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Sensory Processing Disorder {Episode 199}
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Do you or your child or someone you know have Sensory Processing Disorder? In this episode, Bonnie & Audrey discuss what Sensory Processing Disorder is, how it manifests itself in different people, and how to create a sensory protocol that will help mitigate some of the symptoms. Audrey shares her personal experience with Sensory Processing Disorder, and shares hope with others on how to live a full life as a highly sensitive person.
Mentioned in this episode:
About Outnumbered the Podcast: Two moms, parenting a combined total of 19 kids and finding joy in the chaos. Join Audrey and Bonnie as they share real parenting tips for real people through humor, advice and compassion. Whether it's tackling how to teach kids to work or discussing where to turn when you're all out of patience, these two experienced moms are here to offer authentic tips for raising children joyfully.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Exploring Sensory Issues
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi everybody. Welcome back. And today we have an episode for you that we have been promising for a long time. It's about sensory issues and we're going to dig really thoroughly into that one. But first of all, we got a new review and we love it when we receive reviews because they help bump us up on the algorithm in the podcast, Apple podcast app, and it helps us so that other moms get to find us just like you did. So thank you for everybody who leaves a review. If you haven't yet, we still love you, but please go leave a review.
00:01:05
Speaker
This review is from AMMCD. It says, fun, inspiring, and helpful. I have been listening to Outnumber the Podcast for about a year now and I really enjoy it. Bonnie and Audrey feel like my wise and caring older sisters that I can go to for advice and encouragement as I try to navigate my own motherhood journey. I have four young boys and I need all the help I can get. Their episodes are packed with great tips and helpful information. I look forward to listening to Bonnie and Audrey every week.
00:01:30
Speaker
I finally decided to leave a review after hearing their most recent episode regarding Roe versus Wade. I loved the truths they shared. The experiences Audrey described regarding miscarriage were particularly touching to me as I have suffered a miscarriage in the past. I am so grateful for your strength and boldness in sharing these vital truths. Keep up the good work, ladies. You are amazing. Oh, so sweet. Thank you.
00:01:53
Speaker
Thank you so much for that review and also for specifically commenting on that episode. You can leave more than one review if you listen to different episodes and you have thoughts. But we really felt vulnerable in both recording that episode and putting it out there in the world. So we really appreciate you mentioning that one specifically. Thank you.
00:02:15
Speaker
Yes, we super appreciate it.
Understanding Sensory Processing Disorder
00:02:18
Speaker
Okay, so today's episode talking about sensory processing disorder. Now, you might have already heard of this, you may not have, you might have some experience with it, maybe not, but we're going to talk about what it is, what it looks like, and maybe even break down some stereotypes you might have about sensory processing, and then also talk about how to help kids that struggle with this, and maybe even help yourself if this is something that you struggle with.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yes, we have been promising this episode for a very long time. I know I have referred to it quite often in the past because I myself am someone who has sensory processing disorder but did not discover it until I was or did not discover that there was a name for
00:02:58
Speaker
my stuff that I had going on until I was an adult and I was actually sitting in a bookstore with my husband and I after we were Married and we're just sitting there reading books, you know, not much to do We didn't have any kids and I was sitting there reading this book called the vital touch and he was reading his own book and I just started Balling when I was reading this book and he was like honey what's going on, you know, we're nearly married and stuff and I was like, oh
00:03:25
Speaker
There's other people in the world like me. I'm not like, I'm not like messed up in the head. There's like actually a name for what's going on inside of me. And he's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, I need to buy this book. I need to take it home and everybody I know needs to read it.
00:03:46
Speaker
So anyway, if you're listening to this episode, we're going to dive into it a little bit and we're going to help. Hopefully. If you have kids that have this going on, or maybe you don't know what's going on with your kids, maybe this might help and you can help them out too. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
00:04:06
Speaker
So sensory processing disorder in a nutshell is an improper fight or flight response to normal sensory stimuli. So you've got something normal going on and your body, your brain is telling you that it is a dangerous situation and you need to fight or flight. And we're going to talk about a whole bunch about this in depth.
