Emotional Thinking, Symbolic representation, Pretend Play and Abstract Thinking

1. Emotional Thinking, Symbolic representation, Pretend Play and Abstract Thinking Helping a child experience, develop and express feelings and ideas Do not use or distribute without written permission.

2. Symbol Representation • Using words and objects as symbols • Representing wishes, feelings, intentions or ideas • Express and consider ideas separately from immediate experience • Use of symbols in place of actions • Employ symbolic ideas (eg. Character of story or movie) to negotiate a wide range of emotions Do not use or distribute without written permission.

3. Pretend Play and Metaphor • Move from every day events and physical structure to symbolically pretending about emotional ideas • Dolls hugging, animals fighting, hiding from scary monsters • Using imagination to confront emotional ideas • Acting out past experiences or fantasies • Safe zone to work on multiple emotional experiences – pretend to be anything they want to be • Can also be relayed through language • May express emotions symbolically by employing a phrase from a favorite character Do not use or distribute without written permission.

4. Weakness in Play Imagination • Behaviors are in the “here and now” • Cannot use language to convey emotion, still tied to action response • Difficult to think across time; past, present and future • Cannot use symbols to cope with stress • Emotions less understood by play partners • Difficult to learn to postpone their gratification, cope with disappointment and adapt to unexpected change Do not use or distribute without written permission.

5. Common Themes Used in Play • In addition to expanding the depth of your child’s feelings, you need to help him broaden the range of his feelings. • Many children are comfortable with only a narrow band of feelings. • They may play out only themes of compliant niceness, or only themes of anger and aggression, or only themes of dependence. • Even if their familiar themes are in the “not so good” category, it is what they know and what they will use. Important to expand to build flexibility and decrease rigidity. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

6. Theme 1: Nurturance and Dependency • Children are preoccupied with nurturance and dependency because they are so dependent on their parents, so it’s not surprising to see these feelings surface in their play. • Children will frequently revisit earlier themes of nurturance and dependency in the face of challenge in growth and development. • Children who need to separate to individuate will frequently switch from a nurturing theme to a more powerful theme and go back and forth. • Children with developmental delay will frequently revisit this theme upon the arrival of a new baby in the home. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

7. Theme 2: Pleasure and excitement • Important to use high affect and drama depending on child’s level of arousal. • Important to show your joy in your child’s ideas and activity participation. • No idea is bad even if the oversized teddy bear will not fit in the matchbox car. • We facilitate, we do not judge or take over the child’s process. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

8. Theme 3: Curiosity • As your child tunes in more and more to the outside world, you will find him playing games that involve looking for things, searching for hidden treasures, exploring new spaces. • They might go through an explorative phase again as they gain more detail about objects and its purposes and gain what they have missed before. • Important to give time for renewed efforts of exploration. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

9. Theme 4: Power and assertiveness • All children feel powerless in the world; children with special needs even more so. • Will frequently see an overuse of a sense of power in their play – do not be alarmed, it is a way of exploring what it feels like and they need to feel the intensity in order to make sense of it. • When in pretend, working through a relational issue, stay in pretend – the reality frequently too harsh for the child and they would tend to avoid when it comes too close for comfort. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

10. Theme 5: Anger and Aggression • Your child is using play to express aggression. • Remember that this is a safe way of exploring this important emotion, and the only acceptable, way to express this impulse. • Child has to experience anger in order to deal with it in an acceptable way • The therapist has to come to terms with their own experiences of anger, so as to not over-identify in the child’s play and act according to own needs. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

11. Theme 6: Limit Setting • Limit-setting play is about containing feelings – aggressive feelings, excited feelings, deep, yearning feelings. • So important not to go in behavioral mode when child becomes upset when boundaries are drawn. • Need to process limits with therapist present in time-in, not time out. • Discipline needs to hold the same rules for all siblings in household. House meetings may explain why some leniencies are afforded to each sibling, typically developing or not. These leniencies will depend on individual differences. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

12. Theme 7: Fears and Anxieties • There are some common anxieties that children feel during their developing years. • Fear of separation, fear of injury, fear of catastrophe. • These fears become much larger in the developing mind than reality suggests. • Important that the child processes through these with different play scenarios. • Therapist has to carefully assess avoidance behaviors. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

13. Theme 8: Love, Empathy, and Concern for Others • As your child begins to feel comfortable relating with others, his capacity to feel love and empathy will grow. • Do not assume that empathy is not available, when sensory processing challenges prevent the child from considering someone else’s feelings. • Role Play, role play, role play, encourage switching of roles – encourage flexibility in thinking. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

14. Theme 9: Control • “I’m the boss!” • What your child can not control in real life, he sometimes makes up for in play. • Important to start seeing this in play • Encourage some risk taking behavior • Validate control in play even when “over the top” • Important to be “free” to express in safety of pretend play Do not use or distribute without written permission.

