FAQs on Floor Time

1. What is Floor Time?

2. Is floor time always on the floor?

3. What it that floor time teaches my child?

4. What should I be doing, as a parent, during floor time?

5. What are some of the times throughout the day that “floor time” can occur?

6. What do we mean by two way communication?

7. What is shared meaning?

8. Why is emotional thinking so valuable?

What is Floor Time?

Greenspan uses what he refers to as “floor time” nurture all six levels of intelligence and emotional health at the same time…….He says that “During this time you'll be getting down on your child's level, joining him in his world and on his terms. You'll be encouraging him to be the boss of all the drama that unfolds, and will follow his lead as an ever-willing sidekick……When you are playing eye-to-eye with your child, you will generate a sense of equality that encourages him to engage with you.” Children emerge from this kind of play with greater self confidence and self awareness. This one-to-one, intentional time with a caring, relaxed and attuned adult is worth its weight in gold to a child. It is an investment in their inner world from which they will draw interest all through their lives. Through practicing these principals nature and nurture can interact toward sound emotional development. Without this structure the mind cannot function coherently, but only in a fragmented, jumbled fashion.

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Is floor time always on the floor?

Floor time is not always on the floor. It is a philosophy, a way of relating that can happen at any age and in any place. Floor time is a way of being with your child that is attuned and engaged. It is the conscious using of together time to enhance and foster sound emotional development and emotional well being. As your children get older the way of intimate, attuned relating that you began on the floor can turn  into hang out time, together time, talking time; genuine exchanges.

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What it that floor time teaches my child?

Self-regulation
Self regulation is a primary developmental task that allows the child to regulate themselves emotionally and physically. Regulating the self involves learning to organize sensations and the body's responses. From a jumble of sounds, sights, smells and tactile feelings, patterns begin to emerge. Sounds become rhythms, sights become recognizable images. And a child's growing ability to control body movements make it possible to cuddle, to follow an object or to stand up in his mother‘s lap. Physical and emotional self regulation is at the core of healthy functioning on all levels.

Engagement
Engagement represents the beginning of building the capacity for relationships. It begins with the child's emotional registering awareness of a fellow being's presence. Through using her capacity for calm attention, the baby now notices the tones, expressions, and actions of the people close to her. Before long she reacts to them with pleasure and starts building intimate relationships with those who love her. Without some degree of adoring wooing by at least one adult who cares about her, a child may never know the powerful intoxication of human closeness, never see other people as full human beings like herself, capable of feeling what she feels. This is the reason that, in studies of why some children develop the resilience that allows them to thrive in adverse circumstances that often sink others, the single most important buffering and sustaining factor in that child's life is at least one bonded relationship.

Intentionality
The ability to connect with at least one other person leads to intentionality – a willed exchange of signals and responses. Children who have successfully completed the passage into deep engagement gradually come to perceive that the actions passing between themselves and others are part of a two-way exchange. There is such a thing as intent in the world – a smile leads to a smile; outstretched arms lead to being picked up and so on.

Purpose and Interaction
Once a child connects sensation and emotion to intentional action, more complex, presymbolic communication equips him to find his way in the world of social interaction. He can now distinguish facial expressions and body gestures, and discriminate among basic emotions, distinguishing those meaning safety and comfort from those meaning danger. Life's most essential, emotional themes are identified and patterns of dealing with them formed.

Images, Ideas and Symbols
This is the stage of true symbolic expression. The child begins to deal not only with behavior but with ideas. She begins to understand that one thing can stand for another, that an image of something can represent the thing itself. This realization allows her to create an inner picture of her world. Moreover, these symbols (i.e. mental pictures, gestures, feeling states, or words) can represent not only her own intentions, wishes, and feelings but those of other people as well.

Emotional thinking
Experience now can be linked into sequences of inner images that allow a child to consider actions before carrying them out. Words and then ideas can link up to emotions: "I am sad because it‘s raining and I want to play outside." Time becomes more comprehensible, separated into past, present and future. These abilities together make up basic personality or ego functions. They include reality testing, impulse control, and ability to see connections among many different feeling and ideas.

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What should I be doing, as a parent, during floor time?

