Finding your brave – Children’s Mental Health Week
Day 5: What does ‘finding your brave’ mean for a child with autism?
What does ‘finding your brave’ mean for YOUR child? We hope you’ve found some useful advice in our series this week to help you answer that question and support your child and their mental health.
Here’s a summary with links to each of the blogs in this series :
Explain to your child what bravery means and how it relates to their life and their personal challenges – What is bravery?
Turn detective and get a deeper understanding of your child’s fears, worries and anxieties and the thoughts that are holding them back – What are you scared of?
Acknowledge and celebrate your child’s bravery in all its forms to boost their self-esteem, confidence and mental health – How does being brave make us feel?
Would you like a bit of help to get started?
Click the button above to sign up now and we’ll email you our bravery boosters bundle!
You’ll receive a guide to developing good emotional intelligence that you can download and print, a video guide to using a feelings diary and a discount code to use when you purchase any Feelings and Emotional support products. A selection of these products have been featured in our ‘finding your brave’ series.
Finding your brave – Children’s Mental Health Week
Day 4: What does ‘finding your brave’ mean for a child with autism?
It’s time to celebrate!
As we’ve talked about earlier, many children with autism show their bravery in the everyday acts of dealing with life. Recognising and celebrating this bravery is just as important, if not more so, as acknowledging it for the ‘big’ brave events.
Showing your child how to see and celebrate their bravery in the seemingly smaller things boosts their self-esteem, confidence and mental health. Congratulating your child on each brave step (big or small) helps them feel good about themselves and they can learn to find courage to do bigger things.
If you’ve missed any of the series so far, you can recap here:
Bravery often doesn’tfeel like bravery. It can feel like butterflies in your tummy, sweaty hands, racing thoughts or maybe a moment of intense focus and concentration. It’s only after being brave that we feel proud, happy and confident – that elusive ‘I feel good’ feeling! When we are brave we can have fun, meet new people, share a new experience and boost our mental health and well-being.
Bravery can mean so many things: big and small. As a parent of a child with autism, it’s often hard not to compare them with their typically developing peers and their acts of bravery. Others may have learnt to ride a bike, play a musical instrument or been picked for the school football team whilst your child is struggling to put on their shoes, hold a pencil or sleep through the night.
Everyday heroes
Getting dressed, going to school or keeping calm when there is a change to routine are all examples of bravery if you have anxiety, sensory difficulties or struggle with flexible thinking.
Take time each day to note down an instance when your child has been brave. We use our TomTag Feelings notebook to record these moments but you could also write each moment on a note and pop them into a note jar. Simply pausing and recording these moments highlights the experience of being brave making it more likely to reinforce positive memories. Using a notebook, note jar or similar will help you and your child to revisit and reflect on the ‘brave moment’ entries when similar challenges arise in the future. Together with your child you can build a bravery chain, link by link.
Its also important to reassure your child that not feeling brave is okay and that other children will often feel this way too. This is another time when it can be helpful to use a visual feelings scale (like TomTag’s Share how I feel tag) to help your child show or tell you how they are feeling. Acknowledge their feelings and praise them for ‘finding their brave’ to share them with you. Remind them that it takes time and practice to ‘find your brave’ – be patient if you need to repeat the process we discussed earlier of identifying fears and finding support strategies to overcome them.
Tom’s story
Over the years we’ve always tried to celebrate all Tom’s acts of ‘bravery’. We’ve praised and encouraged him with seemingly small things like saying hello, sitting at the table or making food choices. Bravery has unfolded one situation at a time.
Over time, he’s overcome his fear of speaking, meeting new people and learning new skills such as skiing, riding a bike and, more recently, even driving! When he faces new challenges, we remind him how he found his brave on all these occasions to reassure him that he does have the strength within to succeed.
How does your child show their bravery? Share your proud moments with us – we’d love to hear from you and share your joy!
Now it’s time for some action! Let’s look at some ways you can support your child to help them overcome some of their fears and get closer to finding their brave.
Overcoming fears – getting closer to brave
Feeling worried about the unknown or new situations is common and familiar to almost all of us.
For many children with autism, normal daily life can feel like the great unknown every day. If you’re worried about what’s going to happen, struggle with anxiety around people and social situations or can’t communicate what you want or need, every single day can feel scary and overwhelming. It’s very hard to ‘find your brave’ when you’re in a constant state of anxiety. Being scared and anxious is exhausting and can often lead us into more complex mental health problems.
There are strategies we can use to deal with these uncertainties and ways to learn skills that can help combat anxieties. It’s time to meet the superheroes – visual supports!!
