Seeking or avoiding?
Sensory strategies only work when they are matched to your child's actual profile. The same activity that calms one child will overwhelm another, which is why generic sensory advice so often fails.
Broadly, a sensory-seeking child looks for intense input: crashing into furniture, spinning, chewing, touching everything, moving constantly. A sensory-avoidant child withdraws from it: covering ears, refusing certain textures or foods, distressed by labels in clothing, overwhelmed in busy places. Many children seek in one channel and avoid in another — a child may crave movement while being highly sensitive to sound.
Heavy work: useful for almost everyone
Proprioceptive input — the deep pressure your muscles and joints feel when they work against resistance — is unusual in that it tends to be organising for both seekers and avoiders. It is the first thing to try.
- Carrying a basket of books or a bag of shopping
- Pushing a laundry basket or a loaded box across the floor
- Wall push-ups, or pressing palms together and holding
- Animal walks — bear crawl, crab walk, frog jumps
- Kneading dough, therapy putty or stiff clay
- Being rolled firmly in a blanket like a sausage
- Drinking a thick drink through a straw
For the child who seeks input
- Scheduled movement breaks before you need them, not after dysregulation starts
- A trampoline, swing or crash cushion available at home
- Chewable jewellery or crunchy snacks for oral seekers
- A weighted lap pad during table work or mealtimes
- Obstacle courses that combine climbing, crawling and jumping
For the child who avoids input
- A predictable quiet space they can withdraw to without asking permission
- Noise-reducing headphones for shops, gatherings and assemblies
- Removing clothing labels and choosing seamless socks
- Introducing new textures gradually, starting with looking and tolerating nearby
- Warning before any messy or noisy activity, so it is never a surprise
- Firm pressure rather than light touch — light touch is often the more alerting of the two
Building the routine
A sensory diet is simply a planned schedule of sensory input across the day, delivered proactively. The goal is to keep your child regulated rather than to rescue them once they are not.
Start with three anchor points: after waking, after school, and before bed. Add input before predictable pressure points — before a supermarket trip, before homework, before a family gathering.
Keep a short record of what you tried and what followed. Patterns emerge quickly, and it makes the conversation with your occupational therapist far more productive than trying to recall it from memory.
When to get an assessment
If sensory responses are interfering with eating, sleeping, dressing, schooling or family life — or if your child is frequently distressed and you cannot work out why — an occupational therapy assessment will give you a profile specific to your child rather than a general list.
Concerned about your child?
A guide can only take you so far. If something here matched what you are seeing at home, a functional assessment will tell you what is actually going on — and you do not need a referral or a diagnosis to book one.
