Coping Strategies for Your Autistic Child
See also: Emotional IntelligenceOur page on Parenting Children with Autism explains that parents of children with autism play a key role in helping them to manage their lives. When they are very young, this is often through managing their behavioural issues. However, as they get older, it becomes more a matter of helping your child to regulate their own behaviour by developing strategies to use.
This page explains more about the strategies that you might use to help your child over time. There are both general strategies, and also specific strategies for issues that many people with autism find challenging, such as becoming overwhelmed, and coping with change.
1. Helping your child to communicate
Many children with autism find it hard to communicate effectively. Our page on Understanding Autism explains that they may have issues with pragmatic language. They may not understand metaphors or images used in conversation, and may also not understand social conventions such as turn-taking in conversation.
Tips to help children with autism to communicate more effectively include:
Always use their name when you start speaking to them, so that they know to listen.
Keep your language simple, and avoid metaphors or phrases with hidden meanings (for example, “Get a wiggle on” for “Hurry up”).
Speak slowly and clearly, and give them time to think about and understand what you have said.
Use gestures or pictures to help them to understand your meaning. For example, as you ask them to put on their shoes, point to their shoes and then to their feet.
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Consider using a simple sign language such as Makaton, especially if they seem to be largely or completely non-verbal. Speech problems are very different from language problems, and they may be able to communicate more effectively with signs (for more about this, see our page on Speech and Language Delays).
Avoid asking lots of questions. Your child won’t know which one to reply to first and may be overwhelmed.
Try to avoid conversations in noisy places, as this is very distracting.
It may also be worth seeing if you can get an assessment and some support from a speech and language therapist. Additional and professional help might make a lot of difference.
2. Helping your child deal with anxiety
Many people with autism, both adults and children, often feel anxious.
This can be because they do not really understand the world around them, or how other people react to them. However, people with autism may also become anxious when faced with a change in their routine, or too much noise or stimulation.
The best way to deal with anxiety is to understand its cause—and then address that.
For example:
If your child is worried about a planned change, such as moving into a new class or school, you can take steps to help them to manage that (and the section on Managing Change on this page provides some ideas).
If they are finding a social situation too much, you can help them to leave. If they are worried about a potential social situation, you can discuss actions they might take, such as not going, leaving early, or taking some time out.
Therapy such as cognitive behavioural therapy may be helpful, particularly if your child seems to be very anxious a lot of the time.
You may find it helpful to read our page on What is Anxiety?
3. Managing behavioural issues
Autistic people often show unusual behaviours.
Some of these—such as meltdowns—can be problematic in some circumstances, and you may therefore need to help your child to find ways to avoid them.
Other behaviours, such as the repetitive actions known as ‘stimming’, may be harmless. For example, head-banging, jumping and finger-flicking are generally not a problem except where they disrupt other people.
It may be helpful if you can assist your child to find forms of stimming that don’t affect others, such as using silent fidget toys.
Meltdowns are a complete loss of control that are generally caused by being completely overwhelmed. There is very little you can do about them once they are underway, except wait for them to pass and keep your child safe from harm in the moment.
However, you can help your child to avoid them by being aware of when they may become overwhelmed, and noticing when it is happening. As they get older, you can help them to spot their own triggers and signs. It may also be possible to avoid meltdowns by actions such as:
Letting your child use headphones to shut out some or all of the background noise or play music that they like;
Teaching them breathing exercises as a way to calm down and look inwards in the moment;
Taking them or letting them go for a walk outside;
Providing something quiet to do such as fidget toys or a distraction;
Turning down bright lights (or avoiding places that are brightly lit); and
Planning ahead to manage changes in routine (and see the section on managing change for more on this).
Everyone’s different.
Remember that we are all different—and that includes children with autism. They will have different triggers and responses, and you need to work out what these are for your child. You also have to remember that what works for one child might not work for another. You need to help your child find the best way to enable them to regulate themselves.
4. Helping your child to deal with change
One of the hardest things for many people with autism is dealing with change.
One way to cope is by developing a routine or schedule that stays (more or less) the same. However, it can be challenging when this is disrupted. You therefore need to help your child to develop strategies that will improve their ability to cope with change, such as:
Find out what changes are going to happen, and what is involved. For example, at school or college, you may be able to get the timetable ahead of the start of the new term, so you can help your child to plan where they need to be and when. If a teacher is leaving, you can find out when, and who is replacing them.
Provide a countdown to change. Time is often a difficult concept for many neurodivergent people, so it helps to make it concrete. Mark the date of the change on a calendar, and encourage your child to mark off each day.
Describe the effects of the change. It helps if you can make each particular change more tangible. In simple language, talk about the effects of the change. For example, what will your child see or do differently afterwards?
