Emotional development in autistic children and teenagers

Some autistic children and teenagers need support to recognise, understand and manage their emotions. For example, your autistic child might interpret all negative or unpleasant emotions as anger or as physical sensations, like feeling heat or breathlessness. Or they might not recognise when they’re excited. Or they might label all emotions that are hard to describe as ‘being bored’.

Some autistic children and teenagers might also need support to recognise, interpret and respond appropriately to other people’s emotions. For example, your child might not notice when someone looks confused or feels upset or angry. Or they might see someone who’s upset and incorrectly think that the person is angry at them.

Emotional regulation is about learning to recognise, understand, accept and manage emotions. It’s important for your child because it can strengthen your child’s relationships and boost their mental health and wellbeing.

How to help your autistic child recognise emotions

Everyday interactions and play activities for children

Working on awareness of their own and other people’s emotions is the first step in helping autistic children learn about emotions. Everyday activities and play can be a good way to do this when your child is young:

  • Label emotions as you and your autistic child come across them during the day. You can point out emotions when you’re reading, watching TV or visiting friends. For example, ‘Look – Sally’s smiling. She’s happy’.
  • Point out your child’s emotions. For example, ‘You’re smiling. You might be feeling happy’.
  • Emphasise your own emotional responses. For example, ‘I am SO excited! Give me a high five’.
  • Help your child work out how their body feels when they’re feeling an emotion. For example, ‘You look nervous. Do you have a funny feeling in your tummy?’
  • Draw a picture of the body to show where people feel emotion – for example, sweaty palms or a faster heartbeat.
  • Ask your child to draw how they’re feeling.
  • Encourage your child to explore emotions through play or creative activities. Play ideas to develop preschooler emotions and play ideas to develop school-age emotions include messy play, drawing or painting, puppet play, dancing and music play. Your child might enjoy activities that use their special interests.
  • Do an emotions activity with your child. You choose an emotion like ‘excited’ and act it out with your child. You can turn this activity into a simple guessing game.

Emotions tools for children

Emotions tools can work for some younger autistic kids too:

  • Emotion cards have pictures of faces, either real or cartoon, which you can use to teach your child if they’re learning basic emotions.
  • The Transporters is an animation series that uses transport characters to teach emotions to autistic children aged 2-8 years.
  • Social stories and comic strip conversations are ways of explaining social situations to autistic children. A story or comic strip that incorporates feelings might be useful for your child.

Strategies for pre-teens and teens

If your child is older, they might know the words for emotions but still have trouble recognising them in themselves and others. They might also have difficulty recognising other people’s facial expressions, tone of voice or body language.

These strategies can help:

  • Talk with your child about the emotions they might be experiencing. Start with emotions like happiness, fear and anger, and then move on to complex emotions like jealousy, frustration or embarrassment. For example, ‘You’re yelling at your guitar, and you seem frustrated. Are you having trouble with that guitar chord?’
  • Encourage your child to describe sensations in their body. For example, if your child seems worried, you could ask what their tummy feels like or whether their heart is beating faster.
  • Point out emotions in characters in movies. For example, you could watch Inside Out together and talk about how the characters’ behaviour shows what they’re feeling.
  • Encourage your child to explore their emotions through creative activities, like writing, gaming, drawing or listening to music.
  • Encourage your child to use an emotional ladder. This is a way for your child to visualise how strong their emotions are. Our article on emotional ladders guides you through making and using a ladder picture with your child.

How to help your autistic child learn to understand and accept emotions

If your autistic child understands why they feel the way they do, it can help them accept their emotions.

Understanding emotions

You can help your child understand why they feel the way they do by explaining how thoughts can lead to feelings. For example, you could draw a picture of a dog with a child. Then you could say, ‘If a dog jumps up at you and you think it’s going to bite, you might feel scared. But if you think what a fun, playful dog it is, you might feel excited instead’.

Or you could use comic strip conversations to help your child link emotions with thoughts and behaviour. For example, you could draw stick figures of your child and a friend to illustrate a conversation. Use different colours to show what they’re thinking, saying and feeling.

Accepting emotions

It’s important for your child to know that everyone experiences a range of emotions.

For example, you could say, ‘It’s normal to feel all sorts of things, like happy, sad, excited, jealous. Sometimes feelings are big and sometimes they’re small. All these feelings are OK’. It might also help to talk about how big feelings will pass with time.

How to help your autistic child manage emotions

Strong emotions can be overwhelming for autistic children and teenagers. They often need support to manage strong emotions and calm down from them. But they can learn techniques to manage these emotions.

Below are strategies to help your autistic child manage strong emotions. Learning to manage strong emotions takes practice, so it’s good for your child to practise when they’re calm. This will make it easier for your child to remember and use the strategies when they’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed.

Calming down steps

You can help autistic children and teenagers calm down from strong emotions using a 5-step process:

  1. Notice the emotion.
  2. Name the emotion.
  3. Pause and say nothing.
  4. Support your child while they calm down.
  5. Identify and address the issue that sparked the emotion.

This process is explained in more detail in our articles on helping children calm down and helping teenagers calm down. You can adapt the strategies in these articles for your autistic child.

Relaxation exercises

Your child could try relaxation exercises to see what works for them. For example, they could count to 10, take 5 deep breaths, or think about something that makes them happy and calm.

They could also try using their fingers to focus on their breathing. Using a finger, your child slowly traces around their hand, breathing in when they trace up to the top of a finger and breathing out when they trace back down a finger. Repeat for all 10 fingers.

You could check out our breathing exercises and muscle relaxation techniques for more ideas.

Sensory stimulation

Your child could clap their hands if they’re excited or squeeze a cushion or a sensory toy if they’re angry. Fidget toys from a sensory kit or stimming might also help.

If your child’s sensory-seeking behaviour is hurting them, you might be able to replace it with another behaviour that meets the same sensory need. For example, if your child picks their skin, they could fiddle with rings or a bracelet or pick off clear nail polish instead.

Break time

Taking a break might sometimes help your child with strong emotions. Here are ideas:

  • Change activities. For example, go for a walk, get a drink of water, or find a quiet place to sit.
  • Take a brain break. For example, listen to favourite music, read a book or listen to a podcast about special interests.
  • Do some physical activity. For example, go for a short run, kick a football, do push-ups or have a few shots at basketball.

It can be hard for your child to use strategies like these when they’re very upset. They might shout, hit things, behave aggressively or behave in challenging ways. In these situations, you might need to help your child avoid or manage meltdowns.

Getting professional support for emotional development

An experienced professional can help your child understand and manage their emotions. A good first step is talking with your child’s GP, paediatrician, psychologist or other health professionals about therapies and supports for autistic children and teenagers.

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