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Guide VIII-107

Child drama

Peter Slade1954Birmingham, England
A 29 · L 43 · M 2820 interventions in the Trinity explorer
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[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: Peter Slade's Child Drama as set out in Child Drama (1954) and An Introduction to Child Drama (1958), with his later dramatherapy framing in Child Play: its importance for human development (1995). No openly available authorised text of the three books exists; Child Drama (1954) is held by the Internet Archive only as an access-restricted lending item. What is attributed to Slade here rests on: his biography and core principle in the Peter Slade Collection record (Archives Hub); the definitions of personal and projected play and the "playing out evil" quotation (Child Drama p. 53) as quoted by Goodlass (2016); the early-years observations, with page references to Child Drama, as quoted in The First Years (2008); the age structure of Child Drama from its Internet Archive record; and the scope of Child Play from the Jessica Kingsley and Hachette pages. Slade's own lesson procedures are not available in these sources, so the Steps in section 4 are practical operationalisations [synthesis]. The clinical safety layer (screening, pacing, de-roling, closure, safeguarding, consent) is contemporary practice, also [synthesis].

What it is. Child Drama is an educational and developmental approach, not a manualised therapy. Peter Slade, an actor and BBC children's broadcaster (in 1936 the BBC's youngest Children's Hour "uncle"), built it from about 25 years of watching children make up imaginary games in schools, art centres and streets. He set it out in Child Drama, published by the University of London Press in 1954 [source: Archives Hub; IHR event page; Internet Archive record]. Archives Hub says he was the first to speak on "Dramatherapy" before the British Medical Association, and that he developed his ideas while working with "backward and disturbed children" (period wording). ACAMH dates the first UK use of the term to the 1930s, in a paper Slade submitted to the BMA [source: Archives Hub; ACAMH/Maynard 2018]. As Birmingham's Drama Adviser he worked from the Rea Street Centre, where he developed his ideas on dance drama and ran sessions for delinquent young people. He was elected Director of the Educational Drama Association in 1948 and trained teachers. In 1962 he set up a personality course for industry and the retail trades [source: Archives Hub]. ACAMH says he later developed his method with adult mental health patients [source: ACAMH/Maynard 2018]. His dates are given as 1912–2005 by Archives Hub and 1912–2004 by the IHR page [uncertain].

Core idea of change. Drama is "a state of being" and "the art of life", separate from theatre [source: Burt's Drama, paraphrasing Slade; the blog gives no page]. Archives Hub sums up Slade's core principle as self-development through "personal and projected play", with adults giving "careful stimulus and encouragement" [source: Archives Hub]. A healthy child uses both kinds of play in balance [source: Burt's Drama; Goodlass 2016]:

  • Personal play: "the whole person is used in movement and characterisation", with physical effort and vocal noise. The child is genuinely acting: the child is the character [source: Goodlass 2016].
  • Projected play: "the mind is used more than the body". The child is fairly still and projects an imagined dramatic situation onto objects, with great absorption [source: Goodlass 2016; Burt's Drama].

Slade argued that drama "offers continual opportunity for playing out evil in a legal framework" (Child Drama, p. 53, quoted by Goodlass). Goodlass reads this as emotional release that builds emotional control and so self-discipline. That link is his interpretation, not Slade's wording [source: Goodlass 2016]. Slade also wrote that "Lack of Play may mean a permanent lost part of ourselves", while play opportunity means "development and gain" (Child Drama, p. 35, quoted in The First Years 2008). The practical upshot: give space and careful stimulus and encouragement, and protect the child's absorption and sincerity [source: Archives Hub; Burt's Drama; Goodlass 2016].

For the therapist reader. Child Drama gives you a developmental way to observe play and a non-performance stance. It does not give you a trauma or exposure protocol. If you use it as therapy (individual, group, school or youth-justice work), you add the safety procedures in sections 4 and 5.

Professional frame. No professional body or credential exists for "Child Drama" itself. Slade's Certificate Course in Child Drama (Birmingham Education Committee, 1968) was a teacher-training route, not a clinical licence [source: Archives Hub]. Its methods are open to teachers and play workers as education. Using them as therapy (working on distress, trauma, offending or mental disorder) needs a therapy qualification:

  • UK: dramatherapists train through a postgraduate Masters (named providers include Derby, Roehampton, Anglia Ruskin and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama), register with the HCPC and can join the British Association of Dramatherapists (BADth) [source: ACAMH/Maynard 2018]. "Dramatherapist" is a protected title regulated by the HCPC, alongside Art Therapist, Art Psychotherapist and Music Therapist [source: UK Regulated Professions Register, Arts Therapist].
  • US and Canada: the equivalent is the Registered Drama Therapist (RDT) credential awarded by the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA). It requires a master's or doctoral degree in drama therapy from an NADTA-accredited programme (or a related degree plus NADTA Alternative Training), a supervised internship and supervised post-degree drama therapy experience [source: NADTA, Registered Drama Therapists page].
  • Other psychotherapists: use these activities only within your own competence and with supervision from a qualified dramatherapist or play therapist. Do not run trauma enactment with children on the strength of this guide [synthesis].

