Stumbling Blocks in Floortime at FEDC 3: Encouraging Intentional Emotional Interactions

Episode 16

This episode we continue with our series on stumbling blocks that parents come across when trying to play with their children, and how to move past them. The focus will be on functional emotional developmental capacity (FEDC) 3 which is Intentionality and Two-Way Communication, or emotional interactions. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, but hopefully you will find some helpful suggestions here.

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FEDC 3 is all about getting a good rhythm of non verbal, affective gesturing and emotional signalling between you and your child. You want to be sending a communication, receiving a communication back, responding to it, and see the child responding back. These are called circles of communication, and are the precursor to regulating complex emotions.

Children with developmental differences can appear to struggle to sustain these communication circles, only having brief interactions and then going back to what they were doing*. If they do have interactions with others at this capacity, the child may mostly respond to caregivers rather than initiate the interaction.

* See the Double Empathy Problem

At this capacity, as a result of missing out on using emotional signalling, or the child being continually misunderstood, a child might hit or scream to get what they want because they find it difficult to express their needs without screaming or crying out of frustration. Thus, their behaviour may be more impulsive and unpredictable.

A child who struggles with the back-and-forth circles of communication hasn’t yet developed the capacity to co-regulate and instead can lash out when they don’t get what they want. When we are unable to read the emotional signalling and gesturing in another person, we miss out on all of the non verbal cues that can guide behaviour.

Here, we have to work on strengthening the earlier capacity of engagement by making it more robust using a lot of affect, fewer words, gesturing and facial expression. When the child is motivated and interested, engaging with you, and you pull the child into an interaction with these non verbal techniques, the child is learning about emotional signalling because they are emotionally involved.

This is why it is so important to find out what is emotionally meaningful to the child and follow their lead into that emotional window of interest.

TIPS:

• As soon as the child gets upset hitting, kicking, or screaming, you have dropped back down to functional emotional developmental capacity (FEDC) 1 and need to refer to the techniques described in our co-regulation episodes to support the child’s regulation.
• Many parents immediately get reactive when their child loses their temper, but the best thing to do is to stay calm and be very objectively observant and curious of what is happening; mirror back what you see to the child with empathy by showing a facial expression of understanding, a sad face, a nod, and/or saying “I see you are very upset. It’s so hard“, etc.
• Accept that your child is upset and distressed and let it be ok; everyone is entitled to their feelings.
• Avoid “teaching the child a lesson” or explaining why the child need not be upset; instead, focus only on the fact that you are supporting the child who is very upset and that you empathize and acknowledge that they are upset.
• Ideally, sit with the child patiently until the child works through being upset with the body language that you are there, accepting of their emotions, and are there with them until they work through it with your support; don’t rush the child through their emotions.
• If the child is harming you, themself, or someone else, you may have to simply hold them tightly and calming, soothing them with empathy and acceptance or re-direct the kicking and hitting to a pillow, a mat, or a safe-zone where they can ram into soft foam until the frustration passes.

There could be many reasons why you have challenges with the interaction between you and your child. One reason could be that the child’s sensory issues interfere, so we want to keep that individual or sensory profile in mind.

TIPS:

• We want to scaffold for the child to make it easier for them to interact with you. We can do this by strengthening the basic engagement with affect and non verbal communication such as gestures and facial expression. Especially where the child is verbal, we need to use less words and make it more about the non verbal communication to get the engagement and interactions more robust.
  • EXAMPLE: Our son might initiate an interaction with me by telling me, “Train was on the track”. I could respond verbally, but to get a more robust engagement and interaction I could open my eyes wider and nod, saying, “Oh!” with enthusiasm then eagerly asking, “and…?” or I could look puzzled and gesture with shrugged shoulders and hands out as if to say “I don’t know” or “Where?” while asking “Going fast or slow?” (i.e., minimal language). Both of these tell the child I am waiting for a response.
• With children who have sensory challenges, we can often strengthen the engagement by activating more of their sensory systems. This means getting the child to move around more, using more of their body and for you to use your body as well in play. The more their whole body is engaged, the stronger the engagement at FEDC 2 and the more ready they are for interaction and back-and-forth communication at FEDC 3.
  • EXAMPLE: In our train example, my son might answer “slow!” and I could move like a train very slowly, peddling my arms while making a, “chugga chugga” train sound and ask “Like this?!” This will bring the thought out of his head into the present moment and into three-dimensional space in front of him (the visual-spatial plane). I can request, “Show Mama!” and he might move with me which will activate his vestibular system, or we might push against the wall activating his proprioceptive system.
• We really want to be following the child’s lead, doing something that interests the child and gets their “gleam in the eye,” that is, we see their face light up with pleasure; ideally you are the object of interest so you do what you have to do to be funny, or whatever your child enjoys.
  • EXAMPLE: “Peek-a-boo” is usually a hit with most children. You can cater it to your child’s particular style. You might hide under a sheet as you crawl towards them teasing, “I’m…coming…to…you…” in a playful voice and then playfully pop out of the sheet with a big smile. Next, the child might try to cover you up again, or even take a turn themself, then you have some circles of communication starting.

