into safe Boss, and nurturer roles, we don’t really have the neocortex on board to  even ask the question, ‘What can I learn from this?’ Once we do, the biggest issue is making sure  that the stories we tell are developmentally appropriate to the needs of the child or the system. The next book I’m writing is Big Behaviors Too, but when I’m done with that, the next book I want to  write is called Tell the Truth to the Children, because I’m not sure we’re really good at it as a culture. Kids need to know, particularly about trauma. They need to know what has happened. They can already feel it in the room, in their bodies, and in their parents’ distress, but we often skirt around it a little, which can actually scare kids more than if we simply told them the truth. Suicide, cancer, and sexual assault are very hard for us as grownups and parents to say. We want to protect our  children from them, but children can actually benefit from having an understanding of what we call these things. For example, ‘What you’re seeing here in mom or dad’s behavior, that’s addiction. Yeah, there’s an explanation for it.  

Parents as Storytellers  

[Tania Johnson] It’s about putting words to the feelings they probably already have in their bodies. Children are so incredibly wise. Paris, I agree with you. I feel like, as a culture, we struggle with this. It’s  interesting—while reading your book, I found myself trying to figure out what we could cover in  just 30 minutes because there was so much, I wanted to discuss with you. You dive deeply into  storytelling in your last chapter, Parents as Storytellers, and that chapter really resonated with me.  I know that when I’ve sat in sessions with parents, we often struggle with telling stories. So, I  thought we could talk a little bit today about how incredibly powerful parents can be as storytellers  for their kids, and how parents can even begin to approach this. 

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Well, maybe I can start by talking a little about a prompt we use in our dyadic assessment. We’ve now seen thousands of parent-child dyads go through some of these tasks on cards. One  of the tasks—actually, I see your therapy book from the Marschak Interaction Method behind you— suggests that an adult should tell the child a story about when the child was a little baby, beginning with the words, ‘When you were a little baby.’ For foster or adoptive parents, it might be, ‘When you first came to  live with me’ or ‘When I first met you.’ Over the years, we’ve seen a powerful collection of these kinds of  stories that parents share. There’s a group of parents who come into the playroom and say, ‘Oh, come  here! Come sit on my lap. I get to tell you a story about when you were a little baby,’ and the child comes quickly to them. There’s usually some sort of touch or close physical proximity, and the  child eagerly awaits the story, already knowing it’s going to be a delightful one—they’ve probably  heard it before and can even tell parts of it themselves. My team and I are in the early stages of  researching this. We’re actually creating a ‘baby story coding instrument’ to analyze how a parent  tells a story. Parents are already put on the spot in this clinical setting, where they’re trying to come  up with a story. When they can tell a delightful story, it often reveals the presence of joy within the  family system. At other times, a parent might come in and say, ‘When you were a little baby, I just  don’t remember.’ This response could reflect challenges like postpartum depression, where the  parent may need support in tracing back and finding stories of delight to share with their child.  Then, there’s a third category of parents who might say, ‘When you were a little baby, you cried all the time, and I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong.’ These parents often need extra support in attuning more deeply to their child’s needs and in hearing delighting stories about themselves  as parents. One of my favorite things to do is to catch parents in a moment when they’re  instinctively holding a hard story for their child, allowing it to simply be hard or ‘yucky’ in that  moment. When I can catch and reinforce that, parents grow more in their ability to hold their children’s difficult stories. It’s painful—I have three children myself, and it pains me deeply when  one of them has gone through something hard. It’s even harder when I am the cause of that hardship, which, as parents, happens all the time. The older I get, the more convinced I am that parenting is really about rupture and repair—over and over. So, the goal becomes getting really  good at repair, which includes becoming skilled at story-keeping and creating a coherent narrative  of what happened. Maybe your feelings got hurt, or my feelings got hurt, and maybe you felt  certain things. Then, you get a redo, knowing you can repair it, but you have to be able to hold the  story of the hard thing that happened. 

[Tania Johnson] I think there’s actually an example of this in your book. As parents, when we retell stories,  we often try to put a positive spin on the ending, saying something like, ‘Oh, and everything turned  out fine,’ instead of holding space for the reality, as you’re suggesting.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] I think it affects our children’s trust in us when we don’t have all the  answers, especially in complex situations like divorce, where children are living in two homes, or  when it’s unclear when they’ll next visit a parent who may be incarcerated. In these moments,  parents can say, ‘I don’t know; I’m not able to give you certainty about this, but we’ll sit in the  unknown together.’ Communicating that we’ll stick together through hard times is what we want  most in our story—showing that we’re here for each other no matter what. 

