Tiptoe or Trumpet? — Reading the Room

You act out how you are feeling, and the child chooses how to move and how loudly to speak to fit — tiptoes and whispers for a headache, a trumpet fanfare for good news.

  1. Explain the game: “I’m going to show you how I feel. Your job is to come over to me in the way that fits.”
  2. Act a state with face, body and one sentence — “Oof, my head hurts” (hand on forehead), “I’ve just had wonderful news!” (arms up), “I’m feeling a bit sad today” (slumped), “Shh, the baby has just fallen asleep” (finger on lips), “I’m trying to concentrate on this” (frowning at a paper).
  3. The child crosses the room to you in a matching way — tiptoe and whisper, gentle walk and soft voice, or a skipping, trumpeting celebration.
  4. Tell them what it was like to receive: “That soft voice was just what my sore head needed.”
  5. Now and then get it deliberately wrong yourself when you swap roles — stomp and shout towards the child’s “sleeping baby” — and let them correct you.
  6. Finish with one real-life link: “When might we need tiptoe voices today?”

Variation: play it with no words at all — only face and posture — or let a cuddly toy be the one with the headache while you both decide how to walk past it.

Requirements

  • Space: A room or hallway with a few metres to cross
  • Surface: Any clear floor
  • Materials: None
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; works well with siblings taking turns as the actor
  • Supervision: Active — the adult is the play partner

Rationale & Objective

Empathy is not only feeling for someone; it shows in whether a child changes what they are doing because of how another person feels — lowering their voice near someone who is sad, waiting with a request when a parent is stressed. This requires noticing the cue, holding back the impulse to carry on as before, and choosing a fitting response. Eisenberg, Spinrad & Knafo-Noam (2015) describe how well-regulated children are more likely to respond to others’ distress with sympathy rather than being overwhelmed or oblivious. Siegel & Bryson (The Whole-Brain Child) call the underlying capacity mindsight and recommend playful practice in reading nonverbal signals. Receiving specific feedback on how the adjustment felt to the other person is a gentle form of the other-oriented reasoning that Hoffman (2000) and Krevans & Gibbs (1996) link to stronger empathy.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: approaches every state the same way (usually loud and fast); needs to be told “I need a quiet voice”
  • Developing: adjusts for the most obvious cues (sleeping, headache) in the game; in real life needs one reminder
  • Proficient: matches voice and movement to 4 of 5 acted states, and sometimes lowers their voice unprompted when someone at home is unwell or upset
  • Advanced: reads a state from face and posture alone, checks in (“Do you want me to be quiet?”), and reminds a sibling to be gentle

Safety Notes

  • Clear toys and rugs from the crossing path — tiptoeing and celebration skips both end in slips on cluttered floors
  • This is about consideration, not about silencing the child. Balance quiet states with plenty of joyful loud ones so “being good” does not come to mean “being small”
  • Never use the game to make a child responsible for an adult’s moods or for keeping a household calm
  • Children with sensory or social-communication differences may find facial cues harder to read; add words to every act and celebrate effort, and ask your pediatrician or an OT if this is a wider pattern

Hints

  • Playfulness: ham up your acting, and let the trumpet celebrations be really loud — the contrast is what makes the whisper rounds fun
  • Sustain interest: write or draw the states on scraps of paper and let the child pull one from a cup for you to act; add new ones (“I’m very tired”, “I’m nervous about something”)
  • Common mistake: only practising in the game and then scolding in real life. In the real moment, cue the game instead — “Hmm, tiptoe or trumpet right now?”
  • Limited space: play sitting side by side, changing only the voice — a whisper, a soft voice, a party voice
  • Cross-domain: tiptoeing and freezing build balance and body control; choosing a voice level is direct practice for speech volume and self-regulation
  • Progression: state said in words → face and body plus one clue word → no words at all → spotting real moments during the day and choosing unprompted

Sources

  • Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L. & Knafo-Noam, A. (2015). “Prosocial development.” In Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science (7th ed., Vol. 3). Wiley
  • Siegel, D. J. & Bryson, T. P. (2011). The Whole-Brain Child. Delacorte Press — mindsight and reading nonverbal cues
  • Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and Moral Development: Implications for Caring and Justice. Cambridge University Press
  • Krevans, J. & Gibbs, J. C. (1996). “Parents’ use of inductive discipline: Relations to children’s empathy and prosocial behavior.” Child Development, 67(6), 3263–3277
  • UK EYFS — Personal, Social and Emotional Development ELG, Building Relationships (“show sensitivity to their own and to others’ needs”)
  • CASEL — Social Awareness competency (recognising and responding to the feelings of others)