Assessing progress in child-centered play therapy means noticing and honoring the subtle ways children show us they are growing — shifts in emotional expression, symbolic play, and relational connection — even when those changes are hard to explain or justify quantifiable ways.
In the playroom, progress is rarely linear. Sometimes it’s a new way of playing, an unexpected invitation, or a subtle change in how a child describes something. If we’re only watching for big behavioral shift, we can miss the opportunity to observe and document those meaningful moments of change in child centered play therapy.
Last week, a child entered the playroom with unusual hesitation. In the past, she’d burst through the door, head straight to the dollhouse, and set up elaborate scenes: a kitchen set for breakfast, two characters with separate rooms — one filled with art supplies and books, the other with homework and technology.
This time, she paused at the doorway. It would have been easy to see this as a step backward. But as the session unfolded, something new emerged. Instead of two rooms for two different characters, she created a single space for one child — a space where art and technology coexisted. Without a word, she showed a symbolic shift toward integration, a growing sense of self where once there had been disavowal of an aspect of self that felt unwelcome.
In child-centered play therapy, moments like this are significant. They may not meet the medical model’s demand for quantifiable, symptom-based progress, but they are profound indicators of internal growth.
This is where the Child-Centered Documentation (CCD) framework changes how we see and record progress. In CCD, we separate objectives into two “lanes” of change:
- Behavioral change — tracked in caregiver consultations through observable, measurable goals.
- Internal growth — tracked in play therapy sessions through symbolic play, relational shifts, and emerging self-organization.
In this case, the shift from two separate characters to one integrated figure, reflects increased flexibility and sense of self. In documentation, it might be noted as:
Progress toward increased sense of self, evidenced by shift in symbolic play showing one child engaging in two previously separate interests.
When we intentionally document both behavioral change (assessed with caregivers) and internal growth (in play therapy), we can ask ourselves in every play session: What was at least one way this child played differently today, and how does that connect to their internal growth?
This simple shift does three powerful things:
- Humanizes the child, moving beyond a list of symptoms.
- Helps caregivers see meaningful, incremental change over time.
- Strengthens our trust in the process and equips us with language to communicate growth clearly.
When we slow down and witness — both in the room and in our notes — we honor the brave work children do to understand themselves and their worlds. And we give ourselves a way to bridge the gap between the relational heart of our work and the systems that require documentation.
If you’d like to explore how to bring more of this child-centered witnessing into your documentation, check out Chapter 8 in Treatment Planning with Children and Families or dive deeper in Play Therapy Documentation Essentials: A child-centered approach to case conceptualization and treatment planning.
