3. Understanding Sensory Processing: Helping Your Child Thrive

Have you ever taken your child somewhere fun? A zoo or a party or a playground, only to watch them fall apart halfway through that time or maybe afterwards?

Today we're unpacking sensory processing basics. We're going to think how our kids might experience the world differently and. And how understanding this can help us to love them better.Well, Kate, g'. Day. Welcome to our episode three.

Thanks, Dave. This is very exciting to be getting into this topic. I think it's a really important topic for all families with neurodivergent kids.How are you doing, Dave?

Yeah, well, look, I've got my. I brought my spoons along this week. If you're watching on the video, then you'll be able to see I've got my three spoons. And so I've got enough.Enough energy to record the episode. So that'll be really good. I don't know if this is going to add a spoon or if it's going to take one away. We'll see how we go.

Yeah, I love that you've got the physical spoons there, Dave. And I mean, that's just so great for podcasting. People are going to love looking at that, but. That's right.Last week we were talking about how we can measure energy with this unit called spoons. I don't know if that works for everyone, but. Sounds like, Dave, you've already used up some energy. You haven't used it all up yet, is that right?

Absolutely. So I've got. I've got enough for the rest of the day at the moment that. Yep. And people are away in our house, so. So I think I won't use as much today.

I'm glad to hear it. Okay, well, that's really good. Well, we'll make sure that we don't scrape the bottom of that spoon drawer if we can.

Fantastic. Yes. So what are we talking about today?

Well, we're going to be looking at sensory processing differences and it's important that we look at this because so many neurodivergent people do process the world in a way that can be quite draining for them. So taking away those spoons that we looked at last week, but they can also have sensory input that can give spoons to them.So sensory processing differences is a great topic and it's really important, too, that we're aware of this as parents, because when our children scrape the bottom of that drawer when they're constantly running on empty, research is quite clear that that can have long term mental health impacts as well as short term, of course. And so we want to be really careful thinking through how we're helping our kids manage this energy.So, Dave, we're going to be talking through the senses. How many senses would you say there are?

Oh, I feel like that's a trick question. It's one where the answer is obviously 5. But I feel like you're gonna tell me that there are more than five.

Let's start with the five. What are they?

Okay, so sight, touch, taste, hearing, and what have I. I can't even remember the five. That's how well I'm doing today. There we go. What have I missed out?

Smell. You're missing out.

Smell. Smell. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Those are important, aren't they?And I feel like perhaps if your house had a delicious smell of cooking lunch or dinner or something, then you would have remembered that. But perhaps you need to be doing a bit more cooking at the moment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My wife does some good slow cooking meals, and then I just spend the whole day with that smell growing and looking forward to dinner.

Do you smell it all day or do you tune out?

When I. When I'm in the kitchen, I smell it. Sometimes it wafts through the house and. But yeah, I won't be thinking about it the whole time.

Okay. Cause some. Some people do.I know that in our house, if we cook, then a couple of my kids will be processing that smell the whole time, whereas I will tune it out. I forget the house even smells like this delicious beef boo Nyong that we're cooking or whatever it might be. And this is.This is part of that sensory processing difference. But, Dave, I think you've missed. There are a couple more that we could label.

Okay, so my primary teachers got this wrong.

They only said, no, your primary teacher has them. Right. But let's add a few more in as well to be aware of.Because as parents, we want to be aware of as much as we can with how our kids are processing the world. So there's also vestibular, which is a way of referring to balance, that sense of balance.Proprioception, which is body awareness and interoception, which is internal awareness. You can lump those last two together sometimes. And so we're going to be looking at how these. And processing of these can be impacting our kids.

Okay, so we're going to fill those big words out a little bit.

Yeah, we are. Along the way, along the way.

Okay.

But I want to begin with a quote, actually.So, as you know, last year I was interviewing a lot of people about their experience of Being autistic, adhd, neurodivergent, and also families as well. So a man with ADHD and sensory sensitivities told me, bright lights and too many noises at once are hard.And if more than one person is talking, I find it difficult to understand anything. And either very high pitch or low noises and certain smells. So for him, he's got quite a lot going on in the sensory world.

Yeah, and it's interesting there, isn't it? Because it's much more than just kind of volume. So there's lots of noises going on. So that's hard. There's actually.There's so many different factors that are impacting whether he can process what's going on. I mean, I find this hard after church.I've spent my life in church and talking after church, but if I'm in a morning tea sort of environment and there are too many people speaking at once, I find it hard to hear the person I'm talking to. And I think about three or four times I actually had my hearing checked and they said, no, your hearing's perfect.And I couldn't understand what was going on until I'd heard about this sort of thing.