Finding your brave – reducing uncertainty with visual supports
An intolerance of uncertainty is a common cause of anxiety for many children with autism, causing them to ‘act out’ or display other unwanted behaviours when their routines change or they are in unfamiliar situations.
A visual schedule or timetable takes away the element of surprise and makes it clear what your child can expect to happen. Their anxiety level will come down and it will be easier for them to transition between activities, finding their brave to move on.
In this diary entry, Tom felt worried because he didn’t know whether his Speech and Language therapist was visiting him at school that day. By reminding him to check the timetable in his planner, Tom was able to reassure himself about when to expect to see his therapist.
Helping your child to ‘find their brave’ for unfamiliar or ‘scary’ situations – things like visiting the dentist, doctor or hairdresser – is eased by good planning and preparation. Using a visual tool like TomTag or a simple social story can help you to communicate and explain to your child what’s going happen before the event, reducing the uncertainty and consequent anxieties.
Finding your brave – learning social skills with visual supports
Social cues can be difficult for many children with autism to understand as they interact with others. They get anxious about what is expected of them socially and can find if hard to interpret other people’s behaviour.
Visual prompts can be useful in teaching social rules such as sharing, taking turns and waiting. With practice and patience, children can learn to use these supports on their own in social situations, providing them with a permanent reminder of expectations and setting the stage for them to find their brave!
In the earlier example, Tom was worried about his speech therapist being late. Using drawings, we reminded him about the concept of waiting. Knowing what was expected of him in this situation and giving him some self-help strategies (OT exercises) helped to calm him down.
Finding your brave – communicating needs with visual supports
Sensory overload, changes to routine, difficulties processing information, being tired or hungry are all common triggers for anger and challenging behaviour. In these situations, it is almost impossible for a child to be brave.
Tom remembers what he sees rather than what he hears as he can’t process too many words at once. Ask him questions or give him instructions and his stress just increases – the more we talk, the less he hears! Offering children like Tom a non-verbal means of communication to use allows them to understand and express their feelings without the stress of having to process language at the same time.
The TomTag Share how I feel visual feelings scale is one of our best sellers – and you can see why! It’s such a simple device but a very quick, effective and efficient way for your child to show or tell you how they are feeling. Once they’re learnt to identify and understand what each feeling means, you can use more detailed visual guides to build self-help strategies they can use to cope with different feelings and emotions, giving them the reassurance and confidence they need to find their brave.
Finding your brave – Children’s Mental Health Week
Day 2: What does ‘finding your brave’ mean for a child with autism?
Now that you’ve introduced the idea of what bravery means and why being brave can make us feel good (follow the link if you missed it), we look at helping your child understand what can hold us back and the feelings that can stop us being brave.
What are you scared of?
What stops us being brave and why can being brave be so difficult?
Being brave generally means facing something difficult or a situation we’re unsure, worried or scared about and going ahead anyway.
To help your child with autism ‘find their brave’, you need to understand what those fears, worries or anxieties are that are their barriers to being brave. It’s the thoughts and feelings we create ourselves that are most often what get in the way of doing something or trying something new. These unhelpful thoughts might include worries about getting something wrong, being embarrassed or people laughing at you.
Firstly, let your child know that it’s normal to have these emotions but that there things we can do to help ourselves to stop these thoughts and feelings getting in the way of what we want or need to do and affecting our mental health. To find out what their barriers are you may just be able to ask them. If your child is non-verbal or finds it tricky to talk about their feelings – perhaps because they have limited language skills – you will need to try some other tactics.
For Tom, who has autism, just talking about his fears can be a cause of stress too. We’ve used the TomTag Feelings Notebook to help him communicate with us and share his concerns in a less direct or confrontational way.
In this example, he describes feeling nervous about meeting his teacher as he was unsure about what to say to her. He goes on to share that he always feels nervous when he sees other people. An example of how unhelpful thoughts – like saying something wrong or that people might laugh at him – are the barriers to bravery here.
You can use also use a diary format like this to help you and your child keep a record of feelings, anxieties, worries or behaviour which will help you to track any patterns and identify underlying triggers. Turn detective, be curious and think about what might be beneath their behaviour to see what the real issues are.
Right feeling, wrong size?
Sometimes, your child won’t even be sure what they’re afraid of, which can in itself make them feel more anxious and afraid. It’s also possible that they may have difficulty understanding the size or intensity of their feelings, something Tomas finds quite difficult.
