Playing strategies for sensitive children

Child smiling holding a balloon in a living room.

Playing is very important for your child's development. Children learn lots of essential skills as they play. It's a safe time for them to learn about themselves and the world around them, how they move their body and how to communicate with other people.

Sensitive children and young people can find it difficult to regulate their senses. This means it can be harder for them to play. They may avoid doing certain activities or playing with other children. There are various strategies that can be used to help your child or young person.

Explore the topics in this page:

Introducing a new strategy

Messy play for sensitive children

Ways to meet your child's sensory needs when playing

Introducing a new strategy

Each child and young person is unique. When considering strategies, make sure to keep your child or young person in mind. This is a trial and error process. So, when one strategies doesn't work, there may be another strategy to try instead.

When trying a new strategy, give yourself and your child or young person the best chance to succeed. Try to start a new strategy at the end of the day, a weekend or during a school break. This reduces the pressure to get the task or activity done in a short timeframe.

It is important that when you trial a new strategy you:

Communicate with your child. You can use communication aids like social stories, picture symbols, visual schedules and sequence strips.
Stay consistent. By sticking to a routine, your child can learn what is going to happen next. This helps reduce the stress around self-care activities.
Keep the surroundings organised. Try to make sure things are put back in their place. This helps teach your child that this is where the item belongs. They will then be able to find the item by themselves and be more independent.

Helping your child to play

Talk about each step when you play. Talking as you play with your child helps them learn the words for what they are doing. This helps them learn and understand language.

Respect your child's fear. If they are scared of doing something or

Make play fun and motivating!

Messy play for sensitive children

Messy play uses a lot of different senses, which can be overwhelming or distressing to some children. They may not want to take part or avoid messy play completely.

Child playing scooping sand using yellow plastic trowel into plastic truck.

Messy play is great for child development. It helps children learn about the world and develop important skills such as hand-eye coordination and social skills. Read more about messy play.

Ideas to help encourage your child to take part in messy play:

Using familiar toys. For example, use a toy car from home in a paint tray with paint.
Using tools to play. Your child can play with materials using long-handled tools like long handled plastic trowels. Once they are comfortable using these tools you can move onto using short handled tools like plastic trowels.
Wearing gloves during messy play. This can let your child can play with materials using their hands. They won't be able to feel the upsetting or unusual textures.
Put messy materials in a zip-seal bag. Having the messy materials in the zip-seal bag lets your child explore the materials closely. This can also make messy play a little less messy.
Grade activities from neat or clean to messy. This helps your child to know what to expect with the task. It can make messy play a little more predictable and give your child a sense of control.

Ways to meet your child's sensory needs when playing

Some sensitive children have difficulties with their balance.

Help your child to learn about their body position and balance by creating an obstacle course. You can do this at home or using playground equipment at a local park. Set up a course and encourage them to go through the course slowly paying attention to their body.

Children who struggle with balance activities may not play at a playground or take part in playground games. They also may not take part in games where their feet are off the ground. Before your child uses playground equipment, you can try:
- massage
- gently applying pressure to their joints also known as joint compression
- heavy work exercises
Some sensitive children have difficulties with their body awareness and movement. This affects how their body moves, knowing where they are and what they are doing. If a child finds a physical activity hard, they may avoid doing it. This can make playing with other children harder as they may not want to take part in activities or games

Body awareness

Some children are unaware of their bodies, they can apply too much or too little pressure when playing. This can make playing with other children difficult as they accidentally play too rough. It can be helpful for your child to show them what is too much when playing.

If your child regularly breaks toys or the tips of pencils, you can teach them the difference between light touch and heavy touch. This will help them understand and control the pressure they use when playing with the toys or pencils. You can use different toys to show the difference between heavy and light touch.

Some positions can be very uncomfortable for sensitive children. If your child is uncomfortable in any position, make sure to tell their caregiver or teacher. This can help avoid stressful situations for your child.

Movement

If your child is unaware of the boundaries of the playground, you can make a stop sign at home. You can use this to help them understand where the boundaries are and when to stop.

If your child is easily distracted or impulsive when playing, they might be struggling to remember the instructions. This can mean your child will either make up new instructions or try to use what they remember. You can help them by breaking down the task into smaller steps. Teach each small step in a way your child finds useful. Your child may prefer to learn by:
- listening to instructions
- being shown the steps in a demonstration
- being physically guided through the movement of the step
Some children can be very sensitive to light. This can make playing indoors or outdoors harder.

Outdoors: Light sensitive children may not want to go outside on sunny or cloudy weather. The natural light can be too bright for some children and hurt their eyes. You may find encouraging your child to wear sunglasses or hats on bright days may help.

Indoors: Some indoor lights can be distracting or upsetting for sensitive children. Overhead lighting or using fluorescent lightbulbs can make a room too bright. There are ways to change the brightness and intensity of indoor lights. This could be using dimmers, using uplighters, and not using fluorescent lightbulbs.
Children can be under-sensitive or over-sensitive to sounds and noises. Some strategies to help your child include:
- avoiding playing with high-pitched or loud toys like balloons
- encouraging your child to play with sounds that they can tolerate
- reducing background noise, it can be hard for some children and young people to spot differences in sounds
Mouthing toys can be common for children who are overly sensitive or under sensitive to the senses in the mouth (oral senses). The most common reasons for mouthing are:
- Identifying their toys by taste or how they feel in their mouth or on their lips.
- Self-soothing and calming themselves down.
If your child is mouthing their toys to calm down, you can give them toys that are designed to be chewed or used in the mouth. This could be chew toys, chewable jewellery (also known as chewelry), whistles or blowing bubbles.

Your child may find it helpful to chew on something as they play. You can provide an age appropriate 'chewie' such as a dummy, a chewy food or gum for your child to chew as they play.
We do not recommend buying toys through international marketplaces like Temu, Wish or AliExpress. There is no guarantee that these toys will be safe for your child.
Children who are sensitive to touch can either avoid touching or find ways to touch things more.

If your child avoids touching a certain toy or texture, try using the toy or texture they are avoiding in their favourite game. You could also use their favourite character from a TV show, film or game. This can help encourage them to overcome their avoidance of the toy or texture.

Grade activities from neat or clean to messy. This helps your child to know what to expect with the task. It can make messy play a little more predictable and give your child a sense of control.

Some children may touch other people a little too much. This can be inappropriate and make other children and adults uncomfortable. You can teach the limits or boundaries of touch using social stories. Social stories are a tool to help children to understand social situations.

Read more about comic strip conversations and social stories.