What is Attunement?

Attunement, or emotional connectedness, is an essential component of any relationship, and as such, is probably the most essential part of Floortime. Attunement is being ‘in tune’ with your child’s emotional state, being ‘in it’ with them, and your child feeling that they are understood in that moment.

Attunement comes naturally to some people and is quite difficult for others. When we meet new people for the first time, sometimes we just have that feeling that “this person completely gets me“. This is attunement in that moment. Other times we get frustrated when a person just doesn’t seem to get it. We need to be the former for our children with developmental differences.

A large part of life for our children is not being able to communicate with us what is going on for them. This causes a tremendous amount of anxiety for them. The more we can be attuned with what they are experiencing in each moment, the more we can help to ease their anxiety.

What Happens With Attunement?

The complimentary .pdf document entitled, “10 Things You Can Do Now to support your child” that you receive when you sign up for blog updates at Affect Autism provides you with tips on applying the developmental approach with your child right away. When you are attuned with your child, all of these tips follow naturally and automatically.

When you are emotionally connected with your child, you automatically and intuitively…

Are You Feeling Emotionally Connected?

When you think about your relationship with your child, do you feel attuned with him or her? If you are struggling, take advice from the late Dr. Stanley Greenspan who created DIR/Floortime: He would suggest that you just sit back and observe your child with nothing else in your mind.

Observing your child means you are not judging his or her behaviour or holding an agenda in your head of what you want him or her to do. You are simply watching and noticing what your child is focused on, doing, or interested in. That’s it! If you can clear your mind of everything else, you should be able to attune yourself to the child.

Specific Examples of Emotional Connectedness

Personally, I find that I notice emotional connectedness–or lack thereof–in moments of transition. This is a time when our son is transitioning from one activity or place to another. It could mean going to school, leaving school, coming to the dinner table, or going to bed. It could mean being in a new place that is unfamiliar or meeting someone new.

For our son, he will tend to tense up and grab my hand tightly. He will slow down or even stop and pause. He will focus his eyes and start to mumble quiet scripts to himself. All of these signs I’ve noticed because I tune in to what he is experiencing in moments that are stressful to him.

If I rush him through his experience while he is experiencing this stress, I am ignoring what he is communicating to me through these signs. If I am in a hurry for him to enter into a new, unfamiliar restaurant or home to meet up with friends or family members, without respecting his experience of anxiety, he will have no choice but to react in a way I likely find unpleasant to deal with–perhaps a tantrum.

Rather, I want to respect him and be attuned to what he is experiencing. I can slow down and talk about what will happen in advance. I can hold out my hand for him to grab when he is ready. I can encourage him to come patiently without making him feel forced or rushed, and I can offer him an escape if he is feeling overwhelmed, all in advance of starting this transition. That is tuning in to his emotional experience.

Some examples of attunement

Occupational therapist and DIR Expert and Training Leader, Maude LeRoux, gives some great examples (‘first’ and ‘second’ ideas) of attunement in her recent blog, “5 Important Ideas to Ease Going Back to School“.

Another DIR Expert and Training Leader, Dr. Gil Tippy posted a nice video recently about the extremely inconvenient child that is worth a view. He concludes that this child is a great reflection for us to become aware of own weaknesses. This child can really help us learn how important attunement is when everything else you thought you know doesn’t work. Please check it out!

Attuned Families in Toronto has a 3-video series on Attunement you can view here.

Do you feel like you have a better grasp on what it means to be attuned, or emotionally connected to your child? Please give us your examples of your moments of joys or struggles being emotionally connected with your child in the comments section below.

Until next time… here’s to affecting autism through playful interactions!

Sign up for our updates

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP You can be assured that we will not share your information.

Success!