When he was younger, Tom was terrified of flies. This was particularly difficult in the summer months as he would scream and become extremely anxious about going to sleep. Every evening we would have to make sure that his bedroom was free of the unwelcome guests before he would even go into his room.
With support, Tom was able to use drawings as a visual tool to help him share what it was about flies that frightened him and how they made him feel. He thought that the fly would eat him and he felt panic! Once we knew what the fears were, we could reassure him that it was normal to have feelings about flies. We were able to show him that his feeling of panic was unhelpful as it made things feel more scary than they really were. A case of the right feeling but the wrong size.
Doing the detective work was crucial. Had we not known about the fear then Tom’s reluctance to go to bed might have been misinterpreted as challenging behaviour around bedtime routines. By understanding his fears, providing him with reassurance and making him feel safe, we could encourage him to be brave with the help of positive thinking and a bright new fly swatter which we showed him how to use!
Children’s Mental Health Week is run by the charity Place2Be, to focus on the importance of looking after our emotional well-being from an early age.
Running from 3 – 9 February 2020, the theme this year is ‘Find your brave’.
Whilst autism itself it NOT a mental health condition, we do know that people with autism or a learning disability (or both) are more likely to experience mental health problems than the general population – and more likely to have it overlooked or ignored.
Helping your autistic child to ‘find their brave’ may take a little longer, need a bit more effort, patience and persuasion but with determination progress will be made and it can only have a positive affect on their mental health.
What does ‘finding your brave’ mean for a child with autism?
Bravery is different for every child and comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s not all about grand gestures, slaying dragons, high ropes or superheroes!
Being brave generally means facing something difficult or a situation you’re unsure, worried or scared about and going ahead anyway. If, like my son, your child has sensory processing issues, communication difficulties or an intolerance of uncertainty then simply managing and coping with daily life will mean calling upon their bravery resources pretty much every day.
Imagine all the things your child might be unsure or worried about. Is it going to school, visiting the hairdresser, sharing worries or asking for help?
It may also be something that appears small to us, such as trying a different food, taking a new route home from school or saying hello to grandma.
Over the next few days, we’ll share some ideas and techniques for supporting your child to find their brave. We’ll look at what it means to be brave, what holds us back and how to deal with those feelings that stop us. Finally we’ll talk about why it’s good to be brave and share some ideas for ways that TomTag can be used to help.
Let’s get started!
What is bravery?
Start by explaining to your child what bravery means and why being brave can make us feel good about ourselves.
Sometimes we need to be brave for big challenges but most of the time being brave means finding positive ways to deal with everyday difficulties and situations. It doesn’t mean that they have to deal with everything on their own. Let them know that it’s brave to ask for and accept help.
Bravery means something different for everyone. Remind your child that what’s brave for them might not feel brave for someone else.
Use examples from your own life to show times when you’ve had to be brave. It can help children to see that as adults we also have to face our fears in everyday life.
What stops us being brave and why can being brave be so difficult? Helping your child understand what can hold us back and the feelings that can stop us being brave.
For my son, Tom, thinking about our family Christmas meal is causing him anxiety. Spending time together and creating memories over a shared meal – it’s what many people love about Christmas – but it’s not so easy for an anxious teen with autism. Continue reading Coping with a family Christmas for an anxious autistic teen
It’s often the simplest things that have the biggest impact.
A seemingly simple thing that gets forgotten, ignored or left unnoticed can cause a big problem down the line. Simple ideas, simple tools, simple changes might be all that’s needed to solve a problem or do a better job than a complex solution.
A Share how I feel tag, with its thermometer-style colour faces scale, has to be one of the simplest uses for the TomTag system but since introducing it less than nine months ago has become our best selling product. It can be used in lots of different ways which is perhaps one of the keys to it’s success – we’ve given some ideas in this free download guide.
Having recommended in our guide that using a feelings diary can help to identify patterns of emotions or behaviour and the triggers that could be causing them, we decided to make our own!
My TomTag Feelings Notebook
Keeping a diary gets you into the habit of noticing and naming how you feel in different situations throughout the day or at times when you feel most anxious or worried.
There’s a scale for rating the strength of your feelings and a guide to help build up a vocabulary to describe your different feelings and emotions.
By making notes about what happened during the day or at key points you can start to build up a picture over time which helps you to see patterns and identify the common triggers or stressors. Quite often these might be simple things that go unnoticed day to day but are easier to spot once patterns emerge.
It’s often the simplest things that have the biggest impact.