15. Approaches to Avoid During Pretend Play • Don’t over direct; follow your child’s lead. • Don’t slip into parallel play or running commentary; become a character in the drama. • Don’t feel embarrassed or stymied. • Avoid repetition. • Don’t talk mechanically or too slowly. • Don’t encourage rote learning. Because the learning is rote – sheer memorization – it reinforces the child’s tendency toward mechanical repetition. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

16. Logical Thinking Helping a Child Connect Ideas and Develop a Logical Understanding of the World Do not use or distribute without written permission.

17. Crucial Ability • Bridging symbolic ideas • Working towards logical connections and reasoning • Distinguish between own ideas and ideas in the outer real world; clearer idea of reality vs. fantasy • Better distinguish own feelings from feelings of others • Keen interest in why things occur • Clearer understanding of motivations and consequences of behavior Do not use or distribute without written permission.

18. Development • Begins to organize ideas, grouping and connecting them • Make connections between ideas and feelings • Enact general principles from house or community rules • Opportunity to reflect and plan Do not use or distribute without written permission.

19. Play • Link one idea to the next – gradually more complex • Exchange ideas with play partner • Incorporate other’s ideas into a shared story • Elaborate fantasy – gaining complexity and detail • With emotional challenge – may counter with another emotional idea • Gradually able to plan ahead Do not use or distribute without written permission.

20. Rule Based Games • Corrected when transgressing rules • Observation and empathy grows • Anticipate consequences of their actions • Develop concept of fairness • Combine or contrast own feelings with others • Playing games with more complex rules • Hope of winning; fear of losing • Waiting for their turn • Dealing with setbacks • Modulate feelings around winning Do not use or distribute without written permission.

21. Pre-academic Skill • Concepts of quantity; more or less • Connections across time or space • Become more interested in facts • Lengthens process of thinking, weighing different options and making conclusions • Decrease in impulsive decisions and actions • More stable regulation of mood • Equipped with potential to establish and sustain friendships Do not use or distribute without written permission.

22. Weakness • May misunderstand humor, irony, deception, and malicious intent • Vulnerable to being bullied • Attempts to rationalize behavior or argue their point • Tied up in convoluted, irrelevant reasons and unproductive conversations • Black-or-white, all-or-nothing determinations • Difficult to convince them of alternatives or negotiate compromises • Difficulty identifying broad categories • Difficulties with self perception and contemplating other’s perception with self • Difficulty building relationships • May become lonely and isolated • May act without regard for others Do not use or distribute without written permission.

23. Adaptive Behavior • Requires flexibility and ability to use inferential thinking • Practice: • Spontaneous and varied interactions • Forming hypothesis • Making informed guesses • Forming suppositions • Move beyond concrete thinking to abstract reasoning Do not use or distribute without written permission.

24. Bridging That Makes Sense • When your child closes a symbolic circle – by building on your idea in pretend play or by responding logically to your words with words of his own – he makes a bridge between his ideas and yours, between his internal world and yours. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

25. Focus on Emotional Level, Not Cognitive Ability • In this last stage you want to help your child develop as rich a drama with as many feelings and ideas as possible. • The way to accomplish this goal is to be even more interactive, to engage in, talk about, question, and challenge what your child says and does. • Respond to the emotion that underlies your child’s comments. • Your response will heighten the meaning of the words and symbols and encourage your child to continue. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

26. Keep Circles Going • Each time your child closes a circle, open another one by saying something else, because the real goal is not to have islands of conversation, but to have an ongoing dialogue. • Don’t limit your circle closing to pretend play. Do it all the time. • Use everything your child does as an opportunity for conversation. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

27. Open Ended Questions • When you are talking with your child – as a character in a drama or as yourself – it’s helpful to ask open-ended questions. • If you keep your questions broad and open-ended your child is free to supply his own answers. • If your child is having trouble with this kind of dialogue, if he has difficulty sustaining a conversation and loses interest after one or two circles, go back to building your conversations around your actions. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

28. The Danger of Parallel Conversation • The main thing to watch out for as you help your child to close symbolic circles is parallel conversation. • Although it may have the appearance of real engagement, in parallel conversation the child is actually talking to himself, while the therapist tailors his words to the child’s. • Meaning and information is to be shared back and forth, including opinions and ideas. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