Storytelling and Attachment  

[Tania Johnson] It’s beautiful, absolutely beautiful. When we look at stories and consider their importance,  how do they shape a child’s sense of who they are in the world?  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] The stories we’re told as children often shape who we become as adults— until or unless we learn new stories. Early attachment patterns, like secure, avoidant, or ambivalent  attachments, are ways we learn to stay close to our caregivers. When caregivers share stories that emphasize our strengths, resilience, and ability to overcome challenges, while also accepting us as  delightful, even if imperfect, it helps a child grow up feeling, ‘I am awesome and flawed, and that’s okay.’ Families, through stories told over holidays or family gatherings, build a sense of identity, giving children a foundation of belonging. When we tell children stories that celebrate them, they  develop a sense of their own goodness and their ability to impact the world—their self-efficacy. However, if we focus too much on stories of their ‘badness,’ we risk reinforcing negative self-esteem. There’s something powerful in saying, ‘I remember this about you,’ which we teach to  parents and even use as therapists, as it reassures children that they are known and valued. Simple  statements, like ‘I remember you like the purple gumballs,’ can help foster and adoptive families,  too, build a strong bond, creating a sense of belonging from the start.  

[Tania Johnson] It’s beautiful. You know, there’s something I’m trying to remember—what you call it in  the book. It’s called the third year, when you tell a story about a child to, say, the therapist, and the  child is listening. How incredibly powerful it is, too.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] There are many ways to tell stories to and with children. Sometimes,  especially when children have experienced adverse events early in life—ranging from in utero  injuries to experiences up to around age three—they may not have much language for the hurts  they’ve gone through. In these cases, parents often need to help fill in the story, being the ‘holders’  of those memories. Children can feel safer and more protected if, for example, they’re under a  blanket or maybe swinging on our ‘magic carpet’ swing in the backyard, saying, ‘Mom, just keep  your eyes on me. Can you tell me the story of how that car accident went?’ The child then gets to  let the story wash over them. Sometimes they’ll join in spontaneously, adding details like, ‘I  remember the metal taste in my mouth,’ which can happen with an adrenaline release. This process,  the ‘third ear,’ allows the child to absorb, from a safe place, any parts of the narrative that may have  been fragmented before. But every child is unique. Some may want to co-create the narrative with  their parents, while others might even disagree with the parent’s version. In trauma work, it’s  especially important for the parent to have a coherent narrative themselves so they’re prepared to  hold it therapeutically for the child. Day to day, though, it would be wonderful if we all made a  habit of telling at least one ‘delighting in’ story about our child each week—or even daily. These  could be moments of shared laughter, new achievements, or a tender kindness they showed to  someone else—these are the moments worth celebrating and rehearsing.  

Practical Tips of Storytelling at home 

[Tania Johnson] It’s beautiful, and I love how bringing it back to what parents can do at home is, as you  say, just about regularly finding delight in those little moments. Like the first time you rode a bike,  or the first time I dropped you off at kindergarten—those small stories. When parents practice this  at home, any thoughts on what they should try to remember?  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] One of the things we often see is that parents are just incredibly busy. It  can be hard to carve out time. I feel like we have to be fierce warriors to push back and create  space—even just enough to slow down and rehearse stories. This is part of why we say, ‘the  assessment is intervention.’ When we ask parents to tell these kinds of stories at the beginning of  treatment, it’s because life moves so fast. It might be helpful to create a space in your home that  we call ‘nurture nooks’ here at Nurture House. It’s just a little corner—maybe with some pillows  and a blanket—that becomes almost like a retreat for the parent and child to sit together. They  might read stories there, or do ‘boo-boo routines,’ where they check for any little hurts the child  might have and then share a ‘delighting in’ story. We have a specific intervention that we  sometimes offer to parents. You may be familiar with Gary Chapman’s work on love languages.  We call this ‘delighting-in dice,’ and we create a personalized die for each child and parent in the  family. In the nurture nook, they spin these dice. For example, let’s say it’s a five-year-old child  named Johnny whose love language is physical touch. On his die, he might have options like ‘high  fives,’ ‘fist bumps,’ and ‘snuggles.’ He can spin or flip it, and whatever it lands on, the parent and  child engage in that particular touch together. But I do caution, especially my high-achieving  parents who think, ‘If five minutes is good, 20 minutes must be better!’ It’s really about a titrated  dose of intimacy and connection. Our kids can only hold so much of that at one time, too. I also  want to encourage parents that when I was raising young kids, I often felt a constant tug between  all the other things I had to do—dishes, emails, everything else—and spending quality time with  my children. Then a friend reminded me that, for generations, kids would be strapped to their  mother’s back as she worked in the fields. There wasn’t always this expectation of ‘quality time’  in the way we think about it now. I’d say to parents, ‘Be encouraged.’ Even five minutes of intentional connecting time each day can make an enormous difference in the quality of the parent child relationship.  