Clare and Deborah collecting their SBS winners certificate from Theo Paphitis
Orkid Ideas was founded in October 2010, the same month that Theo Paphitis (of Ryman Stationery and Dragons’ Den fame) created his Small Business Sunday #SBS initiative on Twitter.
Each week, Theo chooses his favourite small businesses from the thousands that tweet him on a Sunday evening and rewards them by re-tweeting their tweets to his 500k+ followers the following day.
Monday 26th March 2018 marked the start of Autism Awareness Week. Autism awareness, understanding and acceptance is close to our hearts at Orkid Ideas; it’s the reason we are even here at all and underpins our passion for TomTag and how it can help individuals with autism cope better with daily life. So it was an especially delightful surprise when Theo chose this Monday to pick Orkid Ideas at the top of his weekly list of six businesses to join the amazing #SBS winners family.
Not only does this mean a boost for us as a business but we hope it has also helped to spread a little more autism awareness to a wider audience.
“It is imperative that you have an idea you really believe in, and you also have to be absolutely determined you can make it work.” – Theo Paphitis
Christmas is a magical and exciting time but for many children with autism and other SEN, the festive period can be anything but wonderful.
Changes in routine, a house pulsating with flashing Christmas lights and a steady stream of visitors can be too overwhelming and lead to sensory overload, anxiety, distress and confusion.
Making adjustments that help your child cope better at this time of the year will hopefully allow them and all the family to have a more enjoyable and relaxing experience.
It’s also a good opportunity to work on important social skills that can be transferred to other situations at different times of the year as well.
Just another day
Keeping to the same familiar routines as much as possible, even on Christmas Day, can be key to helping things run more smoothly. There are no rules to say things have to be done a certain way so do whatever suits your family best.
It’s sometimes not possible to avoid some disturbance or change to the regular schedule at this time of year. Children who struggle with changes to routine can find this very unsettling. If they use a visual schedule at home or school, this is a great way to make sure they know about (and can prepare themselves for) anything different that’s going to happen.
If different or unusual foods are likely to be an issue, think about preparing and freezing your child’s favourite meal ahead of the big day so that it’s easy to serve alongside everyone else’s dinner and gives you one thing less to worry about.
Decorations
Flashing lights, glittery objects and jingling bells all around the house are natural triggers for sensory overload. Let your child help to choose the decorations you buy and put up and consider decorating gradually over a few days so they are not overwhelmed immediately. Make sure to leave some areas of the house undecorated so there’s always somewhere for the child to retreat if needed.
Be aware of sensory triggers such as balloons, Christmas crackers, party poppers, festive music – consider using headphones or ear defenders at parties, carol concerts or similar events if sudden or loud noises are disturbing.
Use an “All about Christmas” symbol list or simple social story to support a conversation with your child to familiarise them with all the different things they can expect to find at Christmas time.
Social expectations
Christmas is usually a time of increased social contact and festive events with family and friends. Use a visual schedule to show what’s going to happen before any visitors come to the house or when you’re going to parties, visiting family and friends, church services, etc.
Maybe even keep a separate tag as a checklist to show all the family members they may be meeting and what an appropriate social contact might be for each group (eg. hugs are ok for family, hand shake for friends, etc.).
There’ll be lots of opportunities to teach social skills such as learning to greet visitors appropriately and saying please and thank you. Include relevant symbols in your visit schedule list or use another tag that you keep handy for a discreet reminder of social behaviour rules.
Presents
Many children with autism don’t particularly like surprises and aren’t good at faking delight if they get an unwanted gift. Some may prefer to have their presents left unwrapped or, if they do like the unwrapping part, they might want you to tell them what’s inside first.
They may also be overwhelmed by a large number of presents in one go. Try introducing them one at a time over the day (or several days) or adopt an advent calendar-style approach, bringing out a small gift each day in the run up to Christmas.
Don’t forget to put batteries in toys in advance so that they can be played with straight away!
Relax!
Above all, remember that this is your Christmas as well. Get as much support from family and friends as possible and share out the workload wherever you can. Get children involved by giving them jobs to do which will keep them occupied and give them something to focus on.
We used the kit I know what to expect at Christmas & birthdays for the examples here. We know it can be a particularly taxing and stressful time of year for our loved ones with extra sensory and emotional needs, so there’s also an expanded version of the basic kit available which includes additional tags and blank buttons plus a Feelings & Emotions sticker pack. We call this our Christmas survival kit!
This guide is available as a free downloaded using the link below.
The TomTag feelings tag-o-meter is a visual feelings thermometer that can be used to support the development of all the skills required for good emotional intelligence.
