Recognize What Doesn't Work
For your child, the only criterion of whether something works or doesn't work is whether it makes his body and his brain feel better. By that standard, rocking, head-banging, finger-sucking, shouting, and jumping around are highly successful strategies. But teachers and peers are unlikely to regard those solutions so highly.
As your child gets older and starts to value friendship and teacher approval, he may realize that the things he does only feel appropriate to him. If he hasn't figured that out for himself, your discussion of sensory integration should have led him to connect the way his senses work and the trouble he gets into.
Your child most likely does not want to be in trouble. She may be puzzled or angry at the reaction others have to her honest attempts to make her body feel right. As much as possible, try to distinguish between the sensory problems that lead to the behavior and the behavior itself that comes as a response to it. While the sensory sensitivities and imbalances may change with time and therapy, the responses can be changed right now.
One Problem, Many Solutions
Play a game with your child in which you think of multiple solutions to a problem. There's a fire: What could you do? You could put water on it. You could use a fire extinguisher. You could try to smother it with a blanket. You could try to blow it out. You could run out of the house. You could call the fire department. All of these might be perfectly valid responses to a fire. Depending on the size of the fire, some might be more desirable than others. Some responses might be dangerous with a big fire; others might be an overreaction to a small fire. One problem, many solutions.
Carol Stock Kranowitz, the author of The Out-of-Sync Child, has written a book for children to help explain different types of sensory problems and ways to deal with them. Called The Goodenoughs Get in Sync, it offers both pictures and large type for younger readers and more in-depth information in smaller type for older children.
Try another situation. Your neighbor is playing loud music in his backyard: What could you do? You could ask him to turn it off. You could call the police. You could turn up your own music. You could wear earplugs. You could close all your windows. You could join him in his backyard and listen to the music. All of these might be perfectly valid responses to a neighborhood annoyance. Depending on your relationship with the neighbor, some might be more appropriate than others. Some might be unnecessary if you like the music or the neighbor; some might be too polite if the neighbor is deliberately trying to annoy you. One problem, many solutions.
Play this game with your child whenever you have an idle moment — in the car on the way to school, waiting in a doctor's office, at the dinner table. The more nimble both you and your child can be in strategizing multiple solutions, the easier it will be to come up with options for his own difficult situations. Be positive and supportive of any solution he comes up with, no matter how wild or impractical. Sometimes, wild and creative ideas can, with a few tweaks, become the ideal answer.
Another way to incorporate problem solving thinking into your child's life is through reading. When you're reading with your child, make this sort of problem solving part of the experience. If a character in a book has a problem, stop and ask your child what could be done to solve it. Brainstorm a number of different possibilities, and then guess what the character will do. When the character does make a decision, discuss whether you think it was the right one.
Everybody Hurts
You don't have to look far to find people seeking ways to make themselves comfortable. Television commercials abound with examples of items sold to relieve all manner of distress, from headaches and colds to the horror of too-rough toilet paper. Ads appeal to the kind of strong preferences and overwhelming dislikes that your child is all too familiar with. If you can, discuss with your child what sort of sensory need these products might be filling. Let her know that other people seek out ways to deal with their discomforts, sometimes in ways even more disruptive than her own.
Do the same with magazine ads. You might give your child a project of cutting out ads that appeal to people's sense of smell, or of touch, or of proprioceptive comfort. Ask him what sort of ads would most appeal to him, with his particular needs. Which ads seem most off the mark? These are good informal ways to help him see that he's not alone in getting his needs met (and also, along the way, understand some of the manipulation that goes into advertising).