00:04:28
Speaker
Right, right. Okay, so let's talk about the senses for a second. The ones we're used to talking about, right, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, those five senses. Okay, so some descriptions also include two internal senses. One is body awareness, also known as proprioception. I think I'm saying that right.
00:04:46
Speaker
So that's motor control and posture or also movement so sometimes known as vestibular is a sense. And then also there is interception which is an internal awareness of hunger, if they need to use the toilet, the temperature around them. So these are just kind of a deeper level of a sense that many of us probably don't think about if we don't struggle with this.
00:05:09
Speaker
Right. Right. So, um, those, those two internal senses, motor control, and then the inner ear balance. Like if I have, um, for example, if I, if I'm riding in a vehicle and I'm feeling a little bit nauseous cause my inner ear stuff is off, then I'll have a harder time dealing with the sensory things that are bugging me or, um, you know, that, that interception. Like if I have to go to the bathroom and, um, I can't get there for some reason.
00:05:36
Speaker
then I'm going to have a harder time dealing with the sensory stuff because I've got this needing to go to the bathroom thing going on. Okay, so just an example of this real quick. So a proper response is you smell something and you're like, oh, that smells good. Or, yeah, I don't like that smell.
00:05:53
Speaker
An improper response is you smell something and you're like, I need to get away from this smell before I die. If I can't get away, the thing making the smell is going to die, but something is going to die. That is like an improper response. It's, um, yeah, the fight or flight mechanism kicks in and it's just a smell, right? To most people.
00:06:16
Speaker
Right, right. And one thing that I think about when I try to help people with sensory processing issues or be a little more compassionate is that there are literally hundreds of things that my body is experiencing at this moment, because this is not something I've struggled with, that my body and mind are able to ignore, right? I am ignoring the fact that I feel my hair on my neck, that I feel my t-shirt,
00:06:34
Speaker
that I have undergarments on that my shoes are slipping off. My brain is able to filter out a lot of this sensory input so that I can function, so that my brain can think about the podcast we're recording and not how my shoe is falling off. And that's not the case for everyone. And so to have this constant
Symptoms and Signs of Sensory Processing Issues
00:06:50
Speaker
overload of sensory input is really, really difficult. And as Audrey is saying, one thing is bothering you, so you can't function normally because it's just this incessant alarm bell going off, right?
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Like for example, you're right exactly that the message never stops coming in. So let's say I have a seam on the inside of the toe of my socks. This is one for a lot of sensory sensitive people. I never stop feeling that through the entire day. Like by the end of the day, I will just be like panic mode because I have
00:07:24
Speaker
had my brain telling me all day, you're going to die because this seam of the sock is touching you or something like that. And so it's very hard to walk through life or, you know, as a kid sit in a classroom because your body is giving you these alarm bells. You're going to die. Your sock, your sock is, your sock is killing you. Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:46
Speaker
Yeah, man, that's hard. So there are actually two different types of sensory processing difficulty, and this is something new that I learned today. And that is hypo sensitive and hyper sensitive. So most people assume that all sensory processing
00:08:03
Speaker
is hyper where they just avoid any input, right? They don't want anything else touching them or anything else to hear or anything else to touch. But there's also hypo and this child or person craves sensory input and is actually looking for more.
00:08:18
Speaker
Right, right. Now, everything I speak to in this podcast, for the majority, I am hypersensitive, so I'm avoiding these inputs. But interestingly enough, when we get down to the help section, interestingly enough, some of the therapies or some of the methods that I use to help are actually
00:08:39
Speaker
like lean toward the hypo-sensitive side. So we'll get into that a little bit later. So I wanted to actually go through some of these common signs. Now, we're going to link to a website in the show notes. It's called Sensory Smart Parent. And this website has put together a lot about sensory processing in a very helpful way. So go check it out if you think at all you or your child has this.
00:09:04
Speaker
I'm going to go ahead and read through their list of common signs of sensory processing issues so that you might know if you key in right now, oh my goodness, that's my child. You can really take advantage of what we say for the rest of the episode.
00:09:22
Speaker
Here's a list of common signs of sensory processing issues. Unusual under-reactions or over-reactions to any sensory input, touch, sound, sight, movement, taste, smells, including bothered by clothing, fabrics, labels, tags.
