Does your child struggle to understand internal body sensations?

I thought it would be helpful to have a quick chat about interoception, which is known as the eighth sense. 

A lot of children I work with have difficulty making sense of their internal body signals. What about your child, do they know when they are:

• Hungry?
• Full?
• Thirsty?
• Hot or cold?
• Tired?
• In pain? Do they know the location of the pain and what it means?
• Need the toilet? Or do they tend to go last minute?
• Understand their emotions? Can they link sensation in their body such as stomach pain to e.g. anxiety?

If they struggle to make sense of some these, they may have difficulties with interoceptive awareness. 

How does this affect your child?

Children who are under responsive to interoception do notice sensation, but they need the body signals to be very intense before they notice.

So for example they eat and eat and eat and still feel hungry until they are absolutely stuffed and then they finally feel full.

Or perhaps they say they don't need the toilet and time goes on and on and then suddenly when their bladder is bursting, the signal is intense enough for the brain to register it and they run to the toilet last minute or have an accident.

With pain, perhaps they are sensitive to touch and so easily notice papercuts and scratches but because they are under responsive to interoception, they bump into a wall and barely notice. 

And with emotions, they may tend to go from 0-100 - sound familiar?! They may not register feeling a little bit angry, but the anger is building in the body, the brain is not registering and making sense of it and then suddenly they feel overwhelmed by the intense sensation and explode. It is also common to struggle to relate sensation in the body to different emotions for example understanding that heavy muscles may indicate sadness or tiredness and a stomach ache may be hunger or anxiety.

Want to learn more?

If you are interested to learn more, then I highly recommend Kelly Mahler; she is the world expert on interoception and a fellow occupational therapist! Kelly has resources you can buy to support your child to develop interoceptive awareness. 

If your child has an assessment with me, I include assessment of interoceptive awareness and interceptive emotional evaluation. Please get in touch if you would like more information. 

A little tip

A final little tip for you! When doing activities with your children like swimming, climbing, bike riding, yoga etc, support them to think mindfully about the sensations they notice in their body - just to be 'aware' and start noticing sensation is the first step. When they are ready you can start helping them understand what they different body sensations mean but first they need to develop awareness. 

 Hope you have a good week. 

If you are interested in how I can support your child and family, please check out my website. 

Hanna