2. Framework

Slade gave developmental stages, not therapy phases with session counts. Child Drama (1954) is organised by age. It has chapters on the beginnings of drama from birth to five, dramatic play from five to seven, drama and play from seven to twelve, and twelve to fifteen. Matching "Suggestions" chapters follow for under-fives, five-to-seven-year-olds, the junior school and twelve-to-fifteen-year-olds [source: Internet Archive record, chapter list]. An Introduction to Child Drama (1958) gives short, practical suggestions for starting dramatic work at each stage of childhood [source: Human Centered Design library record]. The contents of these chapters are not summarised in any available source, and no source gives a session count, session length or formal criteria for moving between stages [uncertain]. What the secondary sources describe:

Developmental sequence (as described from Slade 1954) [source: First Years 2008; Goodlass 2016; Burt's Drama]

  • Infancy: copying movements, babbling and experimenting with sound, finding out how the limbs move.
  • Toddlerhood: peek-a-boo grows from hiding the eyes to hiding behind objects and doorways. As walking improves there is "a little running to the threshold", an expectant pause and a dash away: the start of dramatic entrances and exits. Offering and then withdrawing an object creates tension the child enjoys (Child Drama p. 24, as reported in The First Years 2008).
  • Childhood: the "running play of the street" (mixed walking and rhythmic skips or hops; Child Drama p. 47, quoted in The First Years 2008); spontaneous improvisation; personal and projected play alongside each other, feeding into forms such as ball games and dance (p. 35) [source: First Years 2008; Goodlass 2016].
  • Adolescence: only now do young people think in terms of "end stage presentation", and theatre craft becomes relevant. Before this, performing for an audience is discouraged [source: Goodlass 2016; Burt's Drama].

Kobayashi (1999), analysing An Introduction to Child Drama, adds two points: play is the root of Child Drama, and dramatic play should develop into planned drama activities with parents' support [source: Kobayashi 1999 abstract].

Working format for clinical use [synthesis]

  • Phase A, referral and screening (1–2 meetings): goals, consent and assent, safeguarding history, and individual-or-group decision (see 4.1–4.3).
  • Phase B, establishing play (about 2–4 sessions): free and lightly stimulated personal and projected play. You observe and build the frame and ground rules.
  • Phase C, working phase (typically 8–20 weekly sessions of 40–60 minutes; 30–45 minutes for under-7s): stimulated improvisation and dance drama. Themes come from the child. Distance and pacing are managed.
  • Phase D, ending (2–3 sessions): review, a celebratory or symbolic closing play, and handover to parents or school.

Moving between phases [synthesis]

  • Move from A to B when consent and assent are in place, safeguarding information has been gathered and group fit is established.
  • Move from B to C when the child can enter and leave play on a signal, uses projected play with absorption, and keeps the ground rules.
  • Step back from C to B (more projected play, more distance) whenever the child is flooded, dissociates or play turns repetitive and joyless (see 5.3).
  • Move to D when goals are met, a set number of sessions has been reached, or play shows sustained new themes and flexibility.

3. Guiding principles

From Slade (as reported in the secondary sources listed):

  • Drama, not theatre. Practical meaning: no stage, no audience and no polished performance with children before adolescence. Slade held that a stage makes children self-conscious, spoils their sincerity and teaches them to show off [source: Burt's Drama, quoting Slade].
  • Give space. Practical meaning: use an open floor, clear of furniture. Do not use a raised platform. Children "need space" [source: Burt's Drama].
  • Balance personal and projected play. Practical meaning: plan every session to include both whole-body play and play with objects. Notice which one a child avoids [source: Burt's Drama; Goodlass 2016].
  • Protect absorption and sincerity. Practical meaning: don't interrupt absorbed play to teach, correct or praise performance. Give imagination time [source: Goodlass 2016; First Years 2008; Burt's Drama].
  • Adults provide stimulus and encouragement, not direction. Practical meaning: offer a sound, an object or a starting idea, then follow the child [source: Archives Hub].
  • The child's view has an equal right to be heard. Practical meaning: assume the play has its own logic. Slade wrote that the child has a point of view "to which, in all justice, it has an equal right", and that children's actions have "a logic and a reason" (Child Drama p. 21, quoted in The First Years 2008). Ask about the play and learn from it rather than interpret over it [source: First Years 2008].
  • Patience, understanding, happiness, freedom, observation and humility. Practical meaning: watch more than you speak, and keep sessions enjoyable [source: First Years 2008, quoting Child Drama p. 19].
  • Improvisation first. Practical meaning: young children's drama is spontaneous, so scripts and reading are not needed. This removes literacy barriers [source: Goodlass 2016; openaccess.hu].
  • Safe release within limits. Practical meaning: aggressive or "evil" themes are allowed inside the fiction and inside clear rules [source: Goodlass 2016].
  • Play is a record of development. Practical meaning: use play observations to understand a child's development and difficulties, linking home, school, clinic and therapy [source: JKP/Blackwell's description of Child Play]. See the limits in 4.15.

