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What Their Body is Telling You.
What your child’s behaviour might be telling you about the way they experience the world.
What your child’s behaviour might be telling you about the way they experience the world.
Since becoming a mum myself, I’ve experienced overstimulation in a way I hadn’t before. Suddenly, I wasn’t just observing sensory processing in children. I was experiencing what it felt like to have a sensory system that was completely full.
The constant noise. Being touched all day. Someone talking to you while another child is crying. Trying to make dinner while answering questions. Being needed constantly.
It gave me a completely different understanding of sensory processing.
I’ve worked with children for almost a decade. Nearly all the clients I’ve worked with over the years have had some form of sensory processing challenge.
A lot of my work has been with children with autism, ADHD and other neurodevelopmental differences, with many of these children experiencing sensory processing challenges that have a big impact on how they experience their day.
But I’ve also worked with lots of children without any diagnosis who are simply a little more sensitive to the world around them, or who need specific strategies to support them through their day.
We see with our eyes.
We hear with our ears.
We feel touch through our skin.
We smell with our nose.
We taste with our tongue.
But there are three other sensory systems that are incredibly important, and most people don't learn about these at school.
The first is proprioception.
Proprioception is our body's sense of where it is in space. It's found in our muscles and joints and is activated through things like pushing, pulling, lifting and deep pressure.
Think about giving someone a really big hug. Or wrapping a baby snugly in a blanket. That pressure on the body is providing proprioceptive input.
Then there is the vestibular system, which is essentially our balance and movement sense. It's located in our inner ear and helps our brain understand movement, balance and where our head is in relation to gravity.
And then there is interoception.
This is our internal sense — our ability to notice what is happening inside our body.
Are we hungry? Do we need to go to the toilet? Is our heart beating faster because we're excited? Is our stomach feeling funny because we're anxious?
Interoception helps us recognise these signals and understand what our body needs.
So, we actually have eight sensory systems, not just five.
We all have different sensory preferences and these can change throughout the day depending on how we are feeling at the time (confusing I know).
You can be more sensitive to some types of sensory input and less sensitive to others. You might be incredibly sensitive to sound but constantly seek movement. You might hate certain textures in clothing but love deep pressure.
When someone is under-responsive to a particular type of sensory input, they may need more of that input for their body to really register it.
For example, a child who is seeking proprioceptive input might constantly stomp their feet, push their feet against you while sitting on the lounge, ask for big hugs, crash into things or seek activities that involve pushing, pulling and carrying.
We often call these activities heavy work, because they provide strong input through the muscles and joints.
On the other hand, someone can be over-responsive, meaning their nervous system detects certain sensory information very strongly.
A child who is sensitive to sound might cover their ears, become overwhelmed in a busy classroom or startle intensely when there is an unexpected loud noise.
And this is really important: having a sensory preference isn't necessarily a bad thing.
As an OT, I'm much more interested in how that sensory difference is impacting someone's everyday life.
If your child hates a particular fabric but can happily get dressed in clothes they do tolerate, we don't necessarily need to "fix" that - we can work with it.
If they're sensitive to sound, we can look at ways to make their environment more manageable.
Sensory processing isn't about making a child tolerate everything.
It's about understanding what their body needs so they can participate in everyday life.
The longer I've worked as an OT, the more nuanced sensory processing has become for me.
A supervisor once said to me, "The more experience you get, the more you realise you don't know."
I think that's so true when you're working with humans.
The more children I work with, the more I realise how incredibly individual we all are.
Sensory processing doesn't exist in isolation. It's intertwined with our nervous system, emotions, attention, sleep, stress, environment and so many other parts of how we function.
It is definitely one piece of the puzzle when we're talking about overstimulation and nervous system overload, but it is not the magic wand to fix overstimulation.
One of the biggest things I try to teach parents is the importance of being proactive rather than reactive with sensory processing.
We often wait until a child is completely overwhelmed before we offer support.
They're screaming, covering their ears, running away, melting down or completely unable to participate — and then we think, What can I do to help them regulate?
But by that point, their sensory system may already be completely overloaded.
Instead, we can start to notice the patterns.
Is it after a full day at preschool? At the supermarket? Around dinner time? When there are lots of people in the house? When they're tired? When they've had lots of transitions?
Once we understand their patterns, we can start putting sensory supports in place before they reach their limit.
Maybe that means some heavy work or outdoor movement after school.
Maybe it's having headphones available before entering a really noisy environment.
Maybe it's allowing 20 minutes of quiet time when they get home rather than immediately moving into the next activity.
Maybe it's having a crunchy snack, some pushing and pulling activities, or some predictable movement built into their afternoon.
This doesn't mean we need to structure our children's entire lives around sensory strategies. It's actually about doing small things throughout the day that support their nervous system before it becomes overwhelmed.
And I think this is something I've become much more aware of since becoming a mum myself.
I'm much more likely now to recognise "I'm getting really overstimulated" before I reach the point where I completely lose it.
I'll go outside. I'll put my headphones in. I'll reduce the noise. I'll take a few minutes alone.
I'm not waiting until I'm completely overwhelmed to do something about it.
We can do the same for our children.
We're not trying to prevent every big emotion or make sure our children are never uncomfortable. We're simply helping them recognise and respond to their sensory needs earlier.
One of the most common things I see is sensitivity to sound.
You might notice your child covering their ears, finding daycare, preschool or school really overwhelming, startling at unexpected noises, becoming distressed by particular sounds or struggling to concentrate when there is lots of background noise.
Noise-cancelling headphones can be really helpful. In a classroom, something as simple as where a child sits can make a difference. Sitting towards the front can sometimes reduce the amount of background noise they need to process.
And one of my favourite strategies is actually really simple:
Give them time to decompress.
If your child has just spent six hours in a busy daycare, preschool or school environment, their sensory system may already be working incredibly hard.
Coming home and immediately asking lots of questions, rushing into activities or expecting them to sit down and do homework can sometimes add more demands to an already overloaded system.
Sometimes they just need quiet, connection and time to reset.
Seeking lots of movement
Another really common concern is children who seem to constantly need to move.
They're jumping, climbing, crashing, running, spinning, bouncing or finding it incredibly difficult to sit still.
Sometimes a child is seeking movement because their body genuinely needs more sensory input. But they don't always know what type of movement will actually help them feel regulated.
For children seeking deep pressure and proprioceptive input, I love things like carrying heavy objects, pushing a laundry basket, tug-of-war, climbing, obstacle courses, jumping on a trampoline or pushing their hands against a wall.
For movement, I also love linear swinging — gentle, predictable movement backwards and forwards.
Think about rocking a baby, or a child swinging back and forth. That predictable rhythm can be really calming for many children.
I think this is probably the biggest thing I'd love parents to take away from understanding sensory processing.
Your child's sensory differences aren't necessarily something that need to be fixed.
They're something we can understand.
Maybe they need some heavy work after school, quiet time before dinner, headphones in a busy environment, movement before they can sit down and concentrate or a crunchy snack to keep their bodies regulated.
Instead of asking, "How do I get them to stop doing that?", we can start asking:
"What is their body trying to tell me?"
Sometimes that one question can completely change the way we see a child.
If you’re concerned about your child's sensory sensitivities, sensory-seeking behaviours, or the way sensory processing is impacting their everyday life, an occupational therapist can help.
Sometimes understanding why a child is doing something is the first step towards knowing what they actually need.
Paris.
Paris is a paediatric occupational therapist of 10 years, mum of two and the founder of Barefoot OT, based on the Central Coast of NSW. She shares practical, conscious approaches to motherhood, parenting and child development.barefoottherapyservice.com/
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