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Hello. Today we're gonna talk about stimming. Have you heard of stimming? What do you think of? Do you think of hand flapping or do you think of a whole list of things? Are you unsure what stimming is? Let's learn all about what stimming is, a whole bunch of examples of it. Let's go. Welcome to the Autism Diagnosis to Confident Mom podcast with Kira from Kira Brown Coaching. I'm a mom of Neurospicy Kids and a life coach. I'm here to share real tips and support to help you feel confident as a parent. Stimming. Let's talk about stimming today. Um, most people think of stimming as like hand flapping or clapping or like rubbing your fingers together, which those are forms of stimming, but there are a lot more forms of stimming. Like there are as many forms of stimming as there are people, if not more than that, because people can have more than one way of stimming. Um, stimming is a self-soothing mechanism. Um, anybody can stim, but people with autism and ADHD stim a lot more than the average person. Um, and they are just trying to re-regulate their bodies when they stim. If a stim is not hurting anybody, then we should just let it be. There's nothing wrong with a stem. Now, if it becomes injurious to them or to somebody else, or um that kind of thing, then obviously we want to redirect or ruining property or that kind of stuff. But just a stim, we need to learn to just let it be. It's if it's not hurting anybody or anybody else. But I want to talk about um seven different types of stimming and give you some examples of them because I didn't realize that a lot of the things my son and daughter do are stimming. Um, and you might be like, well, that's just a little socially weird. Maybe it is, but is it doing them harm or is it beneficial for them when you understand why they do it? That can help you also decide if you want to redirect their activities. The first kind of stimming I want to talk about is visual stimming. Um, this is like watching spinning objects, flicking fingers in front of their eyes, looking at lights or patterns or reflections. Think of like toys with flashing lights. Do they just like hit the button over and over and over again and watch it? Or do they like things like um a disco ball or like strobing lights, those kinds of things? Um, or just repeatedly watching the same movement over and over again. So those are all forms of visual stimming. Okay, once again, they're not bad, they're not good, they just are. If they're not hurting anybody, just let them be. They are re-regulating themselves. The second kind of stimming that is commonly known is called auditory stimming or things dealing with sounds, they might hum. They might use echolalia, which is repeatedly saying the same words or phrases. Um, my son will pick out phrases from a movie and say it on repeat, or it might be a sound. Um, if you make a weird noise, he might repeat it for the next three days. Like it just is him stimming, okay? Um, they might click their tongue, they might tap objects to create noise or make noises in other ways. Um, which for a long time I just thought my child was being obnoxious, and it turns out that that he is stimming when he does that. Um one that I do is I listen to the same song on repeat. If I get stressed, I have certain songs um like Easy Come, Easy Go by George Strait that I just like to put on repeat, they're soothing to me, and it helps me re-regulate my system. Um, but that being said, you might also just sing a certain the chorus or a certain lyric to a song on repeat. Um, I have an ADHD friend that does that, and I do it occasionally too, and it's not hurting anybody, so just let them stim. It's helping them feel better. The third type of stimming that you can have is tactile or touch. This is gonna be like rubbing, they might rub fabrics or textures, they might. I have a friend whose son likes to rub the hair on her arm, he likes the feel of hair. If it doesn't bother you, it's fine. Um, is it a problem when he kind of walks up to a stranger and rubs their hair? Maybe okay. So, see how these can be we have to address is this okay or is this not okay? So, obviously, with something like that, we need to teach them about personal space and asking. Um maybe letting them know that they can rub their own hair. Um, have you ever met kids that just love to play with their mom's hair or their own hair? They twirl their hair on their finger a lot. Those can be stems, um, touching objects repeatedly, playing with fidget toys as a tactile stem, which is why fidgets don't work for all kids because it depends on what their sensory needs are, um, or why some fidgets work for some kids and not other kids, and vice versa. Um about running fingers over surfaces. Have you seen those little strips that they put on desks at school and they kind of feel like sandpaper on top? They're not like going to hurt the kids, but they're kind of rough. That's a type of stimming, is using those little strips, and I don't remember what they're called, but there are those that you can buy. Um, one that my son likes is there was a sequin wall in the calm down area of his classroom, and he would