Added for clinical safety [synthesis]:

  • Distance before depth. Practical meaning: start with projected play and invented characters before personal play close to the child's own life.
  • Choice at every step. Practical meaning: "pass", watch, or step out of role is always allowed, and you show this, not just say it.
  • Safeguarding overrides confidentiality and process. Practical meaning: a disclosure or a risk indicator is acted on under local procedures, whatever the session plan.
  • No interpretation of play as proof. Practical meaning: play content is never by itself evidence that abuse happened.
  • Every role is left in the room. Practical meaning: always de-role and close before the child leaves.

4. Intervention inventory

The available sources name Slade's activity types and principles, but not his session-by-session procedures. The Internet Archive record of Child Drama shows that these sit in its "Suggestions" chapters for each age band and in chapters on children's theatre, masks and make-up, puppets and marionettes, and films, whose content is not summarised in any available source [uncertain]. No published step-by-step protocol was found; the "Steps" below are therefore the writer's practical operationalisations [synthesis] of the activities the sources describe. 4.1–4.7 and 4.17–4.19 are the safety and consent procedures needed to use Child Drama clinically. They are entirely [synthesis] and are not attributed to Slade.

4.1 Screening and assessment before starting [synthesis]

  • Purpose: decide whether play-based drama suits this child, whether individual or group work fits, and what risks you are managing.
  • Steps:
    1. Take the history from parents or carers and the referrer: development, trauma exposure, current safeguarding involvement (child protection plan, looked-after status, open investigation), medical and sensory needs, and history of aggression, sexualised behaviour or self-harm.
    2. Ask whether any criminal investigation is open. If so, agree with the investigating agency before doing any work that could be seen as rehearsing an account (see 5.7).
    3. Meet the child, with the carer present if the child prefers. Offer a short free-play sample with objects (projected play, 4.9) and some movement (personal play, 4.8). Note how the child enters and leaves play, tolerates transitions, and responds to a stop signal.
    4. Screen for group work. Exclude for now, or start individually, if the child:
      • is in acute crisis or acutely suicidal;
      • shows active sexually harmful behaviour towards peers that has not been risk-assessed;
      • shows aggression that the space and staffing cannot contain;
      • is likely to dissociate or become flooded by group noise and contact;
      • has a sibling or known abuser or victim in the same group.
    5. Record the decision and the reasons.
  • Example language (illustrative): "In these sessions we play and make up stories with our bodies and with toys. Some children like to start by just watching. That's fine here."
  • Watch for: freezing, flat repetitive play, or panic when you give a play stimulus. These suggest starting individually and with more distance.

4.2 Consent, assent and parent or carer involvement [synthesis]

  • Purpose: lawful, ethical engagement that respects the child's voice.
  • Steps:
    1. Get informed consent from whoever holds parental responsibility, or from the local authority for a looked-after child. Record who holds it.
    2. For a young person who may be competent to consent alone, assess and record their understanding under the competence test of your jurisdiction (in England, Gillick competence) [uncertain: legal tests vary; check local law].
    3. Get the child's own assent in age-appropriate words, and re-check it at the start of each phase. A clear and persistent "no" from the child is respected even when an adult has consented. Explore it rather than override it.
    4. Explain the limits of confidentiality before play starts, in words the child can understand.
    5. Agree what parents or carers will hear. For example: themes and progress, not the child's play content word for word, except for safety concerns. Slade valued parents' part in supporting play [source: Kobayashi 1999 abstract; JKP/Blackwell's description of the "Mostly for Parents" chapter in Child Play]. Offer carers regular review meetings and ideas for supporting play at home.
    6. Get separate consent for any photography, video or sharing of artwork.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What we play here mostly stays here. But if I'm worried someone is hurting you or you might get hurt, I have to tell people whose job is to keep children safe. I'd tell you first if I can."
  • Watch for: a child who agrees only to please the adult. Look for consent in the child's body (moving forward, choosing objects) as well as their words.

