Signs of Overstimulation in Children

An overstimulated child usually looks like a badly behaved one, and gets treated accordingly. The behaviours are close enough that the mistake is easy to make, and the responses that work for one make the other considerably worse.

What overstimulation is

A nervous system taking in more than it can currently process, noise, light, movement, people, demands, or simply a day with too much in it. When the input outruns the processing, what comes out is disorganised: more movement, less control, less speech, or a sudden shutdown.

It is not naughtiness and it is not tiredness, though it often arrives alongside tiredness and is much likelier when a child is short of sleep.

What it looks like

It presents in two opposite ways, which is part of why it gets misread.

Ramping up:

• Faster, louder, sillier. Running when they were walking
• Clumsier: knocking things, bumping into people, falling over
• A shorter fuse than usual, over things that would normally be fine
• Difficulty following even simple instructions
• Laughing that tips into crying without an obvious turn

Shutting down:

• Going quiet and still, or hiding under something
• Covering ears or eyes, refusing to look at anybody
• Refusing to speak or answer
• Sudden clinginess in a child who was independent an hour earlier

The child who has gone wild at the party and the child who has gone silent in the corner are frequently in the same state.

Telling it apart from misbehaviour

Three questions usually settle it. Did it come on after a long or intense stretch: a party, a shop, a full day out, a noisy hall? Is the child less capable than usual rather than more defiant. Falling over, not just refusing? And does it improve within ten or fifteen minutes of somewhere quiet, without any consequence being applied?

If the answers are yes, treating it as misbehaviour will not work, because a child in that state cannot access the self-control the discipline is asking for.

What helps

• Reduce input first. Somewhere quieter and darker, fewer people, no talking. This is the whole intervention most of the time.
• Say less. Questions are more input. "Come with me" and a hand is enough.
• Offer deep pressure if they like it. A firm hug, a heavy blanket, being squashed under a cushion. Many children settle faster with this than with anything verbal.
• Water and food. Unromantic, and it removes one of the compounding factors.
• Wait. Ten to twenty minutes with nothing being asked of them. Then, if something needs saying, say it.

Preventing it

Most of it is planning. Build recovery into busy days rather than adding a second event to a full one; leave the party before the point at which it usually goes wrong rather than after; keep the day after a big day deliberately empty. Sleep is the largest background variable, a well-rested child tolerates far more input than the same child on six hours.

When it is worth mentioning

If a child is overwhelmed by ordinary environments, a normal classroom, a supermarket, everyday clothing, and it is limiting where the family can go or what the child can join in with, it is worth raising with somebody who can observe them directly. Sensory differences are common, they are not a diagnosis in themselves, and the practical strategies are worth having either way.

Ask what has gone into this child today before asking what is wrong with them.

This piece is general guidance and is not a substitute for an assessment by someone who knows your child.