00:09:38
Speaker
Distressed by light touch or unexpected touch. Dislikes getting messy. Resist grooming activities. Very sensitive to sounds, volume, quality, or pitch. Squints, blinks, or rubs their eyes frequently. Bothered by lights or visual pattern. High activity level or very sedentary.
00:09:57
Speaker
unusually high or low pain threshold. That high pain threshold has come in very handy when delivering nine babies. I need that. How can I get that? Deliberately bumps into people and things. Inappropriate, biting, licking, touching people or objects. Poor focus, highly distractible.
00:10:17
Speaker
Difficulty handling transitions. Very rigid about change. Poor regulation of energy levels and mood. Easily overstimulated or uncomfortable in group settings.
Strategies for Managing Sensory Triggers
00:10:28
Speaker
Difficulty with self-confidence and independence. Anxiety about everyday sensations. Very high or low activity level.
00:10:35
Speaker
Withdraws or refuse to participate, tunes out what's happening. Impulsivity, particularly with seeking sensations. Some motor skills and body awareness difficulties including motor, fine motor delays. So difficulty with crayons, snaps, beating, scissors, gross motor delays, difficulty walking without tripping, running, climbing stairs, catching a ball, skipping.
00:10:58
Speaker
illegible handwriting moves awkwardly or seems clumsy lower high muscle tone difficulty recognizing when they need to urinate or move their bowels oral motor or feeding problems including oral hypersensitivity frequent drooling or gagging a picky eating speech and language delays poor attention and focus not being able to tell if they're full or hungry so go through that list so that you know the rest is episode if you've suddenly have a child pop into your mind one of your kids that you can
00:11:30
Speaker
Pay attention to what we're seeing the rest of the episode.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah, and I've noticed with a couple of my kids that very often this sensory processing comes with another diagnosis or it just might be your kid is known as the irritated one or the rambunctious one or whatever. And then you start reading this list and you're like, oh, actually he has that and that and that and that. So maybe it's just a different spin on what you saw before as irritating behaviors maybe can help us understand our kid a little bit better and make things a little bit easier on them.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, that is so true. I didn't know because I said that when I found out as an adult what was going on with me. That means that my parents didn't understand what was happening with me as a child. And so I got a lot of those labels and was told things like,
00:12:21
Speaker
there's not really, your brother isn't really making that annoying noise or you can't really hear him chewing or breathing across the room or across the table. It's all in your head was something that was said to me a lot, which really, maybe it can help your kids out and maybe there's something else going on. But just, okay, so another thing is that oftentimes
00:12:45
Speaker
Kids with autism have a lot of these sensory issues going on, but it is separate from autism. It's just because they have all these sensory issues going on does not mean that they're autistic. So they're, they are, what do you call it? They have overlap, but they're not, one does not mean the other.
00:13:05
Speaker
Not the same thing, yeah, yeah. One thing that's interesting is this can actually manifest itself very, very early on in babies. And a couple of signs of it in an infant might be difficulty breastfeeding or crying for unknown reasons, a difficulty potty training or very early training. So those also might be some red alerts to look for. Yeah, in fact, the sensory processing disorder is something that
00:13:34
Speaker
they think the child is born with. So I did a little digging once I found out what was going on with me and I asked my mom, what was the first, okay, so a coping mechanism, a very unhealthy coping mechanism that I had developed to deal with these sensory issues when I was a baby and toddler and young child was that I would hold my breath until I passed out.
00:13:59
Speaker
Very sad, very pitiful, but I know, but here I was, I had learned a way to make the sensory inputs stop, right? If you are not conscious, you don't know if there's a fluorescent light in your eyes or if you're too hot or if, you know, whatever all these other things was.
00:14:20
Speaker
that were bothering you. So I did ask my mom, I said, what was the first time that I did this, held my breath to pass out? And she said, you were six weeks old and I had brought you in your car seat and I had laid you on the table and I was bringing in groceries from the vehicle. It was winter, you were in your snow suit. And I said, oh, okay. So then I'm thinking, I'm like, okay, some of my other sensory issues. I was like, so did we have like
00:14:43
Speaker
a light hanging over the table was I possibly like under the light. So here I am in a snow suit inside. I'm probably way too hot. And this light is shining in my eyes. So, you know, then these other sensory and I didn't have my mother, you know, so I.