4.3 Setting up the room, physical safety and materials [synthesis, building on Slade's emphasis on space]

  • Purpose: the open, unstaged space Slade required [source: Burt's Drama], made physically safe.
  • Steps:
    1. Floor and furniture: use a clear, non-slip floor with no raised stage. Put away or pad furniture, sharp corners and glass.
    2. Footwear: bare feet or soft shoes, on a floor checked for splinters and drawing pins.
    3. Space and staffing: allow enough floor area for running play without collisions. In groups, at least two adults, one of whom can leave the room with a child.
    4. Materials: fabrics without long cords and nothing that can be used to tie or strangle; soft props; small-world toys sized above choking risk for under-3s; non-toxic materials.
    5. Sound: keep drums, music and voices at comfortable levels, and offer ear defenders to noise-sensitive children (for example autistic children).
    6. Fire: no candles or real flames.
    7. Visibility: the room has a vision panel or the door is ajar, in line with lone-working and safeguarding policy.
  • Watch for: overcrowding during running play, and children using props as weapons.

4.4 Ground rules, stop signal and the "drama space" boundary [synthesis]

  • Purpose: to make release "within a legal framework" [source: Goodlass 2016, quoting Slade] concrete.
  • Steps:
    1. Agree three to four rules with the children:
      • pretend hurting only: no real contact unless agreed;
      • stop means stop;
      • you can step out at any time;
      • we look after the room and the things in it.
    2. Teach a freeze or stop signal: a drum beat, a raised hand, or the word "freeze". Practise it in play until the response is automatic.
    3. Mark the play area, for example with a rug or a taped circle. Have an "outside" place for stepping out and watching.
    4. Teach that entering the play space means "pretend" and leaving it means "real".
  • Example language (illustrative): "When I tap the drum twice, everyone freezes like statues. Let's try it."
  • Watch for: whether the freeze works with every child. If not, no high-energy personal play yet.

4.5 Opening ritual and warm-up [synthesis]

  • Purpose: a predictable entry into play. This builds safety and absorption.
  • Steps:
    1. Start the same way each time: a greeting, a feelings check using a simple scale or a choice of object, and reminding everyone of the stop signal.
    2. Then do a short movement warm-up: walking, then skips and hops, echoing the street running play Slade observed [source: First Years 2008].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Let's walk around the room… now walk like it's very windy… now skip."
  • Watch for: a child who cannot join the opening routine. Offer a role nearby, such as drummer or timekeeper.

4.6 Pacing and distance control [synthesis]

  • Purpose: keep arousal in a workable zone and prevent flooding.
  • Steps:
    1. Order the work from most to least distance:
      • projected play with objects;
      • personal play as an animal or fantasy character;
      • personal play as a made-up person;
      • themes close to real life.
    2. Move closer only when the child chooses to.
    3. Alternate high-energy and quiet play.
    4. Watch arousal throughout: breathing, colour, freezing, frantic repetition, glazed eyes.
    5. When arousal rises, shift the play back towards distance. For example: the monster becomes small and lives in the box, or the scene moves to a far-away land. Or use the freeze signal and a calming ritual.
  • Example language (illustrative): "That dragon is getting very big. Shall we make him tiny so he fits in your hand?"
  • Watch for: play that stays absorbed and flexible, which means it is working. Play that becomes rigid, frantic or deadened means step back.

4.7 De-roling [synthesis]

  • Purpose: separate the child from the character before they leave, especially after frightening, aggressive or victim roles.
  • Steps:
    1. Give a clear end-of-play signal.
    2. Ask each child to "take off" the character: shake it off, step out of the play space, or return a costume or fabric.
    3. Ask each child to say their own name and one real-world fact. For example: "I'm Sam, I'm 8, and I'm having pizza tonight."
    4. Make sure any child who played someone else's "baddie" is clearly back as themselves for the group. Address children by their real names.
    5. De-role objects too. For example: "The monster goes back to being a cushion."
  • Example language (illustrative): "Let's shake the wolf off our arms… our legs… Who are you now? Tell us your real name."
  • Watch for: a child who keeps the role on, stays in a victim posture, or treats a peer as their character. Repeat de-roling one-to-one and tell the carer.