Use visual supports. Wherever possible, support talk about change with visual aids such as photographs or gestures. For example, if you are going on holiday abroad, show your child pictures of the airport and aeroplane, but also the place you are going—and don’t forget to show them that you are then going to come back on a plane too.
Plan ahead and provide alternatives. It is much easier to deal with an unplanned change in your routine if you have practised it ahead of time. For example, if your child travels to school via public transport, their journey might well be disrupted. It is a good idea to practise several different ways of travelling, so that they will know what to do if they have to (for example) take a bus instead of a train.
Sequencing and transition.
Sequencing—that is, understanding how they will move from one activity to another during the day—is often particularly difficult for children with autism. They don’t necessarily understand about time, and may be impatient for one particular activity. Their behaviour may therefore be worse as other activities intervene. Ways in which you (and their school or other setting) can help include a visual timetable, so that they can see how many activities will happen. You can also use a visual timer (such as a sand timer) to show how long they have to wait.
5. Supporting healthy eating
Many children go through stages when they are more or less picky about what they eat (and our page on Feeding Toddlers talks more about this).
However, children with autism may take this to extremes.
They may refuse to eat certain foods, or only eat a very restricted range of foods (for example, foods that are beige or white), or refuse certain colours of food. They may also have trouble working out how much food they actually want, and either over- or under eat routinely. They may also cough or choke a lot while eating, making it harder to eat comfortably.
They do, however, need a reasonably balanced and healthy diet. They need to be eating at least some plant-based foods, and avoiding ultra-processed food as much as possible. Try to work with your child to expand the range of foods that they will eat over time, by offering options and making sure that they still eat with the rest of the family.
TOP TIP! Get advice.
If you are worried about your child’s diet, get professional advice. Talk to your GP, and see if you need a referral to a dietician.
6. Managing your child’s sleeping
Children with autism often seem to find it harder to develop good sleep habits.
They may wake several times in the night, or find it hard to get to sleep in the first place. The problem here is that it affects them, and their ability to manage during the day—but it also has an effect on you, if they are waking you in the night.
If this is becoming a problem for you, try keeping a sleep diary for your child to see if you can see any patterns emerging.
For example, are they more anxious and sleep less on days before a nursery visit, or during weekdays? Do they have more problems if they are using electronic devices at particular times? Identifying these patterns may help you to identify possible solutions.
You can also help your child by developing a calm and consistent bedtime routine for them. There is more about how to do this in our page on The Importance of Sleep.
However, if none of this works, there may be a physical issue. For example, some children with autism may have problems with the sleep hormone melatonin, or have a health condition that affects sleep. It is therefore worth consulting your GP if the problems continue.
7. Helping your child with social skills
Many children, and indeed adults, with autism find it hard to relate to other people and make friends.
Indeed, this is not necessarily a skill with which all children are born, and parents often find themselves having to help their children in this area. It is, however, significantly worse for many children with autism.
They may be happy to interact with others if approached, but not want to approach others. They may also be very happy playing by themselves. They can often appear indifferent to other people.
For children with autism, the best advice is don’t force it. Learning social skills takes time and effort, and you can help best by being supporting, not pushing them or making them feel bad.
You can help your child to develop social skills by:
Practising social skills with them. It is particularly helpful to show how skills are applied in different places and with different people because people with autism often find it hard to apply ideas in new contexts. You might, for example, arrange playdates with helpful friends, attending yourself to ease things along.
Teach them about different emotions, and how they are expressed. For example, you can draw faces on paper plates, or ice biscuits with different facial expressions, and then talk about when people have looked like that, or when your child has felt like that. You can also use photos of people and talk about how they might be feeling. This will help your child learn to generalise about feelings.
TOP TIP! Keep it real.
Trying to keep any ‘coaching’ very tangible, discussing real people and situations. This will make it much easier for your child to understand it. It is best to avoid talking about theoretical situations, and instead focus on an occasion that your child will actually remember.
Pick your moment. Remember that not everything has to be a ‘teachable moment’. Save lessons on social skills for when your child is receptive, not when they are tired and stressed.
Help your child to understand the ‘rules’ of social engagement. For example, explain about ‘games’, and how there is a winner, and others ‘lose’. Discuss turn-taking in both games and conversations. Practising board games at home may help with this. You may also need to help your child understand how to select someone to talk to or play with. For example, if they want to play football in the playground, it is probably going to be better to approach children who are already playing and ask to join in, rather than interrupting a group that is sitting talking.
A Final Thought
You don’t have to do everything at once.
To understand how best to help your child, it is a good idea to watch them to see where they seem to be struggling. Asking teachers and keyworkers can also provide useful hints. You can then focus on those issues, rather than trying to teach them about ‘everything’ all at once. Small steps matter, both for you and for them.