(Inside: There’s a lot of focus on changing your autistic child’s behavior, but you must take these 3 vital steps before you address your autistic child’s behavior or you won’t see any true progress!)
When it comes to autistic children, there is a massive emphasis put on changing their behavior.
There are multiple “autism therapies” aimed solely at changing autistic children’s behaviors and to teach them to behave more like neurotypical children.
If you search on Amazon I’m sure you can find dozens of books all promising to change your autistic child’s behaviors, and on Pinterest, you’ll find hundreds of blog posts.
But here’s the truth… If you start out trying to change your autistic child’s behavior, you aren’t really going to get anywhere.
See, there are 3 vital steps to take BEFORE addressing your autistic child’s behavior, and if you skip these steps you just won’t see the type of positive change you’re looking for.
(Image description: A young girl in a pink dress sitting on a small chair pointed toward a white wall with a clock on it. She is turned around in the chair looking at the camera. At the bottom, pink and teal text on a white background reads: “do this before addressing your autistic child’s behaviors”. White Autistic Mama infinity logo in the top left corner.)
If we haven’t met yet, hey friend, I’m Kaylene!
I’m an Autistic advocate and parent coach, and I empower parents of neurodivergent kids to develop the unique flavor of parenting strategies that actually work for your neurodivergent child, your values, and your entire neurofamily.
If you want to dive even deeper into setting and sticking to boundaries that actually work, click here and watch my free masterclass: 5 Shifts to Effective Boundaries for Autistic Kids!
3 Vital Steps To Take BEFORE Addressing Your Autistic Child’s Behaviors
See, when we focus on changing an autistic child’s behaviors as the first and main goal, there is a LOT that gets missed.
We tend to jump to behavioral modification techniques that the experts say “work”, but at what cost?
Do we really need to use punishments, rewards, and manipulative techniques with our kids?
No! We totally don’t.
But if you want to see a real change in your autistic child’s behaviors WITHOUT using techniques that make you feel guilty and uncomfortable, you’ve got to take these three vital steps first.
(Psssst… Check out this totally free masterclass: 5 Shifts to Effective Boundaries for Neurodivergent Kids!)
#1 Make Sure Your Autistic Child Feels Safe
Before you even begin trying to change your autistic child’s behaviors, you have to make sure your child feels safe.
“But Kaylene, of course my child is safe!” you might be thinking…
Well, autistic people tend to struggle with anxiety.
Meaning that even if you logically know that your autistic child is perfectly safe, their brain may not feel safe.
So before jumping into your child’s behaviors, take some time to evaluate their environment.
Is your autistic child regularly eating and sleeping? Are their sensory needs being met regularly?
Do they have a way to communicate needs with you, even if that’s literally pointing at things or a specific cry that means a specific need?
Do they feel some sense of control over their world, whether that be through routines or allowing them to make choices about what happens in their day?
Taking some of these steps will help your autistic child manage their anxiety, and without that, any attempt to change their behavior is pretty much pointless.
#2 Understand Why You Want to Change Their Behavior
Okay, so you’ve made some changes to help your autistic child feel safe and made sure they feel like they have some control in their life.
Now, time to address your autistic child’s behavior, right??
Not quite.
See, now we need to do some heart work.
I want you to take some time understanding exactly why you want to change this specific behavior.
Let’s take a look at two specific behaviors that parents may want to change.
First, we’ll say that your autistic child is constantly spinning in circles, and you’d like them to stop.
I want you to take some time and think about why you want your child to stop spinning.
Does their spinning hurt themselves or others?
Does their spinning negatively impact their life?
Or is it just that their spinning is distracting to you? Or maybe that it makes other people stare when you’re in public?
In most cases, I’d actually encourage you to leave this behavior alone.
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with your child spinning, and it actually likely serves a very real purpose for them.
For now, let’s take another example behavior, and say that your autistic child is hitting their sibling.
Let’s go through that same process and think about why you want your child to stop hitting their sibling.
Does their hitting hurt themselves or others? Yes!
So now you know this is a behavior that makes sense to try to change.
But we still aren’t quite ready to address your autistic child’s behavior.
There’s one more step that is absolutely vital!
#3 Know the Reason for The Behavior
Now I know by this point you might be so ready to start addressing your autistic child’s behavior, but I’ll tell you that the parents who take time on this step see much more progress than those who don’t!
It all comes down to this basic truth: All Behavior Is Communication.