00:14:58
Speaker
did this thing, like I learned to do this thing where I held my breath and I passed out. And it's really sad and unhealthy, but it was a way to make the sensory issue stop. All that just to say that it does seem something in their studies of this that is
00:15:14
Speaker
something that is inborn. Like at six weeks old, I had this sensory stuff. Six weeks. That is crazy. And you must've been very brilliant because at six weeks old, you figured out how to make it go away. It might've actually just been an accident that I, you, the first time I cried until- Well, that's the other thing is, yeah, sometimes you just, yeah, cry until you can't breathe or you hold your breath because you're mad or something. Yeah, I could do that. Right. Right. Right.
00:15:40
Speaker
Okay, so that's babies. Now kids, working with kids that are a little bit older, what you can do is you can help the kids learn to recognize when they're having an improper response to normal stimuli and you can start teaching them
00:15:55
Speaker
the kids can start to learn self-regulating techniques. So they can start recognizing, okay, for example, let's go back to fluorescent lights. These fluorescent lights are bothering me. I need to go outside and take five deep breaths to get my body to come back down. So kids can start to learn that process, or this smell is bothering me, or this taste, see?
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, and the earlier we're able to help them recognize what's going on and figure out these tactics, the better they will be able to head into adulthood knowing what works for them and what doesn't, right? So, you know, like we said, teens, as they grow up, they begin to understand that they didn't choose this for themselves, right? That's really hard to explain to a young child. It's like, why is this so hard for me? It doesn't seem to bother anybody else, but teens can start to understand, oh, this is just the way that I am, but I can work with it and I can make it work for me.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, so I think one of the most powerful things that I learned about sensory processing disorder is that it is not treated with medications. If you're doing medications or a child with sensory processing,
00:17:01
Speaker
disorder has been prescribed medications. All that is doing is basically doing what I was doing as a baby, holding my breath till I passed out, making those sensory inputs going away. But a much better treatment for sensory processing disorder is to learn the ways to help. So all these things we're going to talk about in the rest of the podcast. It's important to look at
00:17:25
Speaker
the sensory what's going on with the child before medicating for a symptom that appears on the surface to be caused by an anxiety order or ADHD or autism. Maybe it's a sensory thing that is better to teach a child how to deal with and how to use some of these things than hold their breath and pass out. I mean, the equivalent of, you know, medication is not dealing with the things that are bothering them. It's just teaching, it's just a medical
00:17:53
Speaker
medicated form of holding your breath till you pass out. So that was really encouraging and powerful, empowering to me when I found it out. Hey, just because my brain is giving me this fight or flight information doesn't mean
00:18:06
Speaker
like there's something I can do to make it stop.
Customizing Sensory Diet Plans
00:18:09
Speaker
Okay, so when you start looking into this, if this is something that affects you or someone in your family, you will probably hear them refer to a sensory diet plan, which is not really an actual food diet, but rather a regimen of activities that you or your child can participate in to try to help
00:18:27
Speaker
this overload or under load, whatever you and your child are dealing with. But it does need to be customized to each child because one child might, even within the hyper spectrum, like Audrey's talking about, some person might always struggle with wearing socks and shoes and another person, it might always be their hair being down or whatever it is. It just needs to be something that you watch your child for their specific triggers and customize it to them.
00:18:53
Speaker
Okay, so that is with a caveat to say that for me, and I think I've noticed for my kids, which some of them do have sensory issues, diet, food diet is very important because it's also connected to your brain. So if your brain is struggling with that huge load of M&Ms that you just ate, it's also gonna have, like when I eat bad, I have more sensory issues, okay? So it is connected to your brain as well. But what we're talking about in the rest of this
00:19:23
Speaker
episode is ways to help as in a regimen, things that can actually be done to help these kids. All right, so we're going to go through each of the ways that they might have sensory issues going in and some ways that you can help. So we're going to start with that proprioception, which I don't know if I'm pronouncing that either. We're probably both butchering it, but you know. Yeah, whatever.
