DIRFloortime® Capacity 5: Symbolic Play and Emotional Ideas

The fifth DIRFloortime® capacity is about symbols and emotional ideas. Something important begins to happen: the child can use play, an image, a role, an object that stands for something else, or a story to express what they feel and imagine. The child does more than roll a toy car and admire its movement: they play out danger, collision, rescue, loss, care, power, fear, anger, or return.

Symbolic play and thinking allow children to think about feelings at a safe distance. Speech increasingly becomes a means of communication, and words represent the meaning of objects, images, actions, or experiences. The child begins to give objects meaning: a block becomes a telephone, a stick a magic wand, or a train something that departs and leaves someone alone.

Parents may find the play strange: everything falls, everyone hides, cars keep exploding, trains depart without passengers, the doctor treats someone roughly, or a character repeatedly shuts a door. There may be meaning in all of this. Before we rush to make the story nicer or more socially acceptable, it helps to ask what the child may be expressing. Repetition may help hold an emotionally important theme the child can’t yet put into words. The question is what the child is trying to express, rather than whether they are playing correctly.

What to observe

Look for make-believe: an object becomes something else, or a character wants, fears, feels angry, rescues, hides, or gives orders. Is there an emotional theme? Can the child accept a small change? Do they include the adult as a partner or only use them for a mechanical action? Does the story evolve or remain fixed? These questions reveal more than simply deciding whether the child plays.

Symbolic play may develop unevenly in a neurodivergent child. They may repeat a cartoon scene without changing it, use figures without giving them feelings, create a story with one adult but lose that capacity in a group, or speak in complex sentences while avoiding emotional content. These are clues to where the child needs support. They don’t mean that symbolic play is missing altogether.

What you can do

The adult first follows the existing story. Remember: the child directs the play. If they repeatedly put a doll to bed, there is no need to immediately introduce a shop, hospital, or rescue operation. Join the play at the child’s current level, even if it seems very simple.

You might comment: “Oh, the doll has fallen asleep. It seems important to keep things quiet. What if someone knocks—will she be frightened?” Add only a tiny variation to see whether the child can accept it. If tension increases, return to the familiar story and try again later. Expansion should give the play room to breathe rather than break it.

Emotional ideas can be introduced through a character without asking the child to talk directly about their own feelings: “The bear was frightened by the loud sound,” “The car is angry because the door is closed,” or “The dragon scares everyone and then ends up alone.” The child can explore a feeling without immediately being asked, “And how do you feel?” This distance makes emotional thinking more accessible for many children.

Parents do not need a special toy set for every theme. Their role matters more: avoid taking over the story, turning play into a lesson about colors and counting, or correcting every apparent mistake. Practitioners can introduce one character, one problem, one twist, or one emotion at a time. If the adult brings an entire script, the child may lose their own idea.

Common mistakes

A common mistake is to drain the life out of play with teaching questions: “Who is this? What color? How many wheels?” These are not forbidden, but if they fill all the space, emotional play disappears. Another mistake is banning uncomfortable themes merely because the adult dislikes them. Aggression, fear, control, loss, illness, and hiding may be meaningful material. We need boundaries when someone could get hurt or something could be damaged. Within those boundaries, though, we can look for meaning, not just orderly play.

Progress appears when the child creates more ideas, transfers meaning between objects, accepts variations, expresses different feelings through play, includes the adult as a partner in imagination, and gradually develops more complex stories. This is how the child connects emotions, relationships, and thinking, preparing the ground for more complex reasoning.

Continue through the developmental capacities

• Functional Emotional Developmental Capacities in DIRFloortime®
• DIRFloortime® Capacity 4: Complex Communication and Shared Problem-Solving
• DIRFloortime® Capacity 6: Logical Emotional Thinking