Please don't try to stop your child from stimming, many Autistics have been traumatized by people attempting to do that to them. Stimming is an essential behavior for us - it's how we express emotions, regulate sensory input, and cope with overstimulation. Stopping an Autistic person from stimming is like stopping a neurotypical person from using facial expressions and body language, damaging the part of their brain that processes sensory input, and preventing them from engaging in stress-relieving behaviors. It's dangerous, traumatic, and will only lead to an increase in unwanted behaviors.

Julia Bascom's essay, Quiet Hands, provides a firsthand look at the damage stim suppression can do to Autistic people and the lifelong trauma it can inflict. Here's a link to it if you'd like to read through it: https://juststimming.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/q...

I should note that self-injurious stims are the exception to the rule. If your child is hurting himself severely while stimming (ie: doing damage that he won't recover from in a day or less) then you probably need to redirect him to a different, less dangerous stim. Self-injurious stims usually indicate something going wrong (ie: the person is in pain or overstimulated), so if you can determine the cause and address it then the self-injurious stims should go away, or at least lessen in severity, without any further intervention.

It's better to allow your child to stim if they are not harming themselves or others by stimming because when an autistic child starts to stim he is trying to either calm down because of stress or put some order in a really chaotic world. If you try to repress a stim, it will just come out in a sneaky way that is most likely worse than the stim you tried to repress.

So my son doesnt try to hurt himself in any way yet but he is only 2🙏 But what i try to do is not STOP MY SON FROM DOING ANY BEHAVIOR AT ALL... if you think about it right... him biting his tshirt and running around laughing is a symptom of his autism. You could do two things... 1) Try to do what most professionals would try and do which is to try to get him to stop biting his shirt and running around laughing right? OR you could try to look beyond the obviouse and try to figure out WHY right? Why is it that he does this? There is a reason for everything he is doing? If a kids tired he rubs his eyes right? Well rubbing your eyes is a symtom of being tierd. You want your kid to stop rubbing his eyes you wont tie his hands to his waste and then make him stay up right ? No of course not. You would address root of problem which is to put him down to rest. Now let me be clear so you dont think im a nutbag... hitting himself is different than biting his tshirt, because he can hurt himself. But the same law applies... hitting himself is a symptom of his autism. My only advice is to dont focus as much on him hitting himself but try to figure out why is it. Dont be pushed around by people telling you that trying to deter himself from hitting himself is the solution. What we need to do is enter into our childrens world on THEIR TERMS , and then invite them back into OUR WORLD. But if we dont earn there true trust they wont want to come into our world. The same way you would feel if you were forced to marry and spend your life with someone you didnt relate with. Im sorry for long answer i am just very passionate about this because it really hits home hard. Im no doctor but maybe what our children need arnt doctors🙏

Hi bud so listen I know this is going to sound completely completely insane to you but this worked for me... Next time your boy runs around house laughing and biting his shirt i would like you to do the same exact thing as him. Yes you read that right😅 Bite your shirt and run around laughing with him. Watch for his reaction but dont let him see you watching for a reaction. Just bite your shit and run around laughing with him. I hope to hear back from you with your outcome... If I do then I will explain more to you ok ? Good luck🎉

I've been told it would be in my sons best interest if he could refrain from stemming so much in public, at school, around peers etc. as it would help him not to stand out so much. But how to you approach the subject without making your child feel, weird; pointing out yet another way he is different from other kids doing something which it appears to come so natural to him. It's like an unconscious act, that I'm not sure if he uses as a stress reliever, or what. My sons kind of cups his hands together and grinds/rubs his palms together really hard while pacing and making an unusual facial expression. Sorry, that's not offering much in terms of a solution. But I do understand where you are coming from. Maybe as long as he seems to be enjoying himself, maybe do what you can to try to learn to tune it out. ? Or offer up something else he might like to do that is equally as ? rewarding for him but at a lower volume?