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, so we're first going to talk about in each of these like ways as an adult or a teen, like the final step you can get to, but then we're also going to talk about how you can help babies and toddlers and then kids, things that can be helpful for them. So for adults, this is, you know, we mentioned that that pro preceptio
00:20:09
Speaker
The proprioception is motor control and posture. To help this, for a sensory diet, you actually have exercise that you do.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You exercise, you have heavy work, like pulling, like when you lift something heavy that is actually pulling your joints apart, or if you're pushing on something heavy that's actually pushing your joints together. And that is all physically working with these joints and getting them, like sending these messages to the brain that kind of
00:20:42
Speaker
I don't know how it works, but these messages keep on going for a while and they relieve some of that sensory fight or flight messages that come if you're not exercising the joints in these ways. Just exercise in general is really good for sensory issues. And one thing in the past that I found that was so, so, so helpful for me, like especially during pregnancy. So my sensory issues always are worse in pregnancy because my body has more going on.
00:21:11
Speaker
um, deep pressure, deep muscle massage, massage. Like if I could get a deep muscle massage, massage once a week, my sensory problems are so much less because I've had, I don't know, some messages sent to my brain that just work it out. Interesting. Yeah. And an excuse to have a great massage once a week, right?
00:21:32
Speaker
Why not? I'm okay with that. So babies and toddlers are pretty familiar to us, the tactics to use with them. And here's something that I'm realizing too, as we're talking about this, is that you have to think that infants, when they're in utero, have a lot going on. It's actually quite noisy.
00:21:50
Speaker
it's they're floating around bumping into things they see some lights they hear lots of sounds they're really tight and compressed in there and then they come out and they just are like laid on this bed flailing around and feeling very very vulnerable and i think this is actually a little form of their brain starting to realize oh this is my new normal right so what's comfortable to new infants being swaddled being held against a mother or father being
00:22:16
Speaker
put in some place where they feel tight and wrapped up. So it's kind of an interesting concept, right? If anything drastically changes in your life, obviously you're going to want to feel that comfort of whatever was familiar before. Weighted blankets are also good for these babies and toddlers, pushing them in a stroller, like I said, wearing them on the front or back. And then for older kids that have their own ability to use their bodies, right, trampoline, playing hopscotch, jumping rope,
00:22:43
Speaker
vacuuming, moving laundry over, like we can really make this work for us, right? Carrying wood across the yard, big stacks of books, any number of things to get these these muscles working together.
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You just are sending that information to the brain that it's somehow overriding the other fight or
Activities for Vestibular Sensory Issues
00:23:04
Speaker
flight stuff. If you're working the joints and the muscles in these ways, it's helping out. There is another side benefit of vacuuming that when I was a kid and I was just really, really having sensory overload, something that I would love to do is vacuum or listen to somebody vacuum because it like drowned out.
00:23:25
Speaker
Everything else. There were no other inputs coming in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Although has anybody ever done a considerable amount of vacuuming when you have an infant at home? There's always phantom crying in the vacuum, just like in the shower. You know how that goes. Yeah, I know it. I know. Who's crying? Turn it off. Nobody. Oh, dang it. That's so funny.
00:23:44
Speaker
Moving on to the next type of sense that we're going to address, and that is vestibular. So that's the inner ear, right? The balance. Okay, so the vestibular includes swinging back and forth, spinning around, anything that alters that, that sense of balance, right? Hanging upside down. Kids love to do all this stuff. Doing yoga, any sort of pose that's going to get you out of your normal up and down. Dance, those sorts of things.
00:24:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Those are all things that as an adult, um, I have been able to use to help me a lot. So yoga, I do yoga three or four times a week. And somehow that like the down dog poses, especially where the blood is like running down to my head and all that. It's just really helpful. So for babies and toddlers, same thing, you know, spin them, swing them, um, them spinning.
