Sometimes it can help to think about times when the behaviour does not happen. What is happening when things are going well? For example, is your child doing something they enjoy in a familiar environment?
Understanding behaviours that can be challenging to manage
Before you start: Key points to remember
- You’re not alone!
- Look after yourself
- Think of behaviour as a communication
- Start small and pick your battles
- Consistency is key – it takes time!
Behaviour: a definition
The word behaviour means anything we do, or any action we take. Sometimes, parents can feel upset, worried or frustrated about their children’s behaviours. This section of the website is about the possible causes of behaviours which are challenging to manage, and what might help.
Examples of behaviours that might be challenging to manage:
- A child hitting themselves or banging their head
- Hitting other people
- Throwing or breaking things
Why does this happen?
Our understanding is that all behaviours happen for a reason; either to communicate something or fulfil a need. In the Social Communication Team (SCT) we believe that by trying to understand the reason for your child’s behaviours, we can plan how to best support them.
The Iceberg metaphor for understanding your child’s behaviour
We can think about the tip of the ‘iceberg’ being the behaviour that we see, and everything under the surface may help us understand what your child is experiencing.
This video from Ambitious about autism explains more about the Iceberg model:
We can use the iceberg model to think about the following questions:
- What is the behaviour
- Why is the behaviour happening
- How can we support your child
Where to start – trying to understand why the behaviour is happening
There are different ways to do this:
- Speak to your child if possible, or use visuals, objects or other ways to talk to them about it
- Try keeping a note of behaviours that are challenging and think about any patterns e.g., whether they always occur before/after a specific activity.
Understanding the background for the behaviour – ask yourself the following questions (being a detective)
- Is my child in pain or feeling unwell?
- Is my child struggling to understand a situation or to communicate?
- Is my child needing or hoping for something (e.g. food, a particular toy)?
- Is my child finding this situation/task too difficult?
- How is my child feeling in this moment? Remember that autistic children may show their emotions in different ways. Their facial expressions and tone of voice may not always reflect how they are feeling.
- Have there been any changes or transitions recently? e.g. going to a new school or has a staff member at nursery been sick/unwell?
- Does my child have any other way to get their need met other than that behaviour?
Thinking about autism ‘the autism lens’
Learn what you can about autism. If you haven’t already, take a closer look at our SCT “What is Autism?” , “Communication” and “Sensory Needs” advice pages, as these are an important foundation in understanding autism which can help you make sense of your child’s behaviour.
How can you use an understanding of autism, combined with your knowledge of your child as an individual, to work out how to best help them?
What happens next? What are the consequences of the behaviour?
What tends to happen just after your child displays this behaviour? The consequences of our actions can influence our behaviour the next time and can make the behaviour more or less likely to happen again.
Examples of immediate consequences after the behaviour:
- Another child might laugh when your child does the behaviour, and they might find this rewarding
- Your child might like how the behaviour feels, or it might change their experience of pain in their body
- The behaviour might be getting your child something they need, including a certain response from adults that makes them feel better
- The behaviour might mean that your child is able to leave a situation that they find very challenging or uncomfortable
Secondly, moving forwards – how to support/manage your child’s behaviour
Once you have thought about the possible reason for the behaviour, we can think about proactive strategies to support your child which may prevent the behaviour happening.
Proactive strategies could include:
Addressing any medical, physical or mental health needs
- Is your child in pain?
- Does your child need to see their GP or a dentist?
- Is your child hungry or thirsty?
- Is your child constipated?
Supporting your child’s communication
- How does your child tell you what they want or need? Do they need visuals to support their understanding?
- Show what is happening now and next to reduce anxiety and uncertainty
- Use visual timers to prepare your child when an activity is ending
- See our communication page for more ideas on how to support your child’s communication
Adapting the environment
- It is too noisy or too busy for your child? Could you use ear defenders or take a quieter route?
- Consider levels of noise/heat/light
Reducing demands
- Offer choices where possible
- Reduce your spoken language
- Think about the time of day – has your child been at nursery/school and if so they might need some quiet time
- Can you make any adaptations e.g., going to the supermarket at a quiet time of day
Prioritising relationships and connection
- Give your child opportunities to develop relationships and friendships with other people
- There are lots of ways to build connection with your child. For example, showing an interest in their favourite activities or playing with your child 1:1
- Look at the SCT page play and autism for further advice and ideas
Teaching your child new skills
- Can you offer an alternative to the behaviour that makes the behaviour less important/necessary?