Yeah, that's really interesting.And that's quite a common story for autistic people, actually, because often you've got the sort of brain that's able to process a lot of things at once.So rather than tuning in only to the person in front of you and blocking out those other things, your brain's actually able to process all of these things, which is pretty amazing. But also I imagine it sounds pretty annoying as well. How exhausting that it's not just a conversation back and forward.You are actually having this input and you're not able to tune that out in a way that allows you to focus on the conversation. So, yeah, that's interesting.A lot of parents will take their kids for hearing test after hearing test and keep finding that their hearing is okay, but it's actually a processing difference that's meaning that that environment is quite complicated. And yeah, this guy who said this, he touches on the same thing with not being able to focus on the one thing if too many people are talking. Yeah.And I think what you say is really helpful, Dave, that it's a complex thing. It's not just if sound is too loud or too quiet. It's not even that if lights are too bright or too soft.There are elements in each of these sensory inputs that can be complicated in different ways for different kids. It could be that Bright lights helps one kid focus, it makes another kid not able to focus.Fluorescent lights might be just absolutely the worst for one kid, but for another kid, LED lights with that flash that they have is the worst. And so it's really complicated.

Yeah. It's not like you could build the perfect box and put everyone with neurodivergence in that box and say this is the perfect environment for you all.Everyone's so different.

I think that's right. But you know, we kind of do that with classrooms or with churches. We kind of say the perfect box, fit in and enjoy everybody.And we need to be conscious, don't we, that actually, even though that might work for the majority of kids, there are certainly always going to be people who don't. Don't find those elements helpful.

Yeah.

You know, I remember when all of this was a bit of a mystery to us. So when our, when our oldest was around two, maybe a bit under, I remember taking her to a zoo and we were very excited. It was her first zoo trip.You know, monkeys, elephants, all the things that you see in the books. I couldn't wait to actually show her the zoo. And she was excited to be there as well. And we had the whole day planned out.We brought all the snacks for the day, everything. But pretty quickly she just found it too much. It was, it was noisy, there were crowds everywhere.You know, Daniel, my husband and I, we were very enthusiastic as well. That probably was playing into it as well. Beautiful Australian summer day. And we ended up deciding to leave quite soon after we'd arrived.And as we left, she just melted into this puddle of tears and it was just so confusing because we had taken her to like the best place for a two year old. It was fun, it was beautiful. We had everything we needed. Why the tears?And yeah, I think we, we look back now and go, I could list a million reasons why the tears.

Yeah, yeah. It's so heartbreaking because in your mind you're trying to give your child this fantastic opportunity and this really enjoyable day out.You're not trying to cause pain or worry to her, you're trying to give her joy, but she just wasn't able to experience that joy. Yeah, I mean, it talks to the difference.Cause when I first took my son to the zoo, he just came home and he could name every single animal in his mind. Everything had just locked into place and it was the perfect environment for him and he was able to absorb everything.So, you know, kids are different. Neurodivergent kids are very, very different.

Yeah. They are, and they go through seasons as well. Things will change as well over time. Kids are rarely just purely locked in as well.And you know, these days we've got all sorts of systems in place to be able to enjoy things that are outdoors and enjoyable and fun. And that's because of coming to understand how she operates and what things work for her.

I think one of the sad things that happens is the child gets so overwhelmed and so sensory overloaded and they react in different ways. And that can often be misconstrued as misbehavior.You know, sometimes parents might get so excited about that zoo trip and they've invested money in going to the zoo and they've invested time and energy and they think this is going to be a really good thing. And then when their child responds like that, they can get angry like, why isn't my child accepting this thing that I've given?But we actually need to stop our own emotional reaction because we do have emotions built around these sort of things and say, hang on, what's going on for my child? Yeah, but so you had your two year old child there and obviously two year olds aren't always great at communicating what's going on for them.How do we actually go about figuring out what's bothering our child whether they're two or, or if they're older? But how do we ask those questions, do the exploration so that we've got some answers and are finding a way forward?