4.8 Personal play sessions

  • Purpose: whole-body play with movement, characterisation, noise and physical effort. The child is the character [source: Goodlass 2016; Burt's Drama]. Use it for children who need active release, physical confidence, or practice in taking on and putting down roles.
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. After the warm-up (4.5), offer a starting stimulus: a sound, a word, a place ("a jungle", "a busy market") or a character type.
    2. Let children move and become characters. Keep your own input to short side-comments that build the fiction. Do not correct technique.
    3. Watch for absorption. When it is present, stay quiet and let the play run.
    4. Use the freeze signal to change scenes or calm the room.
    5. End with de-roling (4.7).
  • Example language (illustrative): "The rain is starting… where will the animals hide?"
  • Watch for: sincere, absorbed play that develops is working. Showing off to peers or to you means an "audience" has crept in (see 4.14). Escalating rough contact means you freeze and re-set the rules.

4.9 Projected play with objects

  • Purpose: play "mainly in the mind". The child is fairly still and projects a situation onto toys and objects with absorption [source: Burt's Drama; Goodlass 2016]. It gives more distance than personal play. Use it for anxious, traumatised, physically limited or easily overstimulated children, and as the first step in pacing (4.6).
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Offer a box of small-world figures, animals, fabrics and everyday objects. Include ordinary objects that can turn into other things (a leaf as a plate, a shoe as a phone [source: First Years 2008]).
    2. Sit at the child's level and watch. Describe what you see only lightly.
    3. Take part only if invited, and in the role the child gives you.
    4. At the end, tidy the objects away together. This de-roles the objects too.
  • Example language (illustrative): "The little horse has gone right to the edge of the table." (descriptive, not interpretive)
  • Watch for: absorption, and stories that develop over sessions. Rigid, repeated re-enactment with rising distress is a warning sign (5.3).

4.9a Puppets, masks and make-up

  • Purpose: Child Drama has chapters on masks and make-up and on puppets and marionettes [source: Internet Archive record, chapter list]. Their content is not available here, so nothing below is Slade's procedure [uncertain]. A puppet carries the story through an object the child moves, so it gives distance and can bridge projected and personal play [synthesis].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Offer simple hand or finger puppets, or let the child make one from a sock, paper bag or wooden spoon.
    2. Let the child give the puppet a name and a voice. Hold a second puppet only if invited, in the role the child gives you.
    3. If the child seems more at ease that way, talk to the puppet rather than to the child.
    4. Masks: use half-masks or masks held on a stick, never ones that cover the nose and mouth or tie behind the head. The child can take a mask off at any moment, and one adult always stays unmasked.
    5. Make-up: use only skin-safe face paints, check allergies with the carer first, and get consent for face painting.
    6. De-role at the end: the puppet goes "to sleep" in its box, masks are taken off and put down, and face paint is washed off before the child leaves (4.7).
  • Example language (illustrative): "Hello, puppet. What's your name? Would you like to show me where you live?"
  • Watch for: fear of a mask, whether the child's own or someone else's. Remove it at once. Absorbed puppet stories that change over sessions show it is working. A puppet used only to hit or attack calls for the limits in 4.15.

4.10 Balancing personal and projected play

  • Purpose: Slade held that a healthy child uses both kinds of play [source: Burt's Drama]. Imbalance tells you something and gives you a target.
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Over two to three sessions, note how much time the child spends in each kind of play.
    2. Gently offer the less-used mode in small doses. A child who only runs could put a figure "to bed". A child who only plays with figures could walk "as" one of them for a few steps.
  • Watch for: the child taking up the less-used mode on their own initiative.

4.11 Early-years games: hiding, thresholds, offering and withdrawing

  • Purpose: the earliest dramatic forms Slade observed (Child Drama p. 24, as reported in The First Years 2008) [source: First Years 2008].
    • Peek-a-boo: develops from hiding the eyes to hiding behind objects and doorways.
    • Threshold play: running to a doorway, pausing and dashing off is the start of entrances and exits.
    • Offer-and-withdraw: offering an object and taking it back creates tension the child enjoys. Use these with infants and toddlers, with parent–child dyads, and with older children who are developmentally young.
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Work with the carer present, ideally coaching the carer to play.
    2. Follow the child's lead in hiding and appearing. Make reappearing warm and predictable.
    3. In threshold games, mark a clear "doorway" with fabric. Let the child control the coming and going.
    4. In offer-and-withdraw, keep the tension short and always end with giving the object.
  • Example language (illustrative, coaching a parent): "She's peeking out. Let her see your face is happy she's back."
  • Watch for: delight and repetition, which mean it is working. Distress at separation means shorten the hiding or keep the adult visible.