Sometimes it might feel like such hard work because your child never seems to initiate any interaction and only responds to you. The initiation will come when the earlier capacities are strengthened. Continue to work on the functional emotional developmental capacities of regulating (FEDC 1) and engagement (FEDC 2) by encouraging warm, affective, comforting interactions with your child around what they are motivated by. The more robust these early capacities become, the more likely your child will start initiating interactions with you.

TIPS:

• Use high affect and gesturing with facial expressions and body language to strengthen the engagement.
• Pull the child into engagement and interaction by activating more sensory systems through body play and using your own body as a tool by making a tunnel with your legs apart, moving closer and further away playfully, hiding, moving, etc.
• Bring the engagement into the three-dimensional space by acting out what you are doing for the child to see.
• Slow down the interaction and stretch out each step; for example, Dad will wrap our son up in the blankets on the bed and then he’ll take a turn; he can slow it down by asking “Should I go fast or slow?” and then say “Ok! 1…2…3… here…I…go!” instead of just rolling right away.

When a child is scripted, we want to support their language development. We do this by strengthening the capacity for emotional signalling non verbally, using gestures and facial expression.

TIPS: 

• Dr. Greenspan uses an example of a child who repeats “I WANT A COOKIE! I WANT A COOKIE!” By responding using high affect and asking “Oh! Which one? This one or this one?!” the child has to think more. You can gesture and show them by emphatically sticking one out as you say “This one?” then pull it back and stick the other one out to ask “or this one?“

• Instead of focusing on the child’s words, bring it to life and make it interactive with play materials to enact out what they are scripting; for instance, our son repeats the phrase “James fell in the water“, recalling a scene from Thomas and Friends. I could get a blue towel and exclaim “Wait! Let me get the water!…was it a little puddle or a big lake?” then put the small or large blue towel on the ground and physically fall on to it to make it interactive.

• If the child doesn’t respond or participate, perhaps it is not interesting to them or it is too challenging for them to respond, developmentally, or due to sensory issues. Don’t give up. Keep at it with another interest of theirs, being interactive and playful using high affect, minimal language, gestures and facial expressions to pull the child in to an interaction.

• You could also use the “Wait? I thought it was ____?” when they recite a repeated script. For instance, when my son says “James fell in the water.” I could respond by saying, “Wait? I thought it was Percy!” which will make them think and hopefully respond. You will come to learn what kind of affect your child is enticed by. Our son is drawn in by sound effects and very expressive exciting statements such as “WHAT is THAT?!” or simply a big gasp with a surprised expression on my face.

• Another example Dr. Greenspan used was the child who will repeat “Want to go outside!” so you bring the child to the door and say with high affect “Out?! Or in?!” Then if you see they really want to go outside you can repeat, “Out? Out? OUT? Or in?” while gesturing the “out” with high affect to help the child connect the purpose of the word with the action of walking out the door.
• See more information about Gestalt Language Processing in this episode.

I hope you now better understand how to foster emotional interactions with your child while getting shared attention, and engaging and relating with you. If you found this episode helpful, please consider sharing it on social media. By staying “in it” with your child, using high affect and pleasurable experiences–even being a “playful pest” to keep your child’s attention if you have to–you can support the child in developing these early capacities.

Other developmental approaches and even some behavioural interventions are successful at supporting children with developmental differences to reach FEDC 3, but DIRFloortime® can help children move beyond this capacity from the concrete world into the abstract. Next time we will focus on stumbling blocks at FEDC 4: Complex Communication and Shared Problem-solving.