Yeah, and I think that's complicated. And again, that's going to differ for every family, for every child.And I think what you said there about pausing and being curious and wanting to find out from our child, I think that is key and I think that allows us to be collaborative with our child, which is going to look different across ages and stages, across communication types. It'll change over a child's age as well.And so if we're wanting to be collaborative, that will mean for some children we'll be sitting down and asking them and talking about it. For others, we'll be asking them to indicate using their communication method. For others, we'll be watching them and observing their reactions.So thinking back to my child back when she was 2, long ago, she was communicating there. She communicated quite well in the zoo by hiding her eyes too bright, covering her ears. She just clung to Daniel's back like a cute little koala.Adorable, but just terrified and so small. She was communicating that the crowds were crushing, that this whole experience was uncomfortable.And then walking out and being in tears that relief of leaving, but also that buildup of overwhelm. So she wasn't, as you say, she wasn't able to tell me, mum, I just want you to know that sunshine is a little bit too bright on sunny days like this.But I was able to see from her reactions along the way that I needed to continue being curious and work out what things were complicated for her. And sometimes we'll try things. Let's try sunglasses. Let's try earplugs. Earplugs are too uncomfortable. Let's try earmuffs.Let's try noise reduction headphones. Let's not use sunglasses. Let's use a hat with a low brim. There can be so many different ways we can discover.And along the way we might even find things we didn't know we were looking for that will help our children as well. But it's this approach of being collaborative, being curious. I think these really help.And just to have a third C in there, collaborative, curious, and being creative as well, being ready to say, pop in some earplugs. Other kids might not have earplugs, but you can because your ears are processing things differently.Kids might not be wearing sunglasses in the shopping center, but you know what, if those lights are too bright for your eyes and sunglasses will help, you can be groovy and wear some sunglasses inside.

Well, that's so helpful to just be thinking about the variety of options and exploring that. I think you've got a resource for us that can help us with that, Is that correct?

Yeah. So this is a resource to help families as you are collaborative with your child, to be thinking through what the world is like for them.So again, whether you're talking to them about it, whether they're communicating using their aids, or whether you're observing, you can go to our show notes, click the link there, and that's going to take you to a chart for you to be able to sit down and be thinking through whether sensory inputs are giving a positive response for your child or a negative response or perhaps a neutral response. There'll be plenty of things that are neither here nor there for your child.But remembering that you might have one child who loves loud noises and another child who hates loud noises. This chat at this stage is fairly simplistic. So it really is loud noises. But you might need to break that down more.So your child doesn't like loud noises unless it's sirens, unless it's loud noises that they produce, in which case that's very relaxing.They don't like Bright lights, unless it's the sunshine, they don't mind noise unless there are two people speaking at once, slightly off time to each other.And so you could break it down into more granular details if you want, but you can start fairly broad just to get a broad understanding of what is draining that energy and what is giving that energy back for your child.

Yeah, and I love what you're saying there in that, and you've mentioned it a little bit before, but it's not just about taking energy away. Actually.These different sensory things can actually be a solution or a tool for giving back spoons and for filling the world with excitement and joy. And so finding those positives as well as those things that are a bit harder.

Yeah, I think that's right. I was asking a 10 year old girl who, she's autistic and I was asking her to help me understand what gives her energy and what takes her energy away.And her answer I think was really helpful. So she said to me, I don't like people chewing. Sometimes I can't sit with my friends at lunch because they eat so annoyingly.So for her, the sound of chewing, that is taking spoons away, that's complicated at lunch, at school, isn't it? If people are chewing and that's hard, this is called misophonia actually. And a lot of autistic people will experience this.The sound of lips, the sound of even that sort of smacking sound that you get with lips sometimes when you talk, chewing, even with the mouth closed, chewing can be just. I've heard people explain it as kind of spine tingling, almost like nails down a chalkboard. I don't like the nails down the chalkboard.So the thought of finding, chewing like that just makes me feel this poor girl. So for her looking at this chart, she would put sound of eating as something that drains energy. But she's also got things that give her energy.So she told me, I like to go for a walk or bounce on a yoga ball or use my gymnastics bar. I have a gymnastics room where I have lots of mats to flip on. So this is that vestibular stimulation that balance.And a lot of people, not just neurodivergent people, a lot of people find vestibular stimulation very, very relaxing. Of course it can offset people and be disruptive to people if it's a ride that's going too fast or something like that. Dancing.My husband and I used to do swing dancing and, and I love that. But you ask me to stand in the kitchen or something and Just spin in circles? No, I wouldn't be able to do that.

Okay, so. So has it got to do with that inner ear stuff?When you get dizzy and I know the liquid's spinning around inside your ear, Is that a positive thing for some people? Just help me to understand it a little bit more. What's going on?

