ABSTRACT
This chapter describes therapeutic puppet play approaches for the school setting. The practitioner's use of one specific puppet, over an extended period of time, is one of the most useful tools in the application of therapeutic puppet play in the school setting. Children's spontaneous puppet play offers a myriad of developmental and therapeutic benefits. Puppet play facilitates the child's development of feelings of mastery and competence; the child can take the lead, can take charge of the puppet and the play. School-based practitioners can also plan a more sequential approach to puppet play. Puppet play can be used by children in the school setting to respond to and explore stories, poems, songs, and rhymes. The school-based practitioner would purposefully have a puppet, act, react and talk in a particular way in order to help the children strengthen or develop a new behavior or cognitive thought pattern, or indeed to weaken preexisting ones.
