Dr. Stanley Greenspan, the creator of The Greenspan Floortime Approach®, outlined essential principles for parents to handle challenging behaviors, such as temper tantrums, meltdowns, aggression, perseveration, or self-absorption, by focusing on a strategy that is both responsive to the child’s emotional needs and firmness.
The core principle for setting limits is to be gentle but firm and engage in lots of back and forth interaction around the issue/moment. This method ensures that while boundaries are maintained, the relationship and the child’s emotional development remain the priority. This doesn’t mean we ‘give in’ or “agree with them”, but it does mean we listen and show that we understand.
According to Dr. Greenspan’s body of work, there are 6 main steps that help with these behavioral expressions while also supporting Social-Emotional Growth:
1. “Give before you Expect”: Build and/or Deepen Relationships of Trust and Respect
The first and most critical step is to consistently engage in Greenspan Floortime®, because it establishes trust and respect between you and your child. This means that setting aside time daily to ‘listen’ to your child by connecting with them around their interests essentially shows them that are able and willing to adapt to their needs and in turn they will be more likely to adapt to yours.
When setting limits, Dr. Greenspan advised to always do more Greenspan Floortime®, and increase the amount of Greenspan Floortime® proportionally to the limit setting. This ensures that the disciplinary moments are balanced by positive, nurturing interaction.
For example, if you’ve just come home from work and start telling your child what to, you can expect resistance, rigidity, and even meltdowns. However, if you spend the first 20 minutes engaging with your child around their interests/play, then they will be more receptive to the directions/expectations/boundaries afterward. Sometimes even more rebuilding and connecting with your child will be necessary if the relationship is already tenuous or volatile.
2. Practice and Preparation (All Caregivers Must be on the Same Page)
The approach to preparation depends on the child’s verbal abilities:
- For verbal children: Parents should have problem-solving discussions and practice things ahead of time. Use playful conversations and pretend play to help them predict and anticipate “what could happen?”
- For non-speaking children: Parents must be hyper empathetic and gradual when exposing their child to difficult scenarios. The focus should be on anticipating what challenges and expectations we are exposing them to, and how to prevent overstimulation versus becoming more directive, punitive, or rigid after they start acting out. If that is not an option, then the goal is to focus on counter regulating the child and getting them back to a calm ‘baseline’ state while staying emotionally engaged with them.
- How we set limits should be based on the child’s developmental communication abilities and not simply their age.
3. Empathize with Feelings
It is equally important to always empathize with the child’s feelings. Understanding and acknowledging the child’s emotional state helps them feel seen, which is a key component of the gentle side of limit-setting. Even if you disagree with what they are expressing in the moment, showing them you understand them is an important and necessary component for showing them the respect you would like in turn. Acknowledging and showing understanding of their emotions DOES NOT mean you are agreeing with them or giving in.
4. Implement Small, Gradual Steps
Parents should take expectations/challenges step by step and ensure they make the steps small. This focus on small gains allows the child to master new expectations incrementally without becoming overwhelmed. For example, if you are starting a new school or a new classroom, then first spending time in the classroom and/or on the playground with just the teacher, or just you and your child, will help them transition into the new environment more easily. Many schools already offer some version of this.
5. Managing Perseverations Interactively
For challenging behaviors related to obsessions/perseverations/repetitive actions, the focus should be on meeting the child within their world and joining them so that you are part of the experience. Parents should focus in on the child’s activity and playfully become part of it and even help the child perform it in a more socially interactive manner. The goal is to shift the emphasis toward using the behavior interactively to engage the child, rather than simply trying to stop the behavior outright or allowing them to become more rigid and anti-social within it.
6. Boundaries and Consequences Should Only be Applied When a Child is in a Regulated State.
When something happens and you feel a consequence is necessary…
- Listen to the child. Get as much information as possible by asking the right questions.
- You need to understand the child’s thinking and reasoning before you respond.
- If the child struggles to communicate with language, then try to understand the emotional and sensory components driving the behavior.
- Consequences may not have their intended impact on children with communication differences. They may not fully understand some of the logic and cause and effect elements of the consequence.
- Help (and gently guide) the child come to their own conclusions about their behavior.
- If they can handle it, ask questions about whether the child broke a rule, did something they were not allowed to, etc.
- If the conversation is shortly after the behavior, DO NOT discuss social-emotional consequences. It can lead to guilt and derail the conversation about the child’s feelings and what led to the behavior. Discuss the natural social outcomes/consequences of their actions later on.
- If the child is still in an emotionally heated moment, they will experience guilt if we push the emotional consequences of their actions. Guilt can perpetuate the behavior.
- Determine your response:
- Is a consequence necessary? Consider a discussion of future consequences, or a discussion of other ways the child can express themselves.
- If this is a repeat offence, then implement a previously discussed consequence.