Yeah. So that's your sense of balance. And so, yes, that can be positive. It can be negative to different degrees for different people and on different days.So we have a balance board in our house that is just a curved piece of wood, and if you stand with your foot on either side of that, you can rock back and forwards. And that is. That rocking sensation is. Can be quite relaxing. We have a sensory swing indoors as well.I never thought I would have had a house with a swing inside, but we love it. You can spin in circles, you can rock back in and forwards. You can just sit in it and kind of bounce up and down.All of that stimulation can be very relaxing. And think about holding newborn babies and what do you want to do with them? You want to bounce them and rock them to calm them down.I think it's just kind of. It's built in, isn't it? It's. It's that lovely rocking feeling. That can be lovely, yeah.

Oh, absolutely, yes. Now. Now I'm just thinking about when my children were young and holding my babies. It was just so beautiful.And, you know, in classrooms often, you know, just from a teaching perspective, we often see kids bringing in their fiddle toys, and for some it's a really smooth toy, or others it's a really squishy thing. For others, it can be quite hard.

We're going to be looking at fidget toys and attention and all that sort of thing in the next episode, and that's going to be really helpful. But you mentioned how fidget toys will feel different for kids as well. You can get really soft things, hard things, spiky things.You can get things that are so spiky that they create quite a lot of pressure on your hands. And these are that sensory input that can be really relaxing. They can ground kids, they can help them be in the moment.They can help kids calm down when they're feeling overwhelmed. So these are really, really helpful things to have in our kind of sensory toolkit for our kids.The sunglasses, the hat, the earplugs, earmuffs, things to hold, things to squeeze, things to stroke in order to bring down that anxiety and actually be replenishing that energy. I had a mum explain to me that understanding all of this about her children helped her adapt her home.She said to me that they noticed that their appliances all beep.And she was saying I just had never seen how, never noticed how much the microwave beeps, the dishwasher beeps, the washing machine beeps and then our phones are constantly pinging. And so she said they just went through the house and they replaced the washing machine.They were able to change the sound in the microwave and their phones remain on silent.And she said just those changes made a huge difference to her daughter who would be tuning in every time there's kind of an alert saying this is finished, that's finished, look at the phone. And that brought down her anxiety at home. So adaptations can be really helpful.

Yeah, I guess that raises a question because I mean that sounds fantastic that mum's put in so much work to care for her daughter at home and creating an environment there that works really well.But I guess the question outside the home is are you then setting up your child for failure because they're so used to an environment that's shaped for them that then when they go into a different environment where the world is not built around them, will they not be able to cope?So when they go to church, when they go to school, when they go wherever into the workplace, all those adaptations just can't be there, made perfect for them.

I think that's such a helpful question and I think that's probably exactly the question that's on a lot of our listeners minds right now as well. This is a question that kept coming up as well as I've been interviewing families. And it's such a loving question, isn't it?We want the best for our kids. It's a real joy to be looking into all of this at this stage because there's just some really helpful research out there.Exactly what does it do to be adapting our home environment for our children and then sending them out into an unadapted world? And it's really clear that it's a really helpful thing.And the spoon theory that we did last week, the energy in, energy out, helps us begin to understand that.So if home can be a place where you're not constantly triggered, then you're actually able to bring down some of this overwhelm kind of these spoons flying out of the drawer, you can slow that down, you can be replenishing these spoons, this energy and you can see how when they do go out into the world, they've had some time to re energize and this can help with long term health implications. It can help with sleep, it can help reduce their baseline anxiety level. It also helps create an awareness around emotions.So when you're at home and a child is able to say, can you turn down that music? It's got such a deep bass line that it's making me feel scared. We're helping them be able to put their finger on that.Or when we observe our child curl into a ball with her hands over her eyes, we're able to say, I've just turned the lights on. And that's made you feel overwhelmed from the light.We can actually be in their world, allowing them to feel these things, helping them name it, and helping them also understand the difference it makes when we do turn that light back off and reminding them, well, actually, we're going to have this music on right now. Your sibling is practicing her dance. So go and grab your earplugs. Can I help you set up somewhere else in the home?Let's have the music on for another 15 minutes and then you can go out onto the trampoline for 15 minutes and get that energy back.We can be modeling and teaching what it looks like to ask for adaptations in the environment, to adapt themselves when they can't have that, and to regulate after experiencing something that's overwhelming and then send them out into the world in a way that will actually help give them resilience, help them be able to face the world with all these noisy, itchy, scratchy, bright things that go on out there in the world.

