13/09/2026
“If you write a goal about eye contact near me, I will throw something at you.” 😂
Such an amazing weekend of learning about sensory processing with The Occuplaytional Therapist and diving deeper into relationship-based, developmental, child-led practice through ICDL - Home of DIRFloortime
Following the child’s lead, joining them where they are, building connection and using that relationship to support development.
SO much to bring back to Busy Bees. 💛🐝🎶
I’ve been in Queensland all weekend at the DIRFloortime 101 training. Last year I met Jeff Guenzel, the CEO, at another training that both of us attended here in Australia, and we completely hit it off. But, I’m not personally Floortime trained (despite Jeff’s enthusiasm that I become so!) or know everything about Floortime. I was here to speak about sensory processing and about reframing behavioral concerns as to what might be underneath. And then I stuck around for the rest of the training and wrote down some quotes I really enjoyed and that jumped out at me:
“This has nothing to do with trying to elicit compliance. I actually want to help support a child in being able to be noncompliant just as much as I want them to be able to be compliant, because I want them to be able to have the capacity to choose.”
“If you have a child who is stimming, the goal isn’t to play with a cool toy so they stop doing what they’re doing and play with you. It would be to join them in what they’re doing and make a connection”
“We’re not about ‘good job buddy’ here, because that’s about performance. We might be about celebrating in that moment of joy with that child. We’re not handing down a judgment to them, even a ‘positive’ one like ‘good job’”
“We do not want to make Autistic kids look ‘normal’ [neurotypical/allistic]. We want to help them develop into who they are as Autistic individuals”
“If you write a goal about eye contact near me, I will throw something at you”
“The DSM definition of autism only captures a sliver of the lived experiences of autism. (Goes on to talk about autoimmune disorders, hypermobility/core strength/EDS, sensory processing, dyspraxia/apraxia)”
Quoting the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network about needing to balance therapeutic intervention with children just having time to be children and that they don’t end up with hours of therapies and no time to be a kid just because they are Autistic
“Clinicians tend to shy away from introducing an approach like this that relies on the parents carrying it over at home because the clinicians are worried that it will increase parental stress. In actuality, randomized controlled trials keep showing that Floortime approaches decrease parental stress.”
“If the child is stimming, or playing the same thing over and over again, we don’t join in with them thinking ‘I’ll join them so I can change their play’. We don’t have that manipulative mindset. Maybe someday we will play with them in new ways, it’s true, but we just can’t have that in our minds while we’re approaching them. If they’re lining things up, we’re joining it so that we can approach them and find who they are, and what it means in their world. Not to try to change it. To try to know them.”
ICDL - Home of DIRFloortime has a conference coming up in October that’s ten days long, online, and ends up with something like sixty hours of professional development credit if you attended absolutely everything. In our ongoing partnership, they’ve given me a code to share with you guys for 15% off the registration price — OCCUPLAY — and right now it’s still early bird pricing so there’s 20% more off on top of that.
If you already know about Floortime, are interested in learning more, or just recognize the principles of honoring the child’s individual differences and prioritizing your relationship with them through child-led play, you might find something at the Floortime conference worth checking out!
And thank you beautiful Queensland for having me! I’ll be back in a month to see Rockhampton! And someday I’ll actually get to the home of Bluey 😍
[image description: a kind of crummy quality phone picture of a beautiful event, last night we were eating at a restaurant at the Gold Coast and found out they do fireworks out over the water! It shows some tents of like the little market down along the waterfront, crowds of people gathered to watch, the dark night sky, and a flashing firework in the sky. End description.]
