Did you know that your child’s behaviour, their ability to make good decisions, and problem-solving skills can vary depending on their sensory preferences? These preferences can also be used by parents (and educators) to help calm a child down, and regulate their emotions and body. Amazing!

So, what are sensory preferences?

Sensory preferences indicate how a child likes to receive sensory input to their body and nervous system - meaning what things they enjoy and what feels good.

By knowing our child’s preference, we can use this information to help them calm down in stressful moments, defuse challenging or disruptive behaviour, and even learn emotional intelligence skills.

There are three reasons for this:

1. Knowing what our child’s sensory preferences are helps us to raise their awareness of their body and how it is feeling. For example, when he or she is starting to get agitated or frustrated.

2. It also helps the child come up with his or her own ideas and solutions for calming themselves during stressful moments. (Remember though that for many years we need to be co-regulating with them, before they can self-regulate!)

3. It also allows us as parents, our child’s most common co-regulator, to know what helps or hinders our child from being in a regulated, calm state. Even if our child can’t do this yet, we are able to know what elevates or defuses big emotions and challenging behaviour.

We need to observe, and even ASK our children about their sensory preferences so we are aware of the things that both trigger and calm them. Armed with this information we are much more likely to have a successful interaction when it really counts.

There are many ways in which we can do this, but it involves US as the parent having a strong awareness of our child’s sensory preferences, and the readiness and willingness to have conversations with him or her about this.

It is so empowering to know what calms or overloads your child… it is also a key component in raising emotionally intelligent kids!

The 8 Senses - How To Find What Calms Your Child.

We all have sensory preferences which affect our ability to interact with our environment (situations, places and people) and do our daily activities.

Although for a long time we were taught about the “5 senses”, there are actually in total eight sensory systems:

1. Auditory

2. Visual

3. Touch

4. Smell

5. Movement

6. Vestibular (sense of movement and balance)

7. Proprioception (sense of where our body is in space)

8. Interoception (sense of what’s happening in our body internally)

How can we decipher our child’s preferences, and then use them in specific ways to help regulate our child’s emotional state during stressful times? By observing them, and asking them questions! Below are some great simple questions, adapted from the work of Mona Delahooke (I strongly recommend you read Delahooke’s groundbreaking book, Beyond Behaviours for more on what I cover here.)

Auditory preferences: what sounds does my child like to hear or listen to? It could be human voices, music, noises in nature, etc.

Visual preferences: what things does my child like to look at? It could be things in their bedroom, things at home, the classroom, falling or spinning objects, dim lighting, etc.
Touch preferences: what things does my child like to feel against their skin and touch? It could be different textures, fabrics, pressure, etc.
Smell preferences: what things does my child like to smell? It could be food, nature, things outdoor etc.
Movement preferences: what things does my child like to do with their body? It could be spinning, jumping, running, dancing, sitting, lying down, tapping etc.

You can see that it is a combination of our knowledge as parents (meaning we need to be attuned to our child and their habits and patterns of behaviour) and listening to our child’s ideas on what THEY like and dislike.

Once we have this knowledge, we can support our kids to start using some of these preferences in stressful times, but being sure to begin with testing them out and practicing using these preferences when they are calm, attentive, and receptive.

And remember - we need to support our kids’ emotional intelligence development by co-regulating with them first, many, many times before we expect them to self-regulate their emotions.

If you want to learn more about your child’s sensory preferences or need support on how to manage their BIG emotions and challenging behaviour, then reach out! Let’s do this together.

[Parents who have serious concerns about their child’s sensory processing or sensory needs should contact an Occupational Therapist.]

For information and clinical advice in this article, thanks must go to:

Mona Delahooke; Beyond Behaviours 2020 ISBN 9781529300468

Danielle Schembri, Paediatric Occupational Therapist in Sydney, Australia.]

Helping Children to Calm Down: Know Their Sensory Preferences.

Stephanie Pinto

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