- Support your child to communicate their needs
- Use Social Stories™ to show your child another way to do things.
- Discuss with the SCT and/or your child’s SENCO to make a joint plan
- Attend an SCT next steps group to discuss with a clinician
Responding in the moment:
We hope that with the proactive strategies in place these behaviours will be less likely to happen. If they still occur, we can think about how to support your child when the behaviour happens, also known as ‘reactive strategies’.
Reactive strategies are individual to each child and each behaviour. We would suggest that any reactive strategy should be discussed with an SCT clinician or your child’s SENCO to see what works best for you and your child to keep them safe and reduce incidents over time.
Some things parents have found helpful to do in the moment if their child is using behaviours that challenge:
- Ensure the environment around your child is safe and free from hazards
- Ensure any vulnerable people are at a safe distance
- Reduce spoken language
- Give your child space (still always supervising)
- Remove or reduce things that might be upsetting your child (like bright lights, noise)
- Try to keep yourself calm and regulated (this is not easy!).
Your child is unique, and you are in the best position to find out what helps your child.
Bringing all of these ideas together can help you to understand your child’s behaviour and think of strategies to support them. Here we have included an example to demonstrate how this works.
The ‘Stress Bucket’
Remember - no strategies will work 100% of the time. Some days will always be more difficult than others, particularly if there have been multiple difficulties in the same day. We can use the idea of the stress bucket to think about this further.
- Imagine your child has a bucket which collects all of their stress.
- Things that happen during the day can add stress to the bucket; this might be having a fire drill at school.
- Autism may affect your child’s bucket and how much water it can hold. For example, if your child has sensory differences or finds it difficult if there are changes to the routine.
- Your child’s bucket may become fuller and fuller throughout the day until a final event causes the bucket to ‘overflow’, usually resulting in distress.
- This can often happen when a child is in a safe place and doesn’t need to hold in the water anymore.
- It can be helpful to think of ways to add in ‘taps’ to release water from the bucket and to stop your child’s bucket from overflowing. These can be helpful coping strategies to reduce your child’s stress.
- You may also find it useful to think about your bucket as a parent – what things add to your bucket and what things help to release water from your bucket?
Summary
- All behaviour happens for a reason: to communicate something or to fulfil a need
- A good starting place is thinking about the reason for, or ‘function’ of your child’s behaviour
- Learning about autism and thinking about your unique child is important to think about what may be going on ‘beneath the surface’ of what we see
- A good time to try to adapt the environment or teach new skills is when you and your child are feeling calm and well-regulated
- Have a plan for incidents and emergencies in case they happen. This should include speaking to others who support your child to think about keeping your child safe
What next?
- If your child is open to the Social Communication Team, you can come to an online or face-to-face ‘Understanding your child’s behaviour’ Next Steps session. This is an opportunity to discuss your questions with members of our team along with other families facing similar challenges. You can find details of how to book here.
- You can also access further advice from:
Further support
Crisis information and who to contact
- In the SCT, we do not run an urgent/out-of-hours service.
- If you have urgent or safety concerns, please use 999/A&E.
- Islington Children's Social Care can be contacted using 0207 527 7400 (all hours)
- The NHS website offers advice on any medical concerns including advice following any head injury: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/head-injury-and-concussion/
Further support for children, parents and families
- Camden and Islington Talking Therapies is a service providing evidence-based psychological treatments for adults: https://www.icope.nhs.uk/request-an-appointment/
- Growing Together provides support for both parents who may be feeling stressed, overwhelmed, low in mood or anxious, and also for their children: https://www.icope.nhs.uk/camden-islington/what-we-offer/growing-together-support-for-parents-and-young-children/
- You can also go to your GP or child’s SENCo to ask for a referral for your child to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), and/or social care, including the Early Years services.
- Find your Islington provides up to date information about local services and groups https://findyour.islington.gov.uk/kb5/islington/directory/home.page
- The Challenging Behaviour Foundation is a UK charity which offers some advice for people whose needs may be described as challenging, and their families where the child has a learning disability: https://www.challengingbehaviour.org.uk/
Last updated11 Sep 2025