Encouragement for Parents  

[Tania Johnson] So powerful. I love that this doesn’t add another big commitment, like, ‘Go spend an hour of special playtime every day,’ which, you know, can feel so stressful. It’s so simple. Just tell a  ‘delighting in’ story, and for those five minutes, be present—put down your phone, be connected,  find somewhere small and cozy to share together. As you’re talking today, I’m thinking about my  two little girls. Their favorite story is the one about when they were born. They’ve asked me to tell it a hundred times. It’s incredible, because there’s such a connection—it’s this golden thread that  weaves everything together for them.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Yes, exactly. Storykeeping, especially ‘delighting in’ stories, provides a scaffolding of safety. It builds a strong foundation of connected, nurturing stories, so that if  something harder comes along, the parent has already practiced story keeping in positive ways. The child will already be oriented and ready for the parent to become a co-organizer in any challenging  story that happens within the family system. 

[Tania Johnson] Oh, it’s bad for that, for around them. Beautiful, Paris, thank you so much. This is just, it’s so rich, and I think it’s important for parents to hear.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Yeah, well, we love our parent work here, and I just—when we can help a parent create a paradigm shift, it’s so meaningful. The other thing I’d say about story-keeping in general, and that  bottom-up brain development, is that many of the children we see with trauma have experienced in utero  injuries. When these children engage in big behaviors, parents might think, ‘This is my fault, because I’ve  had them since they were born.’ We spend a lot of time, especially with foster and adoptive parents, helping them understand some of those early hurts that may have occurred as the child’s brain was developing in utero. This helps let parents off the hook from the shame they might feel, as shame really gets in the way of making shifts. Anything we can do to delight in the parent, to help them experience their own goodness, and to see that they’re doing the very best they know how to do in this moment, is well worth the investment we make.  

[Tania Johnson] It’s that cascade of care again—if the parent feels delighted in, they’re more likely to delight  in their child instead of feeling overwhelmed and as if they’re failing.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Yes, well, parents need a lot of support too. At times, I would say, parents need to earn a secure attachment in adulthood. If someone didn’t have a secure attachment in  childhood, it often requires someone coming alongside them and being their story keeper first, as  an adult, for them to develop that ability. That’s how you earn a secure attachment in adulthood— you might have had a difficult childhood, but if there’s one person who walks alongside you and  holds your story, it can make all the difference. It might be a college roommate, a spouse, a best  friend, or a therapist. As parents build coherence in their own narratives, they become much more  present and available to their child’s joys and hurts and are able to hold both grief and gratitude  together more fully.  

Parental Healing  

[Tania Johnson] So, Paris, as we wrap up with parents, would you say that a good starting point for many parents is to reflect on their own narrative first, to see if they may need some healing to create a coherent narrative?  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Yes, we have. I wish that wasn’t the case, but yes, in our work, we have  a whole set of treatment goals geared specifically for the parents, and one of them we call the RAW  work—R, A, W—standing for Reflective Attachment Work. It’s called that because this work,  looking at our own histories as adults and parents, does make us feel raw. It’s tender work, and  you need someone you trust to help you with it. But as we build our own reflective capacity, we  look back at the parts of our parenting we want to keep and those we may not want to repeat. That  becomes the beginning of a template for how we’ll be more connected with our own children.  

[Tania Johnson] You’ve built in so much hope. I love it. Thank you. We’ll link your website below—there  are so many wonderful resources for clinicians, parents, and anyone just trying to learn about  trauma. It’s really such important work. Paris, thank you.  

[Paris Goodyear-Brown] Well, thank you for having me.