00:24:29
Speaker
the airplane game where you put them on your legs and you find through the air and kids do a lot of this naturally but if you know you have a kid with sensory issues you can say let's let's play rolling down the hill let's swing on the swings you know take them to a an amusement park put them on the roller coasters
00:24:46
Speaker
And after that, it will probably kind of chill out those sensory issues for a while. That being said, if I'm super beyond tapped out in sensory issue with my vestibular, like I can't, I can't swing, I can't spin, I can't go on a roller coaster. It's too much. Yeah. So you have to like, this is again, the figuring it out, customize it to each child. Some of them are going to love spinning. Some of them are going to have a meltdown.
00:25:16
Speaker
Right. Yeah. This vestibular stuff is especially good for those kids that struggle on the other side of Audrey, right? The hypo where they need constant input and more input than other children.
Managing Tactile Sensory Overload
00:25:25
Speaker
Go make them swing on the swing for 20 minutes. That ought to settle them down and hopefully get them to a place where they're functioning a little bit better. I actually have a funny experience with this. One of my younger sisters was a premature baby and had a lot of issues as a young child.
00:25:41
Speaker
She was a chronic crier. She was just very, very callicky. It was really hard to get her to calm down, but one surefire way did it every time, and that was hanging her upside down. My mom would be at church, pass her over to my dad, and he'd just hang her upside down. She'd instantly be quiet and sometimes almost fall asleep. They're like, this is the weirdest thing ever, but it makes sense. Maybe she just didn't have enough time in the womb or something.
00:26:03
Speaker
If she was getting you know overloaded or under loaded or whatever her brain was was dealing with for some reason Having all that blood rush to her head did the trick That is so cute all right moving on to tactile and things things about touch that
00:26:23
Speaker
that are sensory issues. Okay, so for an adult, something that we can do is just use our hands to create something. Do something with a lot of different textures. Garden, just dig your hands into the soil, right? Activity, sewing, embroidery, you know, just like, just do things, create things, touch things that have different textures.
00:26:44
Speaker
Do something that involves touching and experiencing a lot of different textures. Cooking, cooking is great for this. Make some sourdough bread and do all the touching and folding and all that. Yeah, with young kids, I mean, they love to do this anyway, right? Anything that's kind of a messy texture. Carbonated drinks are fun for them because they feel it all the way down, right? Sensory boxes, all kinds of, so Montessori type stations,
00:27:13
Speaker
play that sort of thing, dressing up, putting clothes on and off. And this is something that toddlers love to do all the time anyway, right? Older kids, walking barefoot is very helpful because they're feeling that sensation all along their feet, the grass, the pavement, the rocks, the bark on the tree they're climbing. And then cooking, like you mentioned, Audrey, they can get in the kitchen and be able to touch everything that they're seeing and cooking with, and it can be a really, really helpful experience. Yeah.
00:27:40
Speaker
Yeah, so like being on the hyper, on the avoidant side of this, I do get touched out. Like my kids touch me all day long and I'm just like, sometimes I'm just like, get away from me and stop touching me. If anybody else touches me, I'm gonna scrape, like I'm touched out. But then the thing that helps me come back from the edge of the cliff is these different textures. So I know that if I take off my shoes and I go out in the garden and I walk barefoot and I start pulling weeds,
00:28:07
Speaker
I'm going to be calmed down and I'm going to this, like this sensory, I'm touched out, stop touching me. I'm going to die if anybody else touches me. It goes away. And so that's kind of one of these examples of using something on the extra, you know, the extra side to get it back to the avoidance side. I mean, you know, just kind of find middle ground. I don't know how it works. I don't understand how it works, but I can speak to it working for sure.
00:28:34
Speaker
Well, and I wonder if it's specifically different places on the body and different senses, right? So like if you are touched out, maybe going and smelling something or hearing something can help your brain to shift into different, a different processing or something. I don't know. It's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. One other example I wanted to share on this one was one for babies was one of my kids was so, so, so sensitive to clothing.
00:29:04
Speaker
the composition of the fabrics that they were wearing. And finally, after many, many, many weeks of the baby crying, if it was dressed in anything other than 100% cotton or natural fibers, we figured out we can't put polyester on them.