4.12 Running play and natural movement (dance drama)

  • Purpose: rhythmic whole-body play built on the "running play of the street" (mixed walking and rhythmic skips or hops; Child Drama p. 47) [source: First Years 2008]. Slade developed his theories on dance drama at the Rea Street Centre and wrote Natural Dance (1977) [source: Archives Hub]. His specific dance-drama procedures are not described in the available sources [uncertain].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Start with free travelling movement to a steady drum beat or music at a comfortable volume.
    2. Vary the speed and quality: heavy, light, fast, slow.
    3. Bring in a simple story frame, such as a journey across ice or through a forest. Children move it as a group, without an audience.
    4. End with a slow-down and stillness.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Now the snow is getting deeper… our feet are heavy… slower… and rest."
  • Watch for: collisions and falls, so control density and speed. Children who are left out of group movement can be given a partner or the drum.

4.13 Spontaneous improvisation from adult stimulus

  • Purpose: drama for young children is essentially improvised and spontaneous, with no scripts or reading needed [source: Goodlass 2016; openaccess.hu]. Adults give "careful stimulus and encouragement" [source: Archives Hub]. Kobayashi (1999) describes free dramatic play growing into planned drama activity [source: Kobayashi 1999 abstract].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Give one stimulus: an object in a bag, a sound, a picture or a one-line situation.
    2. Let the children start the play.
    3. As they become able, offer a little more structure: agree a beginning, a problem and an ending before playing. This is the move from free play to planned drama.
    4. Avoid rehearsing for an audience.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I found this old key on the way here. I wonder whose it is…"
  • Watch for: the children taking over and extending the idea. If they wait to be told what to do, the stimulus was too controlling or too vague.

4.14 Protecting sincerity: no audience, and later the move to presentation

  • Purpose: Slade argued a conventional stage destroys Child Drama: children copy adult theatre, become aware of the audience, lose sincerity and show off [source: Burt's Drama]. Only from adolescence does planning for presentation make sense [source: Goodlass 2016; Burt's Drama].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. With under-11s, everyone plays at once with no watching group. Use "in the round" use of the floor rather than a front-facing stage [uncertain: whether this is Slade's own term is unconfirmed].
    2. Don't ask children to "show" scenes.
    3. With adolescents, sharing work inside the group can be introduced, by choice only and with a clear de-role afterwards.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Everyone's play is happening at the same time. Nobody's watching, so do it however feels right."
  • Watch for: performing to you (looking at you for approval). Move to a less observed position or join the play in a role.

4.15 Playing out aggression and "evil" within limits

  • Purpose: Slade saw drama as offering "continual opportunity for playing out evil in a legal framework" (Child Drama, p. 53, quoted by Goodlass). Goodlass interprets this release as leading to emotional control and self-discipline [source: Goodlass 2016]. Slade saw both psychological satisfaction and aesthetic potential in a play fight [source: Burt's Drama]. He ran drama sessions for delinquent young people at Rea Street, and Child Play addresses delinquency [source: Archives Hub; JKP description of Child Play].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Allow fights, villains and monsters only after the stop signal reliably works (4.4).
    2. Keep it no-contact: slow-motion fights, fighting the air, or fighting a cushion "monster".
    3. Put a time limit on the fight scene and end it with the freeze signal.
    4. Follow it with a quiet, projected or restorative scene ("the town is rebuilt").
    5. De-role carefully, especially when a child played a "baddie" against a peer.
  • Risk flag [synthesis]: discharge without containment can raise arousal and copy aggression into real life. Stop when contact becomes real or targets a particular peer.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Slow-motion battle… nobody touches… freeze! Now the battle is over. What happens to the land?"
  • Watch for: calmer behaviour after sessions means it is working. More aggression after sessions means reduce intensity and review with the carer or school.

4.16 Observing play as a record of development, and its limits

  • Purpose: Slade built his theory by watching children's play, and later presented play as a way to chart development and understand difficulty [source: IHR event page; JKP/Blackwell's description of Child Play].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. After each session, write a short note: personal versus projected balance, absorption, themes, how the child entered and left play, and the response to stop and de-role.
    2. Share developmental observations with carers and the team in plain, non-interpretive language.
  • Limits: Child Drama has no standardised, validated assessment. Play themes, including violent or sexualised ones, are not diagnostic evidence of abuse or of a disorder [synthesis]. Treat them as information that may prompt a safeguarding conversation (4.18) or a referral for formal assessment. Other dramatherapy tools exist outside Slade's work, for example the Six-Part Story Method and PSYCHLOPS Kids, named as an assessment tool and an outcome measure in UK practice [source: ACAMH/Maynard 2018]. The Six-Part Story Method is not a validated diagnostic test: its only published reliability data are a pilot eight-item pessimism scale still awaiting cross-validation (see guide 112), and its stories do not show whether abuse happened [synthesis]. Use them only as their own manuals direct.
  • Watch for: your own bias in reading meaning into play. Record what was seen and said, separately from your interpretation.

