Recess Therapy is a web series produced by Doing Things Media in which host and creator Julian Shapiro-Barnum interviews children between the ages of two and nine years old playing outside in New York City.

[1] After a 2020 study abroad program in Madrid was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shapiro-Barnum returned to Brooklyn where he became involved in the Black Lives Matter protests in New York City.

[1][2] In 2021, while editing dog videos for online production company Doing Things Media, Shapiro-Barnum decided to begin a project focused on children's ability to remain positive during the pandemic.

[3] Recess Therapy is a web series with short video clips published on Instagram and TikTok, linked to the full interviews which are made available on YouTube.

He was inspired how “kids in the playground remained joyous despite the pandemic’s perturbations.” In an interview with The New York Times, Shapiro-Barnum said, “The reason it’s called Recess Therapy is that the original idea was that I was going to bring things that I was struggling with to children and, like, get advice from them.”[1] Production shoots for Recess Therapy usually take about four and a half hours, yielding an average of fifteen interviews.