00:29:19
Speaker
We can't put nylon on them. We can't put spandex. It has to be 100% natural fibers. And it was just like, we figured it out because every week started noticing a pattern that when my husband would give the baby a bath, the crying would stop. And so that was kind of like a sensory input, the water thing, but also just taking the clothes that were bothering them off. What a high maintenance baby. Goodness.
00:29:43
Speaker
Hey, once we figured that out, there was an easy child. All right, so moving on to smells, you probably get
Exploring Scent and Taste Sensitivities
00:29:50
Speaker
the idea, right? You got to just experiment. Find the smells that soothe or calm your child. Try essential oils, maybe get a diffuser. Some of these might make things worse. Some of them could make them better. Or rub them, rub the oils on your child. If they're walking around constantly smelling them, that could help things as well.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yep. And this one is where it super needs to be customized to each child. So, or each person, like there's smells that I absolutely cannot stand and it's an essential oil. And then there's some that just instantly relax me. Another thing to be aware of here is.
00:30:22
Speaker
detergent smells. So, you know, your kids sitting in a class and they're having a meltdown and they maybe can't put into the words that the kids sitting behind them, their mom washed their clothes in a very strongly scented detergent. And that smell is not going away for your child. And they're having this fight or flight response. Detergent smells is a terrible one for me. I use all unscented everything in my home because I just can't deal with the smells because the message never goes away. Yeah, totally.
00:30:52
Speaker
Okay, so tastes, try new things and encourage your child to try new things, but it's okay to keep common foods available. Sometimes your kid is going to get into a rut that's going to be really frustrating too for a parent who's trying to feed their child something nutritious and they just know that applesauce is safe and they just stick with applesauce forever. So you might want to encourage them to try something maybe with a similar texture because you know they're okay with that one. But don't push things too far because there is something else at
00:31:20
Speaker
at play there, it's not just they're being picky. Yeah. I don't have a lot of experience with sensory problems with taste, sometimes textures. So they're kind of connected. But definitely if your kid is a picky eater, go get that sensory checklist from the Sensory Smart Parent that we've linked in the show notes and see if your kid has other sensory things going on, if there are
00:31:43
Speaker
super picky eater. Sounds is the next one. And I think pretty much every one of us can understand how a sound might be a struggle for somebody with sensory processing issues.
Managing Sound and Light Sensitivities
00:31:55
Speaker
You can try adding music, right, like soothing music, or white noise can also be very, very helpful. But if it's the overstimulation, then earplugs, there are special kinds of headphones that have white noise in them, right, or just
00:32:09
Speaker
Noise canceling can be really helpful. Creating a quiet time. So this is something that I do for my own sanity is to have a quiet time during the day because my house is just loud. I don't want to say 24 hours a day, but 18 hours a day. So this can be very, very difficult and can overstimulate a child. But also be aware that if your child is on the other side of the sensory thing, he or she could be the one making the noise all the time. And you just want to get rid of this child, but they're the one that needs that input.
00:32:37
Speaker
Yes. Okay. So, kind of a subcategory. Some people disagree that this is connected. Some people think it is, think it isn't, whatever. We're just going to include it here because it is a sensory over sensitivity to noises. It's called mysophonia. This is, you're super sensitive to noise. So like other people, the sound of other people chewing, somebody else's breathing, a rattle in a car.
00:33:01
Speaker
a whistle and a nose, something like that. And I would have to say that one of my strongest areas where I have sensory problems is with sounds, because my ears are so sensitive. Yeah, so if you think like this is one for your child or for you, go ahead and search a little bit deeper into Mycophonia. Just a quick story here. We were sitting in our living room, and my mother-in-law was there. And I said, oh, your phone is
00:33:31
Speaker
someone's calling you. And she's like, I don't hear it ringing. She said, I left my purse in the entryway where I came in. I said, she goes, and it's on vibrate. And I said, I know I hear it vibrating. And she's like, you can't hear a phone vibrating. I said, actually, your phone is vibrating. You're missing a call. You might as well just go get it instead of argue with me about whether I can hear this or not. Trust me, I have very good ears.