4.17 Closure of each session [synthesis]

  • Purpose: help the child move from play back to ordinary life, settled and contained.
  • Steps:
    1. Give a five-minute warning inside the fiction ("the sun is setting in our land").
    2. End the play and de-role (4.7).
    3. Do a quiet grounding activity: slow breathing, naming things in the room, or a calm object passed round.
    4. Close with a short reflection in or out of metaphor, by choice. For example: one word, or showing a feeling with the body.
    5. Repeat the closing ritual (the same each week).
    6. Return the child to their carer or class in a calm state. Pass on anything carers need for the next few hours, without sharing play content.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Our story is finished for today. It stays here in the room, and we can come back to it next week."
  • Watch for: a child who is still activated at closure. Extend the grounding, and keep them with you until they have settled. Never send a dysregulated child straight back into class or into transport.

4.18 Responding to a disclosure or safeguarding concern during play [synthesis]

  • Purpose: to meet safeguarding and mandatory-reporting duties without contaminating evidence or harming the child.
  • Steps:
    1. If a child says, or shows in play, something that suggests harm, stay calm. Let the child speak freely and listen.
    2. Don't ask leading questions, and don't use dolls or role-play to get more detail. Detailed questioning belongs to trained investigators.
    3. Reassure the child that telling was right. Don't promise secrecy. Explain what happens next in simple words.
    4. As soon as possible, write down the child's exact words and actions, the time and the context. Keep your own interpretation separate.
    5. Report on the same day to your designated safeguarding lead and/or children's social care or the police, as your jurisdiction and setting require. In US states, follow mandated-reporter law. In England, follow national and local multi-agency safeguarding procedures.
    6. Keep the session going only if the child is settled, and move to calm projected play. Close as in 4.17.
    7. Seek supervision.
  • Note: a play theme alone (for example a doll being hurt) is not a disclosure. Record it. If it adds to other concerns, discuss it with the safeguarding lead [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Thank you for telling me. You haven't done anything wrong. I need to tell someone whose job is to help keep you safe."
  • Watch for: your own urge to explore further in the session. Resist it.

4.19 After the session: follow-up and supervision [synthesis]

  • Steps:
    1. Write notes the same day: observations, risk, de-role and closure status (4.16).
    2. Check in with the carer or school by the next day after any intense session.
    3. Review group composition every 4–6 sessions.
    4. Take every session with traumatised children to regular supervision with a qualified dramatherapist or child psychotherapist.

5. Handling problems

The available sources do not discuss clinical problems. Slade's own guidance on difficulty, delinquency and dramatherapy is in Child Play (1995), whose content is known here only from the publisher's description [uncertain]. Everything in this section is [synthesis] unless a source is cited.

5.1 A child who won't join or only watches

  • Accept watching as participation, and give the child a defined watching place.
  • Offer low-exposure roles: drummer, keeper of the props box, or narrator "from outside".
  • Offer projected play (4.9) individually, which asks for less exposure than whole-body play.
  • Never pull a child physically into the play.
  • Review whether the group is too big or too loud for this child.

5.2 Chaos, limit-testing and "resistance" in groups

  • Use the freeze signal and restate the rules briefly. Then reduce the scale: smaller space, smaller groups, more projected play.
  • Give energetic children legitimate high-energy roles inside the rules.
  • If the group cannot keep the rules after two to three sessions, split it or add staff.
  • If one child repeatedly cannot keep the rules, offer them individual sessions. This is not a punishment.

5.3 Overwhelm, dissociation and retraumatisation

  • Signs:
    • play that turns rigid, joyless and repetitive (re-enactment without change);
    • freezing, glazed or absent look;
    • sudden regression;
    • panic or rage that is out of proportion;
    • the child losing the line between pretend and real.
  • In the moment:
    1. Freeze the play.
    2. Move the child out of the play space.
    3. Use your real name and theirs, and orient them to the room and the time.
    4. Ground them with slow breathing, feeling their feet, or holding a familiar object.
    5. Turn down sensory input: lights up, sound off.
    6. De-role the child and any objects.
    7. Stay with the child until they are settled. A second adult supports the group.
  • Next sessions:
    1. Increase distance: projected play only, or a fantasy setting far from the child's real life.
    2. Shorten intense sections.
    3. Add a mastery or safety element to the story (a helper, a shelter, a safe ending).
    4. Inform the carer, and update the risk assessment.
  • If it keeps happening: pause enactment. Refer for a trauma-focused assessment and treatment with a suitably qualified clinician. Child Drama is not a trauma-processing protocol.