It can help children to understand and communicate their feelings. By linking with a visual reminder of appropriate actions and strategies, they can learn how to manage those feelings too.
Regular use of this type of visual scale helps children to recognise the causes and triggers for their feelings and emotions. They can work out ways to help themselves improve their responses and handle things better in the future.
Let’s get started
At the start of the school day it’s helpful to know how a child is feeling to assess their readiness for learning today. Use the feelings thermometer as a way for them to quickly and easily communicate this to you.
You might find it useful to provide a list of further options (like the red tag shown here) to help you identify the cause of any problems. For example, are they sad because they are hungry or tired, too hot or too cold, are the surroundings too noisy or bright?
Once any issues have been dealt with appropriately the child will be more able to access and engage with their learning.
What’s different
Are you expecting a change to routine, an unusual event or a visit to a new place today? Use the same approach to rate how comfortable the child is about this. If they are frightened, worried or anxious you can try explaining more about the reasons for the change or event or what they can expect to happen during the day or the visit.
Encourage the child to think about whether the strength of their feeling is in proportion to the situation. Does their reaction match the level of the problem? If not, discuss strategies they can use to deal with their feelings and talk about what a more appropriate response might be.
Get down to work
Before starting a task or activity, ask the child to rate their anxiety or confidence level about what they have to do. This information can help you to decide what support they might need to be able to complete the task successfully or it can open a discussion about whether their anxiety is proportional and realistic for the task faced. For example, are they:
very anxious and not sure what they need to do or worried that they are not capable of doing it?
reasonably sure of what they need to do but could use a little guidance just to get started?
feeling confident about the task and happy to try doing it alone?
How was that?
Revisiting the scale once a task, activity or event has finished offers an opportunity to reflect back and learn from it. Was their actual experience better or worse than they had expected it to be? How would they feel if they were now faced with the same event again?
If they were initially very anxious but with support were able to succeed, should this make them more confident about the next time they face the same task or a new one?
Another good time to check in with the feelings thermometer is after school, particularly as they may keep emotions locked up until they get home. Just as at the start of the school day, it’s a quick and easy way to communicate how they’re feeling and alerts you to any issues that have occurred during the day that might need further investigation or discussion before settling down to homework or evening activities.
What happened there?
Sensory overload, changes to routine, difficulties processing information, social interactions or being tired or hungry are all common triggers for anger or challenging behaviour.
Getting a child to think about and try to understand what made them angry or prompted their behaviour begins to develop their emotional self-management skills. Using a feelings diary can be a good way to identify patterns of behaviour and incident triggers and plan for minimising stress at key points.
Encourage the child to use a feelings scale to start recognising how they feel or what their impulses are when their anger level starts to build. Set up some different coloured tags for each level like the ones shown here. Use each list as a reminder of suitable calming ideas they can try to help prevent their progress up the anger/stress scale and bring their feelings under control.
This technique can also be used to identify and respond to inappropriate behaviour from over excitement or a high arousal state.
Just saying
Children not only need to understand and interpret their own feelings, it’s important for them to be able to recognise the feelings of other people around them too.
When a child is familiar with using the feelings tag-o-meter to rate their own feelings and emotions, they can build their skills in appreciating other people’s feelings too.
As a parent, carer or teacher, you might want to let the child know that you are pleased with their work or attitude today. They may not have behaved well and you want them to understand that makes you sad. Reinforcing your words by showing them on the scale how you feel helps them develop their ability to recognise and interpret verbal and non-verbal emotional signals.
Let’s be friends
You can take a similar approach when dealing with social interactions between the child and their classmates, friends and family. If there’s been a disagreement or incident, try using the feelings scale to help those involved communicate with each other about what happened, how they are feeling and how they might be able to better control their actions in the future. Our School Timetable sticker pack (included in the kit “I know what to expect at school”) has a number of useful behaviour-related symbols that would help with identifying positive strategies in these situations.
The more practice a child has at acknowledging and recognising their feelings, using different coping techniques and appropriate communication strategies, the more relaxed and content they can be knowing that they have the skills to cope. A child who can identify his own emotions is more likely to be able to identify the emotions of others. Children who can see a situation from the view point of others are more able to engage in problem-solving and other social activities.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Helping your child to ‘find their brave’ for unfamiliar or ‘scary’ situations – things like visiting the dentist, doctor or hairdresser – is eased by good planning and preparation. Using a visual tool like TomTag or a simple social story can help you to communicate and explain to your child what’s going happen before the event, reducing the uncertainty and consequent anxieties.