And while that’s true of all behaviors and all kids, it is especially true when it comes to autistic children, and even more so with autistic children who struggle with communication.
So if you want to change your autistic child’s behavior, you have got to figure out what that behavior is communicating.
It’s our job as parents to discover the reason for our child’s behaviors.
So many behavioral techniques and therapies skip this step and focus solely on eliminating the end behaviors.
And while you may be able to train away the outward behavior, you won’t make true progress with your child unless you take care of the reason for the behavior that’s lurking under the surface.
Not to mention, when you find the reason for your autistic child’s behavior and help them manage the reason, you are building trust.
You are teaching your autistic child that you want to truly help them, not just make them behave the way you want.
This is seriously powerful stuff!
So I encourage you to take some time discovering what could be going on below the surface to cause your child’s behavior.
Spend some time tracking when your child does the behavior and start paying attention to the things happening before the behavior to look for some clues.
Try to include your child when you can, and you might be surprised at the insights they have to share.
I’ll also give you one word of caution: Go into this with an open mind.
If you start this process thinking “my autistic child is just doing this for attention” or “my child does this because they didn’t get their way”, you’re likely going to miss the true cause of your child’s behavior.
So keep a totally open mind, leave your assumptions behind, and look for what the clues are telling you!
And once you find your best guess of what’s causing the behavior, that is when you can finally start addressing your autistic child’s behaviors.
But really, instead of simply trying to train or manipulate them so they stop doing the behavior, you’ll be able to address the root cause before the behavior even begins!
You can do this. And I want to make it even easier.
So click here to get access to my free masterclass where I walk you through exactly how to set (and stick to) effective boundaries, even if your neurodivergent child has walked over every single boundary you’ve tried to set before now.
Because I get it. As an Autistic adult and parent of 6 neurodivergent kids myself, boundaries are no-freaking-joke.
That’s exactly why I designed this masterclass! 💕
In this power-packed training, you’ll get answers on how to handle behaviors when you’d rather just hide and avoid the conflict, what to do when you’re not sure a behavior is even in your child’s control, and so much more!
I’m taking you behind the scenes and walking you through exactly what’s working with my family AND with my clients. You’re getting the “real real” of what’s actually working for neurofamilies like yours.
So if you’re ready to:
✔️ Figure out why your kid isn’t following any boundary you set (even though they’re totally capable and you SAW them do it yesterday)
✔️ Know exactly when you should stick to boundaries and when you should be flexible without feeling like a total flake
✔️ And feel like a freaking parent again—you know, one that’s actually raising your kid to be a good human…
If you loved this post, you should check out:
- 4 Reasons Your Autistic Child Doesn’t Follow Boundaries
- 3 Steps to Navigate Boundaries With Your Autistic Child
- Three Vital Steps to Take Before Addressing Your Autistic Child’s Behaviors
- 5 Important Steps to Discipline an Autistic Child
- 5 Calming Strategies for Autism Meltdowns
Ty. Great info. I was just thinking of what I was doing while I was trying to change a new behavior he started, but then asked myself why am I doing this, doesn’t he ‘need’ to do this? He must like it. Anyway thanks for your wisdom.
“Meaning that even if you logically know that your autistic child is perfectly safe, their brain may not feel safe.” <— even if you logically think you know that your autistic kiddo is perfectly safe, there are likely things outside of their control that cause them a lot of sensory discomfort they are expected to suffer through. Calling serious and well-justified concerns about their well-being anxiety is probably a way society gaslights autistics.
Love this so much! Relationship is key to influence and I’m so grateful for my relationship with my unique and precious daughter. Behavior is information! Yes! Amen.
Lindsay Leiviska recently posted…Do You Have Parenting Figured Out?
I’m a little confused. This isn’t to be argumentative. I’m sincerely looking for answers. I am a special education teacher and a parent with a child on the spectrum. I teach in a ABA room and have proudly boasted about being an ABA parent. I’ve never met an ABA Behavioralist who does not practice these three steps in their strategies. I agree with some of your concerns about ABA in another post, “5 Important Reasons Even “New ABA” is Problematic”. I don’t, however, see another of those as issues that can’t be fixed with a little tweak in planning/implementation. Also, what you suggest as better altenatives are already practiced by ABA practicioners. Is it ABA you are against, or ABA performed improperly?
How does one get someone to attend to their sleep and food needs without changing their behavior? I’m a bit confused as to how to implement part 1 without taking an authoritarian stance towards the person I’m supposed to be engaging with and making feel safe.