OBSERVATION
As we listen to and watch our child we are observing.  We're noticing facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body posture, and words (or lack of words).  These are all-important clues that help us determine how to approach our child. Is his behavior relaxed or outgoing? Is he or she withdrawn or uncommunicative or content and interactive?  

APPROACH - OPEN CIRCLES OF COMMUNICATION
This is when we tune into “where our child is”. We can open the circle of communication by tuning in on our child's emotional tone, then elaborating and building on whatever interests her or him at the moment. Just being with our children in this way is so powerful. They feel important if we feel they are important and give them our full and free interest and attention.

FOLLOW THE CHILD'S LEAD
Following a child's lead simply means being a supportive play partner who is an "assistant" to the child and allows the child to set the tone, direct the action, and create personal scenarios and dramas. This enhances the child's self-esteem and ability to be assertive, and gives the child a feeling that "I can have an impact on the world." As you support your child's play, he benefits from experiencing a sense of warmth, connectedness and being understood. 

EXTEND AND EXPAND PLAY
As you follow your child's lead, extending and expanding your child's play themes he will feel your interest and be strengthened and emboldened by it. This involves making supportive comments about your child's play without being intrusive. This helps your child express his own ideas and defines the direction of the drama or interactive play. Next, asking questions to stimulate creative thinking can keep the drama evolving, while helping the child clarify the emotional themes involved, e.g.: suppose your child is playing out super hero themes: Rather than ask critically, Why are those people so awful? You may respond empathetically, what does that “person” want? What are they doing now? 

CHILD CLOSES THE CIRCLE OF COMMUNICATIONS 
You open the circle of communication when you approach your child then your child closes the circle when she  builds on your comments and gestures with comments and gestures of her own. One circle flows into another, and many circles may be opened and closed in quick succession as you and your child interact. By building on each other's ideas and gestures, your child begins to appreciate and understand the value of two-way communication. From the work of Stanley Greenspan MD

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What are some of the times throughout the day that “floor time” can occur?

Your day is full of rich opportunities for floor time if you practice the interactive principles that we've been talking about while you do them; meal time, reading or tucking your child in bed at night, getting dressed and undressed and so on. For example, if you're riding in the car with your child engage with her, talk about what you see through the window, listen to what she's saying and expand and explore what she's coming up with. Or when you get dressed in the morning let your child think about the day she will be having and what she might need to wear for her various activities. Allow her to put her own clothes on, helping her only when she needs it. Let her take the time she needs to get dressed with dignity rather than yanking her little body all over to get clothes on. When buying, select clothes that she can put on herself that fit easily and naturally. Meal time is a wonderful time to talk about anything and everything. Share about the food you're eating and how you learned to prepare it. Was it Grandma's favorite receipt? Chat about what thoughts are going through your child's mind or what his day has been like. This is time to connect and relax together. Important family time. Time to share rituals and learn how to socialize naturally and intelligently .Bed time is very special and important to the child. Take time just to be with your child as they cuddle into bed and fall asleep. Chat about what is going through their little minds as they unwind. Read a favorite book together and let them go over the cares of their day as they drift off to sleep so they can relax. All children want to be cuddled into bed and kissed goodnight. This is a time sweet, reassuring physical contact.

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What do we mean by two way communication?

Two way communication is back and forth, you take an interest in your child and your child takes an interest in you. You open and close lots of small circles of communication and that go two ways. This kind of communicating also builds empathy.

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What is shared meaning?

Shared meaning means that both you and your child understand what's being talked about. You are able to feel your way into your child's universe and allow your child to feel his way into yours. This allows you to communicate in a meaningful way and teaches your child what it means to be in meaningful connection with another person. It involves listening and understanding and talking and expressing thoughts.

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Why is emotional thinking so valuable?
 Emotional thinking means that your child can conceptualize emotional states, put them into words and think about them. She can communicate her feeling states to another person and recognize that other people also have feelings. Emotional thinking allows your child to use her emotions to inform her decision making process, to guide her and give her information about herself and others. When she can link a series of inner images that are infused with emotion she can consider the consequences of her actions and choices.

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