Now here's the thing too: they're great examples because they're little reference points to help her realise that, “Oh, remember when you didn't really want to go in at first and now you just go in and you chat and you're amazing in there now.”

That way she can see how far she's come and so she can see what's possible for herself. We definitely want to give her a benchmark so that she can look back and go, “Oh, well yeah, I didn't like the therapist at first, but now I love her. She's really awesome and I feel safe around her.”

You can say, “You know, you felt uncomfortable at first and fair enough. And now look at you. Wow. Look at you! You're very brave. You're very courageous. Look at you. You're a brave girl, aren't you? Yeah. And you can do tricky things sometimes when you feel uncomfortable… you can handle it. Well done to you.”

Now, it may be worth changing the word from “you’re safe” to “you’re brave” – use whatever language your child uses.

(NB: If you haven’t already seen it, watch this quick video where I explain the importance of using your child’s language.) 

If you’re not sure what words land best with the child you can test it out and see if they’re responsive. Many kids do respond to “brave” because it's empowering to say, “I'm brave”. It's not about “I'm safe”. Safe can sometimes even trigger thoughts such as, “What? I might not be safe?”

In play at home, her granddaughter builds a Lego house and she said, “That's our safe house and you and Papa are in it.”

So in this case, maybe changing the word to brave would be worth trying.

And these are beautiful examples here because if she's got the little safe house and she's got little people or toys to role play with. We can introduce a toy and have a toy friend come over and visit her. Then she can talk to that person. You could say, “What are you going to say to them? Oh, hello, I'm so-and-so”, and have fun.

Have a lot of lightness around it… a lot of love and joy around meeting someone new. You can say things like, “Oh, who's going to answer the door to this person? What are you going to say? Ooh, do you want to do a funny ‘hello’ when they come to the door?”

The important thing is to just have some fun and creativity around it with your little one. The positive association is through toys and through play. It's a beautiful way with the younger ones, to have a positive association with making friends or meeting someone new.

How does that sound?

In this particular case, when her granddaughter does that play, she'll only use two Barbies because it's only between the child and her Grandma. So if she starts adding that extra person in role play, it'll help her feel a lot more at ease in reality.

Initially, one of them could be a funny clown or something like that; someone funny or a silly something.

The aim is that it's fun and you've just lightened it. You've introduced that idea of expanding her circle through play and fun. Remember that the primary goal here is to help her feel safe, with lots of love and joy.