Welcome to the Koi Wellness blog, your trusted resource for child development and empowerment. I'm Aya Porté, your occupational therapist (OT) with a passion for nurturing children's potential and supporting their families.

In my practice as an occupational therapist, I've witnessed the transformative power of a child-led approach. Contrary to common misconceptions, this approach isn't about giving children free rein.

Today, we’ll learn how child-led approaches empower children to take charge of their therapy sessions in meaningful ways.

What Is a Child-Led Approach?

Typically, families seek professional help because their child struggles to meet expectations at home, school, or in community activities. By empowering the child to lead sessions, I harness their interests to address crucial life skills, including communication, problem-solving, executive functioning, and abstract thinking, alongside the initial parental concerns. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Let's Clarify: A child-led approach doesn't mean giving free rein. To me, it means letting the child:

Express their preferences,
Showcase their abilities,
Reveal their interests.

By tapping into these insights, I tailor interventions that address crucial life skills while addressing the concerns that brought parents to seek occupational therapy in the first place.

Where Did My Child-Led Approach Come From?

My journey towards embracing this philosophy has been shaped by experiences grappling with engaging resistant children while navigating parental and personal expectations. Through ongoing education and immersion in approaches like DIR/Floortime, Trauma Informed Practices, Sensory Integration/Ayres Sensory Integration and Ross Green’s Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS), I've refined my practice to authentically align with my values, prioritizing the best interests of the child and their family.

What Is DIR/Floortime?

DIR/floortime is a dynamic, relationship-based model for individuals of all ages. I have found this approach to be particularly effective with working with children and their families. It has complimented and supported my work as an OT. I'm drawn to its holistic, three-dimensional approach, where we address needs from various angles—bottom up, top down, left to right, right to left—to support an individual's development.

By prioritizing relationships as the cornerstone of the therapeutic approach, we target functional emotional developmental capacities (FEDC), climbing the metaphorical developmental ladder toward individualized goals.

The Origin of Low-Hanging Fruit: The ‘No’s’

Another concept that has greatly influenced my approach is what I term "the low-hanging fruit 'no.'" Drawing from Ross Greene's collaborative problem-solving approaches. Greene describes three approaches to addressing problematic behavior:

Plan A: Imposing your will and desires onto your child. This is the traditional top-down approach to behavior management where the child is expected to meet the parents’ demands.

Plan B: Collaborative problem solving approach; where you work with your child to devise a plan that is realistic and achievable, and meets the expectations of both parent and child. Greene suggests families new to CPS to start with “low hanging fruit” situations that are not as emotionally charged or hot button items (fight for screen time, etc.)

Plan C: Low priority items, where the expectation can be dropped for the time being, so as to focus on what is important and begin implementing the CPS approach. The plan is to eventually “Plan B” these Plan Cs”

Ross Greene’s Approach to “Low-Hanging Fruit”

In Green’s approach, he talks about “low hanging fruit” issues to suggest parents to either:

Address those concerns first because the stakes are low, (Plan B) or
Disregard this issue for now, in order to address the primary concerns at hand. (Plan C)

I’ve taken this concept and applied it to the idea of “no” and allowing a child to say “no,” during low hanging fruit situations. Essentially, I took the most convenient and easy to implement aspects of “Plan B” (start with low hanging fruit) and “Plan C” (drop the expectation, for now) to create my “low hanging fruit ‘No’” into the concept of acknowledging the power of allowing children to say "no" during low-stakes situations.

Aya’s Low-Hanging Fruit: The ‘No’s’

Instead of resorting to conventional disciplinary methods, I strive to understand why a child might refuse a task and adapt my approach accordingly. I will cover more about this in my next blog post and share an actionable checklist to help you identify and overcome these 'no's.

For example, a lot of school-aged kids come to me due to concerns with their handwriting output. And most of those children do not like to do any handwriting activities. I frequently get told “No,” by children who I want to do handwriting with. In this situation, I have 3 conventional options at hand:

Authoritative Approach: Set clear boundaries and expectations while being responsive to the child's needs.
Consistent Discipline: Establish consistent consequences for disobedience or defiance, such as loss of privileges or time-outs.
Positive Reinforcement: Focus on praising and rewarding desired behaviors rather than punishing negative ones.

To be clear, there is no one right answer or approach when working with children. Each child is their own individual person and depending on the situation, the circumstances, I may even use the above strategies.

Understanding the Reasons Behind a Child’s Refusal

Whether it's asserting independence, testing boundaries, or communicating discomfort—understanding these reasons enables us to approach the situation from a different perspective. Rather than engaging in power struggles, I prioritize building rapport and fostering a positive therapist-child relationship grounded in trust, respect, and collaboration.

A child should have intrinsic motivation to do anything. I believe it’s the responsibility of the adult to meet the child where they are at and not have the child meet the high expectations of the adult.

Conclusion

Embracing a child-led approach not only facilitates healthy development and growth but also nurtures confidence, self-esteem, and intrinsic motivation in children. By allowing children to take the lead in a strategic way, we empower them to make choices, explore their interests, and actively engage in their therapy sessions.

Stay tuned for the follow-up article, where I'll provide practical strategies for parents to implement child-led approaches at home. If you want to learn more about how I can support you and your child, you can schedule a call here and connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Together, we can empower our children to thrive and unlock their full potential.

Understanding & Empowering Therapy: Child-Led Approaches