29. Emotions Drive Connections • Help your child build logical bridges in his play by introducing conflict and challenge. • Emotion motivates us - It gives meaning to our activities. • Emotions drive a connection between what we think, what we say, and what we do. • You can think of attention as the persistence of a wish or an emotion; the more persistent your emotion, the more attentive you are. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

30. Interest and Emotion • To induce emotion, it’s not always necessary to introduce conflict. • Equally effective is working with the emotions that are already there. • The more you can talk to your child about subjects that genuinely interest him, the more involved and logical he will be. • The key is to use your child’s interests but broaden them. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

31. Assist in the Bridging • Children with communication difficulties often don’t recognize when their minds have sped from one idea to the next because the bridge between ideas is missing. • Your goal is not to keep your child talking about the first subject, but to help him follow his own thoughts in a logical way. • Link sequences of events together for your child • Take some piece of previous activity to next activity of interest and assist in bridging • When switching occurs, use “I am confused?” Do not use or distribute without written permission.

32. Using Characters in Play • Help your child build a bridge between ideas by creating pretend characters that are complex rather than simply black or white. • It is equally helpful to create characters with quirks. • It helps to have information of experiences from the home environment, so you could add some “real life” to the character you are playing. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

33. Sustaining the Feelings • Help your child understand complexity by using two voices, one for the pretend character and one for yourself. • Do not rush into solving the feeling by fixing, comforting, or reassuring too quickly. • Sustain the feeling as long as possible to help your child feel it more clearly. • As long as the child remains engaged, the unsettling experience of an emotion can hold many successful fruits. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

34. Silliness • Children would try to avoid a difficult subject by escaping into silly play or nonsense. • Deal with this behavior by acknowledging what he’s doing in a supportive, playful way. • Or join into the silliness on an emotional level, though stay close to the truth in simple narrative. • Silliness mostly has to do with anxiety. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

35. From One Idea to Another • It is common for children to race from idea to idea so fast that you can not follow along. • When you encounter this fragmentation you have some choices. • Try to get your child to elaborate on one idea at a time, asking him to stop each time he races on to a new one. • Your second choice is to try to pick up the emotional tone of his fragmented chatter. • You could also narrate the situation back to the child and leave the “ball in his court” to pick up the sequence and move forward. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

36. Visual Support • If you are unable to sustain your child’s attention, you can add visual support. • Write down his ideas on a series of small cards, one idea per card, using just a few simple words or line drawings. • Use a white board or a sketch pad. • Good to keep a visual journal of ideas and sequences to support the child’s learning Do not use or distribute without written permission.

37. Questions • Questions that begin with “what,” “when,” “where,” “how,” and “why” are abstract. • Before a child can answer these questions, he must be able to manipulate numerous ideas in his mind. • “Why” questions are the most complex of all because they require causal thinking about his own wishes, desires, or feelings. • Maintain focus on “how” questions • Too many questions provoke performance anxiety. When this occurs, stick to statements. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

38. More on Questions. • Help your child master abstract questions by rephrasing the questions in an easier form. • It may also help your child to give him clues about the answer. • Even rejecting your question may help your child to retrieve another answer. • It is not usually a problem with memory, but a problem with retrieval or meaning that makes responding difficult. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

39. Broad Themes and Details • One more component of high-level abstract thinking is the ability to understand broad themes as well as details, for these two aspects work together to describe a situation fully. • Broad themes and details also show up in your child’s pretend play dramas. Who rides which horse and which army wins the battle are the details of the story. The underlying emotions – competition, aggression, loss, and so on – are the broad themes. • The more you encourage your child to reflect on both details and broad themes, the more flexible his thinking will become. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

40. Fluently Thinking • To become a fully fluent thinker, your child has to learn the logic of cause and effect. • Anytime you negotiate with your child around his needs (bedtime, more candy, not eating his dinner), he will automatically use causal thinking. • Everyday life becomes fertile ground for developing level 6 Do not use or distribute without written permission.

41. Practice to Build Neural Pathways That Will Stay. • Concepts of relationship – bigger/smaller, more than/less than, sooner/later, closer/farther, and so on – are so automatic that we don’t think about them, but children have to learn them through practice. • Do not take over their process by judging before they have experienced it. • Resist your temptation to invoke rules at highly motivated moments. Do not use or distribute without written permission.

42. Maude Le Roux, OTR/L, SIPT, IMC Website • https://maudeleroux.com/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ATAMaudeLerouxOT/ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/a-total-approach Blog http://www.maude-leroux.com/