What Children Have Taught Me About Ritual and Meaning-Making: And What We Can Learn From Them

We often think of rituals as grand or ceremonial, such as weddings, holidays, and cultural traditions. But sometimes, the most powerful rituals are the quiet, everyday acts that signal safety, belonging, and the freedom to make meaning. These rituals have the potential to transform our lives, inspiring us to explore our own personal rituals for growth and self-discovery.

From Trepidation to Connection

Working with kids wasn't part of my plan. My experience in mental health has always been with adults, particularly veterans who fell somewhere on the spectrum from anxiety and depression to PTSD and moral injury.

Despite having kids of my own, I didn't think I was prepared to work with children. So when they were sent to me in training, I wasn't sure I'd be capable, and I surely didn't see the gift I was being given.

One by one, kids found their way to my office, and my trepidation was quickly outpaced by

the simple desire to create a safe enough space for connection to occur. In truth, what I learned almost immediately was that I had to do very little, but I did have to pay attention. It was through paying attention to their movements, facial expressions, and actions that I learned how to orient myself to them rather than the other way around. Of course, this is not groundbreaking material. The fact that children operate differently from adults, and that the therapeutic environment should meet individuals where they are, is well documented. However, that is not what struck me; what struck me was the way children innately use ritual as part of their experience, possibly without even realizing it, and how those behaviors might be beneficial for adults.

“Children don’t move or experience the world in the same way adults do.”

Fewer words. More play. More drawing, more movement, more spaciousness to just be. Creating space for those things to occur is precisely how the windows and doors to their consciousness open. First, the curtains part, and then over time, the windows and doors creak open, until finally, through symbol and storytelling, they reveal what's happening in their inner world (Landreth, 2012).

The Shoes Come Off- Ritual, Symbology and Meaning-making

What I have repeatedly found fascinating is the ritual of removing their shoes.

Every single child, up to about age 14, who has come into my office has, at one point or another,  begun the ritual of removing their shoes. Some take them off at the first meeting; others wait a session or two. Often enough, they remove their shoes at the threshold, eager to slip out of the confines of their footwear.

It's always the same: Shoes off at the start and shoes back on the last thing before leaving. The shoes were often, also at the threshold, holding on to every last second before transitioning back to the outside world.

“Shoes are for the outside world… to me, removing them says, I’m safe enough to slow down here.”

Shoes protect us, prepare us for movement, and meet social expectations of readiness. Once removed, they become a symbol of arrival, no longer needing to surrender to external demands. According to This Jungian Life (2025), "Exploring shoes in cultural narratives reveals their role in expressing and shaping psyche. Whether it's the first tiny black patent leather shoes for a holiday or the first ski boots, their presence in childhood marks key moments of growth and self-discovery. Shoes empower us to adventure forward by protecting our vulnerable feet in innumerable styles that reflect the way we wish to be seen. Without realizing it, every step reveals where we've come from and where we are heading."

Throughout history, shoes have represented identities, transformation, and change. The types of shoes we wear demonstrate to ourselves and others our capacities, talents, and roles. They also represent the psychological armor we wear against the external world, and act as a metaphor for crossing a boundary or threshold. Therefore, being shoeless reveals both vulnerability and the capacity for transcending and change (This Jungian Life, 2025).

The Shift Around Adolescence

Somewhere between the ages of 13 and 14, I noticed the shoes typically stopped coming off. And with the retained footwear, I noticed an increased sense of self-consciousness about the space. 

Symbolic play gives way to social expectations and the unspoken question: “What am I supposed to be doing here?”

With that comes the intellectualization of experience. And while reflecting on an experience has its place, it can also prevent us from truly feeling and processing it. We try to fit our emotions into tidy little boxes that "make sense," even when they don't (Landreth, 2012).

What We Can Learn

Kicking off shoes is more than comfort; it's a ritual-a marker of transition from one mode of being to another. It's not just about shoes. It's about the way children can move, play, draw, and explore space, trusting their bodies to guide them toward meaning. Play therapy

enables the integration of symbol and sensation long before words arrive (Homeyer & Sweeney, 2017). While this idea is accurate for children, it can also be true for adults, as is seen in psychedelic experiences where the liminality and numinosity allow for transformation in a way that words fall short of describing. Rituals mark the beginning and end of experiences, providing a sense of containment that enables us to be fully present in an experience and benefits our psychological process through meaning-making (Roseby et al., 2025). 

“For children, play is serious business. What if that is true for adults, too?”

It doesn't mean you have to take your shoes off at your next session, but… what if you did? What if you did not care what anyone thought about what "being comfortable" means to you? What if you created your ow

n ritual for crossing from the outside world into the inside, allowing yourself containment and intentional meaning-making? By doing so, you can take control of your emotional expression and empower yourself to navigate life's transitions in a way that feels authentic to you. What if you moved however you wanted? Sketched your feelings instead of explaining them? Described them in your body instead of in your mind?

Because sometimes, there aren't the right words yet.

What would it feel like to be in the presence of someone whom you trusted enough to hold you in that kind of space?

Perhaps the real work, for both children and adults, is using curiosity and ritual to attend to the thresholds- making safe the spaces where transformation happens. What if we embrace our inquisitiveness and the open-mindedness to discover the rituals that can help us process our experiences through the use of symbology alongside our intellectual capacities? We may need to "take off our shoes" and get down to the business of meaning-making. Information on this website is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or mental health advice. Viewing this site or contacting us does not, by itself, create a counseling relationship.

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References 

Landreth, G. L. (2012). Play therapy: The art of the relationship (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Homeyer, L. E., & Sweeney, D. S. (2017). Sandtray therapy: A practical manual (3rd ed.). Routledge.Roseby, W., Joukhadar, Z., Sant'Ercole, C., Gillman, J., & Bright, S. J. (2025). Enhanced meaning in life following psychedelic use. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1580663.      https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1580663

This Jungian Life. (2025). Shoes as symbols. https://thisjungianlife.com/shoes-as-symbols/