just rub it up and down and up and down and up and down. Um, there might be a certain material. I had a friend growing up, and she had this silky material that she would rub in her hands when she would go to sleep at night. That is a form of stimming. Um, and then there's also things like squeezing or kneading. This is where your therapy putties and your slime come in. If that is soothing to you, that is a type of a stim. Um the fourth type of stimming that I have come up with is movement, or you might hear it called vestibular stimming. So these are kids that rock back and forth. Um, I notice myself sometimes just swaying from side to side a little bit, bouncing a leg. Um I spin in circles, some might pace, some might jump a lot, some swinging and a swing. Those kinds of things can be stims for kiddos. Um, the fifth type of stimming that we have are proprioceptive stimming, that's your body pressure. So this is where your hand flapping comes in. Um they might clench their fists or stretch their muscles a lot repeatedly, they might press up against the wall, they might use a weighted blanket or deep pressure, they might pop their knuckles. Um, some things that you can do to help them in this area is you can take a rolling pin and roll it along their body with some deep pressure. Obviously, you don't want to do it hard enough that you hurt them, but as much pressure as they can stand. You can do tight hugs. I really um when I'm upset and I want to reset if my husband's around, I really appreciate a tight hug for 10 to 30 seconds. Um, you might do something like a burrito where you roll your kid up in a blanket as tight as you can. Um, those kinds of things are all stimming. We have oral stimming, things related to the mouth. This might be things like biting their nails, chewing on stuff. Um, I know my kiddo likes to chew on his shirt when he gets dysregulated. It puts holes in his shirt, right? So I redirect to on Amazon you can find some chewy toys, and they're made for kiddos on the spectrum or with ADHD that have chewy needs. They're basically like a chew toy for a baby, but they're stronger just because they have teeth. Um, those are really nice. They can you can get them on a necklace, you can get them on a keyring, you can get them for the end of their pencil at school. Those have come in handy. Um, chewing gum can be a stem. Sucking on a straw, sucking on hard candies. Um, do you have a kid that licks everything? That could be a stem. Um, or any sort of repetitive mouth movements are all stems. Um and the last type of stemming is what we're gonna call smell and taste stemming. So, do you have kids that smell everything? I have one that does, and it's like, you are weird. But when I realized it was a stem that they're meeting a sensory need to reset their bodies, I'm like, okay, smell my fingers. If that makes you feel better, smell my fingers. If it makes you smell better, just smell every flower you ever see, then smell it. Like, let them smell things. Okay, obviously, we need to be socially appropriate, but just let them smell things. It's okay. Um, they like strong scents, they like eating foods with texture, so maybe crunchy, maybe chewy, or they like sour or spicy things. Sour Skittles can reset a regular um a dysregulated body, or if it's maybe it's spicy foods, maybe they like talkies. Um, these are all types of stimming. Once again, I just want to remind you that stimming is a way of re-regulating their nervous system, of re-regulating their body so that they feel comfortable and calm and collected. Um, if it's not hurting them or somebody else or property, just let them do it. It's it's okay. Um if it's obviously hurting them, then redirect them to another stem. But the goal is never to take away the stem, the goal is to allow them to re-regulate themselves. They're not doing it to be naughty, they're not doing it to be obnoxious. Some of them can be obnoxious, like the auditory ones, the loud ones, where they repeat the same phrase over and over and over and over. Um, but can we redirect to something else that's maybe a little more socially appropriate or those kinds of things? Um, but I just wanted to let you know that there are a whole bunch of different types of stims. If you have heard of some that I have not put on this list, drop them um in the comments or DM me on Instagram, email me, all of the things. I'd love to hear them. I'm always fascinated by learning about new stims. Um and next week we will be talking about what to do when they get annoying. Because sometimes they can. So, how do we handle that? Um, how do we handle inappropriate stims? All of those things, that's what we'll be talking about next week. So make sure you come back next week for that. You can tell then you're doing better than you think you are, mama. Keep up the good work. Thanks so much for listening to Autism Diagnosis to Confident Mom. If this episode helped you feel a little more seen or supported, please take a moment to like, follow, or subscribe to the podcast. And if you know another parent who needs to hear this, share it with them too. We're all in this together. You're doing better than you think, Mama. You've got this.