5.4 Aggression becoming real

  • Stop at once, separate the children and check for injury.
  • Repair with both children after they have settled.
  • Go back to no-contact rules and slow-motion forms (4.15).
  • Record any injury and inform carers and school as policy requires.
  • If aggression rises across sessions, the approach may be stirring the child up rather than containing them. Review the plan.

5.5 Sexualised play or behaviour

  • Calmly redirect, and tell the child the rule about private bodies.
  • Separate children if needed.
  • Record exact behaviour and words.
  • Discuss with the safeguarding lead the same day. Sexualised play can be within developmental norms or can be a concern. It needs assessment with an age-appropriate framework, not interpretation from play alone.
  • Review whether a group setting is safe for this child and the others.

5.6 Touch and physical contact

  • Any planned contact (holding hands in a circle, being "carried" in a story) is offered as a choice, with a no-touch alternative.
  • Check consent each time rather than once for all sessions.
  • Never touch, or set up games involving, genital, chest or buttock areas. No lifting or restraint as part of play.
  • Ask about cultural and religious norms on touch and mixed-gender contact.
  • Expect that children with a history of abuse may find any touch threatening.

5.7 Investigations, court proceedings and "rehearsal" concerns

  • When a criminal or family-court process is open, agree the scope of work with the investigating agency or the child's social worker beforehand.
  • Avoid enacting or rehearsing the alleged events. Keep to general wellbeing, regulation and distanced metaphor.
  • Keep contemporaneous notes.

5.8 Carers or schools wanting a performance, or ruptures with carers

  • Explain Slade's position: performance before adolescence undermines sincerity and teaches children to show off [source: Burt's Drama, quoting Slade].
  • Offer a carer review or a joint play session (4.11) instead of a show.
  • If a carer withdraws consent or stops bringing the child, hold a review. Explore the reasons (practical problems, fear of what is being stirred up, a family member disagreeing with another).
  • Respect withdrawal, and plan a short ending session if one is possible.

5.9 Non-attendance and non-adherence

  • Keep the same day, room and opening ritual every week.
  • Share a simple session plan with the school so the child isn't pulled out of preferred lessons.
  • If attendance falls below about two-thirds of sessions, review whether the format, time or setting fits the child.
  • Child Drama has no homework. Carers can be given play ideas for home if they wish (Slade's "Mostly for Parents" emphasis [source: JKP description of Child Play]).

5.10 Role scapegoating in groups

  • If the same child is always cast as the victim, baddie or monster, set up the roles yourself for a while.
  • Rotate roles, or use objects for the "baddie".
  • De-role that child carefully, by name, in front of the group (4.7).
  • Address any bullying outside the fiction under school policy.

5.11 Ruptures with the child

  • Signs include sulking, refusing, or saying the sessions are "babyish".
  • Name the rupture simply and own your part. For example: "I think I made the game too scary" (illustrative).
  • Give the child more control over themes and materials.
  • With older children, move towards more structured improvisation (4.13) or, by choice, presentation work (4.14).

5.12 Endings

  • Announce the ending at least three sessions ahead.
  • Use a story that ends well, and give each child a goodbye ritual.
  • Plan handover to school and carers.
  • Expect a temporary return of old behaviour around endings.

5.13 Adaptations by age and need

  • Under-5s: carer present; short sessions; mostly hiding, threshold and object play (4.11).
  • Autistic children and children with sensory differences: visual timetables, predictable structure, low sound levels, and projected play first.
  • Physical disability: adapt personal play to seated or supported movement.
  • Adolescents: more choice, more structure, and optional presentation (Slade placed theatre craft in adolescence [source: Goodlass 2016]).
  • Adults: Slade applied his methods to adult groups, including shop staff and managers [source: Archives Hub]. Clinical use with adults needs the same screening and closure steps.

Sources

Pages used

Books cited

  • Slade, P. (1954). Child Drama. London: University of London Press. Publication details and chapter list from the Internet Archive record (access-restricted lending item).
  • Slade, P. (1958). An Introduction to Child Drama. London: University of London Press (Unibooks edition, per library record).
  • Slade, P. (1968). Experience of Spontaneity. [publisher not verified; listed by Archives Hub]
  • Slade, P. (1977). Natural Dance. [publisher not verified; listed by Archives Hub]
  • Slade, P. (1995). Child Play: its importance for human development. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Note: the text of Slade's books is cited here only through the secondary sources above [uncertain]. The safeguarding, consent and legal points in 4.2, 4.18 and 5.5–5.7 are general professional practice [synthesis] and should be checked against the current law and local procedures where you practise.

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