Growing Roots Therapy

At Growing Roots Therapy we specialize in play therapy.

🧸✨ CBT Play Therapy is another modality used at Growing Roots. It combines the power of play with cognitive behavioral techniques to help children process emotions and overcome challenges. By using toys, games, and creative activities, kids can express themselves, while therapists guide them to recognize and change negative thoughts and behaviors. Helpful for managing anxiety, depression, or behavioral struggles, it’s a fun, engaging way to promote emotional growth and resilience! 🌈💡

We had a great learning and art making experience at the Dreaming Us Forward: Co-creating Belonging through the Healing Arts Conference this week. Sending gratitude to the organizers:

Happy Pride Month! Everyone is welcome at Growing Roots Therapy.🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 We recognize that children have a deep understanding of their own identity and feelings, regardless of age. We also recognize that it can be hard when your child expresses an identity you were not expecting or don't understand. There are many good resources available to parents to help in your journey of understanding gender and sexuality. Here are just a few we recommend:

Gender Spectrum collective


If you are the parent of a transgender or gender creative child struggling to find local support/resources, feel free to reach out to Sara for a free phone or email consult: [email protected]

Another type of play therapy modality that we use at Growing Roots is sandtray therapy. This technique uses a sand tray, along with a variety of small figures and tools to assist children in expressing themselves without words. It’s a complex and power tool that incorporates the use of metaphors to help children process trauma and anxiety, express feelings, and reflect upon inner worlds with some distance.

At Growing Roots Therapy, Circle of Security is one of the tools we use to build strong connections between caregivers and children. Circle of Security provides a roadmap for identifying what our children need from us, in order to develop into secure individuals who know how to confidently explore new things, and also how to ask for help and comfort when they need it. Circle of Security helps us as parents learn to recognize the emotions that arise inside of us, so that we can work at being present and supportive through all of our children's emotions. This is the inner work that deepens connections within our own hearts as well as with the hearts of our children.

I (Tanya) would love to share my book with you! I wrote The Helping Rock to provide a framework for showing children the importance of sharing our gifts with others and the strength we gain by working together. In this book, learning to ride a bike is hard work for Lani, especially because she won’t accept any help. But when Mama uses the helping rock to teach Lani the value of both giving and receiving help, Lani begins to see the joy and connection sparked by working together. As the colourful sparkling rock is passed among Lani’s friends, readers witness the many ways we help each other. By exploring this book and the included activities, parents, educators, and counsellors can promote a growth mindset and encourage children to share their gifts and be open to receiving help when they need it.

At Growing Roots Therapy, we also use Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). DBT is a type of cognitive behavior therapy that focuses on teaching and practicing four core skills (mindfulness, acceptance & distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness). Of course, we integrate art, toys, visuals, and play to best meet the need of our child and youth clients. You can find more about DBT here: https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com

Growing Roots Therapy has a new website. Take a peek, link in bio.