Okay, so it sounds like you're saying there, there are a couple of big benefits. One is it functions as an energy saver.So it's like, I don't know, having your phone, the screen turns off for a while so that it's got enough charge when it does go out into the world.So you've helped, you have helped your child that way and you've also helped them from an educational perspective to name and understand the sort of things that happens.So the home becomes a sort of training ground for them to be able to understand themselves and also communicate so that when they go out into the world, they have that understanding, they have the ability to communicate, they have the ability to think. Okay, what modifications do I need to put into place to succeed in this environment?

I think that's right. It's loving, it's kind, and it will strengthen them, not make them weaker.

Yeah, fantastic. I mean, we want to be loving, don't we? We want to be loving to them particularly.I was thinking about Jesus before, and Jesus just had that perfect ability to approach people perfectly and recognize that they're different. So I was thinking about two rich people.Jesus spoke to the rich young ruler, and the rich young ruler came to Jesus with a particular question, and Jesus gave him a very particular answer that he didn't like, but which is exactly what he needed to hear in the moment. But a couple of chapters later, in Luke's gospel, Jesus meets another rich man, Zacchaeus, and Jesus actually treats him in a really different way.Hey, I want to come to your house for lunch. And then we're going to talk about things, we're going to sit down. And that's exactly what Zacchaeus needed. And so obviously we're not Jesus.We don't have the insight that he has. But it's worth looking at him and saying he doesn't just treat everyone as this exactly the same.He says, what do you need in this moment, at this time? And that is an expression of his love. And we need to be expressing our love in the same sort of way.

Oh, how lovely. That's right, isn't it, that this is the example that we have of such wonderful love.And as a parent, I'd love to love my children in that way where I'm listening to their needs and caring for them in that, not trying to make them look like other kids. We can constantly be, I think, subconsciously, but maybe consciously as well, be thinking, well, other kids don't need earplugs.I don't really want you to have earplugs. Or other kids are able to go to the zoo for six hours and then they come home energized. So therefore you should be able to.But remembering that actually this Jesus, you know, he is who we want our children to look like. Our aim isn't to make our children like other kids. Our aim is to see them grow to be more like Jesus.And that might involve all sorts of sensory adaptations in response to the body that they have given to them by God. They're not an accident, they're not a mistake. This is what we looked at in our first episode.God has knit each of us together and so helping our kids work within these bodies to be loving in this world like Jesus is and to be more like him. Yeah, so that's probably a great place to end, I think, Dave.

Absolutely. Well, practically, what do we want to go away and do after this episode?

Well, we've covered a lot about sensory processing differences.Head to our show notes and click on the link to take you through to our sensory table so that you can be thinking through with your child or as you observe your child, about what is helpful for them in the sensory space and what isn't helpful for them. Even if you this week only find one thing that is draining for them and one thing that fills them up, that is still excellent progress.We don't need to find everything at once. It's a process and fill that out with them.Be collaborative in a way that works for them and where they're at for their age and communication style and be continuing this over the weeks to come. And then be noting as well how that helps with their energy when you make adjustments around that new understanding that you have.

Okay, so that's the plan for this week. What are we gonna be looking at next week, Kate?

We'll be looking at some other things that can drain energy and that can also give energy. So we're going to be looking at attention differences. Attention that can be focused attention that can be focused on lots of things at once.We're gonna be looking at social factor, social anxiety versus kind of social energy replenishment. And we're also going to be looking at predictability and how when things are predictable, that can be really helpful for some.When things aren't predictable, that can be really complicated for some. So we're going to be looking at those things next week.

Okay, so we've got lots of things going on there. Make sure you're tuning in.And hey, if you are enjoying this podcast, if you're finding it helpful, it'd be really great if you could leave a rating or review in whatever app you're listening on.It helps other people find the show and it also gives them confidence to give it a go to step into one of the episodes and go, yeah, this could be really helpful for me, so please do that. But for now, we'll say goodbye. See you later.

See you later. I didn't see the countdown. I was looking. Wait, did it already start recording?

Yeah.

Okay. Right against her. I was looking.

Okay, so. So next week we're going to be going on to a related but new topic. We're going to be delving more into those.The sensory things that can help with concentration. Is that what we're going to be talking about?

Oh, sort of. Hang on.

Not really. Okay, let me start again. Sorry, no, Dave, you got that completely wrong.

If you want, Dave, but that's not the plan.