How to help your autistic child with anxiety

What causes anxiety in autistic children and teenagers?

Autistic children feel many of the same worries and fears as their peers.

But autistic children might also worry or feel stressed about things like:

small disruptions to their routines
unfamiliar or unpredictable social situations
situations where it’s hard to know what other people are thinking or feeling
new sensations they feel in their bodies
their own thoughts and feelings, especially when these cause unfamiliar or unpleasant physical symptoms
lack of access to their special interest.

When autistic children and teenagers learn practical skills to reduce their anxiety, it can have a positive effect on their daily lives.

What are the signs of anxiety in autistic children and teenagers?

When autistic children get worried or anxious, the way they show their anxiety can look a lot like common characteristics of autism – stimming, special interests and resistance to changes in routine.

Also, because autistic children can have difficulty recognising their own anxious thoughts and feelings, they can’t always let you know you that they’re feeling anxious. Instead, you might notice an increase in challenging behaviour.

For example, your anxious child might:

have more trouble sleeping
have meltdowns or emotional outbursts
avoid or withdraw from social situations
bang their head, scratch their skin, bite their hands and so on.

Anxiety is a natural part of life, and everyone experiences anxiety at some stage. But there are things you can do to ease your child’s worries and encourage your child to manage their own anxiety.

How to help your autistic child manage anxiety

1. Find out what makes your autistic child anxious

Identifying your child’s anxiety triggers is the first step in reducing your child’s anxiety and helping them to manage it.

Autistic children and teenagers can have difficulty with understanding and managing emotions, so you might need to read your child’s signals and work out what makes your child feel anxious or stressed.

Common triggers for anxiety in autistic children include:

changes in routine – for example, not going to a weekly piano lesson because the teacher is sick
changes in environment – for example, a new house, new play equipment at the local park, or furniture in different places at home
unfamiliar social situations – for example, a birthday party at an unfamiliar house
sensory sensitivities – for example, sensitivities to noises, bright lights, flavours or food textures
fear of a particular situation, activity or object – for example, sleeping in their own bed, going to the toilet, balloons or vacuum cleaners
times of transition – for example, a new school year, the start of secondary school or the start of puberty.

2. Identify the best anxiety management strategies for your autistic child

Once you’ve worked out what makes your child feel anxious, you can figure out the best way to help your child manage their anxiety in these situations.

This might include:

helping your child learn to recognise what anxiety feels like
encouraging your child to use relaxation and calming strategies
creating visual tools to help your child manage anxious situations
giving your child opportunities to practise handling anxious situations.

It helps if other people who look after your child – for example, child care workers, teachers and family members – also know what makes your child feel anxious and how they can help your child with managing anxiety in these situations.

You might be able to help with your child’s anxiety by sticking to routines and keeping your child’s environment as predictable as possible. Try to minimise changes to routine and prepare your child for them if you can. You can also work on helping your child learn to handle changes to routines.

Strategies to help your autistic child recognise anxiety

Your autistic child might need to learn what anxiety feels like in their body. For example, when your child feels anxious, their:

palms get sweaty
stomach feels strange
heart beats faster
hands flap.

You could try drawing an outline of a person’s body. Inside the outline, help your child draw or write what happens in each part of their body when they feel scared or worried.

Relaxation and calming strategies to help your autistic child with anxiety

You can help your child learn ways to calm down when they start feeling anxious or stressed. These might include:

counting slowly to 10
taking 5 deep breaths
running around the yard 5 times
doing 50 jumps on the trampoline
looking at a collection of their favourite or special things
reading a favourite book
closing their eyes for a few moments
going to a quiet part of the house
listening to their favourite music or podcast.

Get your child to practise these strategies when they’re calm. Once your child knows the strategies well, you can gently encourage your child to try them when they feel anxious.

These strategies will work best when your child feels only mildly anxious. If your child is very distressed, it might be best to help them calm down before suggesting one of these strategies. You can help your child calm down by staying with them and reassuring them. For example, ‘I’m here for you’.

Visual tools to help your autistic child prepare for anxious situations

If visual supports and social stories work well for your child, you could use these tools to help your child prepare for situations that make them anxious.

For example, if your child gets anxious when you drop them off at school, you could take some photos of what your child will be doing – walking in the school gate, sitting in the classroom, playing sport, eating lunch and so on. You could also take photos of what you’ll be doing while you’re not together, like driving home, grocery shopping, gardening and so on. A clear picture of you coming back to pick up your child is important too.

If your child gets anxious when there’s a change in routine, daily or weekly visual schedules can help your child prepare for these situations. When you know a change is coming up – for example, no swimming lessons in the school holidays – you can show this on your schedule. Leading up to the change, look at the schedule regularly with your child so that they know the weekly routine will be different.

Some children like to be warned about a change or an event a day in advance. Some like to know a week in advance. But for some, too much warning can mean they worry until the event happens.

Opportunities for your child to practise handling anxious situations

If you give your child opportunities to practise handling situations that trigger their anxiety, it can help your child understand these situations and feel more prepared for them.

For example, if going to the hairdresser makes your child feel anxious, you could try taking your child for a practice run. You could ask the hairdresser if you could come at a time of day when it’s quiet and calm, and then go through the steps with your child. Or perhaps your child could watch someone else having their hair cut.

If your child gets anxious in social situations, you could practise these together. You could practise different situations and take turns playing different roles. Try to keep the scenarios short and simple, and encourage and praise your child.

Where to get help with managing your autistic child’s anxiety

A psychologist might be able to help if your child is very anxious. A psychologist can work directly with your child and family to develop strategies for reducing anxiety.

Psychologists use a range of approaches:

Cognitive behaviour therapy – this helps children develop skills to change their thinking in situations that make them anxious.
Therapies and supports that use gradual exposure to help children face their fears – this might include the stepladder approach.
Social stories – these can prepare children for unfamiliar or stressful situations that generally make them anxious.
Relaxation training – this can help your child learn to relax.

Mental health occupational therapists are another option to help your child with managing anxiety.

You can ask your GP or paediatrician to recommend a psychologist or therapist.

Online therapies are a good option if you can’t get in-person psychological support. Your GP might be able to recommend one.

Medicine can also reduce anxiety symptoms in autistic children. It’s usually recommended only when anxiety is affecting a child’s everyday life and other strategies haven’t reduced the anxiety enough. You can speak to your GP or paediatrician about this option.

Your child might be able to get Medicare rebates for up to 10 sessions with a mental health professional each calendar year. To get these rebates, your child will need a mental health treatment plan from a GP or a referral from a psychiatrist or paediatrician.