Podcast: EnTree and How Children Learn to Handle Emotions
What is shame? Where do we feel anger in our bodies? And how can children learn to cope with sadness, fear, or overwhelm?
I (Marlene Käseberg) joined child and adolescent psychotherapist Jan Ole Cloes for a podcast episode about the research project EnTree as a guest. We talk about how children learn to notice, understand, and regulate emotional states—and the role digital, interactive formats can play.
Podcast episode:https://open.spotify.com/episode/7JNrPI3zGSO2u2RQoTaQr8
For more than a year, we have been working with our project partners on EnTree: an interactive application that turns therapeutic content into a narrative, playful experience for children. The aim is not only to teach children about emotions, but also to help them experience emotions, body awareness, and self-regulation in an age-appropriate way.
My favourite feature at the moment is the Safe Place. In therapy, the Safe Place is an exercise in which children create a protected, comforting place in their imagination—a place they can retreat to mentally and use to feel grounded. In EnTree this becomes an interactive treehouse. Children begin in their Safe Place and can design it, change it, and furnish it as they wish. The treehouse is therefore more than a start screen: it becomes a personal retreat, both inside and outside the app.
The episode also explores the background to the project, the collaboration between therapy and game design, and what we hope to see from policymakers in the future.
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