00:33:58
Speaker
Which my kids hate. They're like, mom, we can't get away with anything. You can, you hear, she hears everything. Yep. That's true. My poor kids, one of my sounds that is really, um, instantly flags the fight or flight response in me is triggers the fight or flight response in me is the sound of whistling or snapping, which kids love to whistle and they love to snap, but mommy has trained her kids that they have to go outside where I can't hear them to make their fun little noises because yeah.
00:34:28
Speaker
Yeah. They don't want to die. Thanks so much. Okay. So the final sense is sites. Uh, these children or adults can be sensitive, especially to specific kinds of lights, like fluorescent lights. Audrey mentioned before, blinking lights, uh, strobe type of thing, really bright lights or even low lighting, anything that's out of the ordinary. And for these kids and adults, the less screen time, the better. Cause it can really take a toll on your, your brain.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah. I think my kids have learned that the fastest way to turn mommy into a grizzly bear is to take a light switch and flick it off and on, off and on. Because I turn into an absolute screaming animal because my brain is sending me this danger, danger, danger. That's what I mean. It's just a normal light turning on and off, but not for my brain. My brain says.
00:35:24
Speaker
that person needs to die doing that or I'm going to die. I never die. I did mention fluorescent lights. So fluorescent lights, what they say is that the person with sensory issues can actually perceive, so fluorescent light works and uses less energy because it
00:35:42
Speaker
flicks on and off at a high rate of speed. And so the person with a sensory processing thing can actually see that flickering. Interesting. So I know that when I go into a mall or a building or Walmart or somewhere that uses fluorescent lights, that I have a time limit before I'm going to go bonkers. So I have to have my plan before I go in and get in and out. Otherwise I just turn into a
00:36:10
Speaker
a ball of mush or something that can't function.
00:36:14
Speaker
That's super fascinating. And I have noticed in videos, if I do a video on my phone and it's somewhere with fluorescent light, that it flickers quite a bit. And for most of us, it's not something that we notice, but the video, maybe the frames per second or too slow to capture what it's supposed to look like. But man, you have Superman eyes. Yeah. No, it's like I think I went roller skating or something when I was a kid or a dance or something, and there was a strobe light.
00:36:43
Speaker
And I was physically sick. I had to leave because I was physically vomiting. And then for days it took me to get over that fun party-like thing that Audrey almost died.
00:36:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Personal Journey with Sensory Processing Disorder
00:37:01
Speaker
You know, sensory processing disorder is a very complicated thing and because there are two ends to the spectrum, it can be difficult to call out. But if this is something you've struggled with, you're probably going, yes, yes, yes, yes, and totally understanding this. And if not, but you know someone who has, maybe this has offered a little bit of insight for you guys in understanding this person a little bit better and being compassionate and able to give them some coping strategies so that they can cope with life a little bit better.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah. I want to say, um, here that as a fully functioning adult, well, I mean, you can probably be functioning. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of. I've shared a bunch of stuff in this episode that kind of makes me seem like.
00:37:46
Speaker
a highly sensitive person, actually. But if you meet me on the street, you're not going to know about all this sensory stuff that I have going on. I'm not tooting my own horn here. I'm just saying that you can develop coping strategies. You can start your day with a massage. You can do yoga through the week. You can have some essential oils that you put on or diffuse. You can know your triggers. You can go through life with nobody else knowing that you have this going on. Not that that's the point. I think the point is that
00:38:16
Speaker
I feel so much better. Like I don't feel like I'm going crazy.
00:38:20
Speaker
I don't feel this constant fight or flight. Like it's kind of like an adrenaline rush thing, really. I mean, that's what fight or flight is. And so you can imagine, you know, living your body in constant state of fight or flight, you're going to be in adrenal burnout. You're going to have some serious health issues. So I just hope that if you do have sensory processing disorder or one of your kids does that this episode and me sharing so much about my issues, help you
00:38:48
Speaker
give you hope and empower you to be able to help your child and that this is something that's completely manageable and I wish you luck. If you guys have further questions, for me specifically, for either one of us, reach out to us at OutnumberedThePodcast at Gmail.com and we'd love to help. That's it for today's episode. I'm Audrey. I'm Bonnie and we're Outnumbered.
00:39:14
Speaker
Thanks for listening friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week.