What if a child does not know what their body is telling them?

“And where do you feel that in your body?”

It is an increasingly common question when we work on emotions with children.

Sometimes the answer comes quickly:

At other times, the answer is simply:

“I don’t know.”

That “I don’t know” may be far more interesting than it appears.

It may mean that the child is still learning to notice signals from the body. There may be several sensations at the same time. Finding words may be difficult. The signal may be too subtle, too intense or simply ambiguous.

It may also mean that we are asking the body for a clarity it does not always have.

The body gives us information. It does not always give us a caption.

Interoception is the process through which we perceive and interpret signals from within the body: hunger, thirst, temperature, muscle tension, heartbeat, breathing, the need to use the toilet, nausea, pain or changes associated with our emotional states.

It is an important part of social-emotional development.

A recent systematic review of interoception in children and young people found associations with emotional regulation, social-emotional competences, executive functions, sensory processing and functioning at school. At the same time, the authors draw attention to an essential idea: noticing the body more does not automatically lead to better regulation. What also matters is how those signals are interpreted and integrated with the child’s other capacities. [1]

Feeling is one part of the journey.

Then comes understanding what that sensation might mean.

Then deciding what to do with that information.

The same sensation can tell different stories

A racing heart can appear when a child is frightened.

It can also appear when they have been running, when they are excited, when they are waiting for their turn in a game or when they are about to do something for the first time.

A strange feeling in the tummy may accompany anxiety. It may be hunger. It may mean needing the toilet. It may be excitement. It may be several things at once.

When we work on interoception with children, overly rigid maps can create an illusion of precision:

These associations can help to begin a conversation. They work best as hypotheses rather than fixed translations.

Research on interoception is moving away from an overly simple view. A recent Perspective on interoception in autism highlights that the field has relied too heavily on tasks such as counting heartbeats and on self-report questionnaires. These measures can be influenced by attention, expectations, cognitive strategies, anxiety, alexithymia and other individual characteristics. The authors call for a multidimensional and developmental understanding of interoception. [2]

The body provides signals.

The brain tries to make sense of them within a context.

That interpretation does not always arrive immediately.

“I don’t know” is also an answer

There is something important we can teach when we ask a child what is happening inside them:

they do not need to get it right.

We can open up more possibilities:

This last possibility has value.

Developing body awareness also involves learning to tolerate some uncertainty about what we feel.

What if the body is experienced differently?

This question becomes especially important when we think about neurodiversity.

Bodily and sensory experience varies greatly between children. For some, particular internal signals may be difficult to perceive until they become very intense. Others may notice them very early or experience them with great intensity.

The same is true of the external sensory world.

Textures, sounds, light, movement, temperature or physical proximity can affect children in very different ways.

A recent study involving autistic children and young people aged 8 to 15 helps to show this complexity. Participants received unpleasant tactile stimuli while researchers observed brain activity using fMRI. In one condition, they paid attention to the experience; in another, they used a cognitive reappraisal strategy and described the characteristics of the sensation objectively. [3]

The strategy altered the autistic participants’ neural response. They nevertheless continued to rate the sensation as unpleasant. A reduction in subjective aversion appeared only in the typically developing group. [3]

This is one study, with several limitations, and its findings cannot be turned into a rule about autistic children.

It still offers a very important educational question:

What if a child can regulate and still find the experience deeply unpleasant?

Both can be true at the same time.

Regulation can also lead to a boundary

Imagine a sensory activity.

A child touches a sticky gel and immediately pulls their hand away.

We can encourage curiosity:

We can also acknowledge the information that has already appeared:

“Your body is telling you that this feels very unpleasant.”

From there, the child may try a strategy.

They may approach slowly.

They may want to understand the sensation better.

They may choose another material.

They may decide to stop.

That decision can also express body awareness, autonomy and regulation.

The educational aim gains depth when it moves from tolerating an experience towards understanding what is happening, communicating and choosing an appropriate response.

Notice. Make sense. Choose.

At Time IN, we can think about interoceptive work through three movements:

Autonomy grows precisely in this final part. Recognising the body becomes meaningful when that information can influence what we do next.

The adult also needs to hold uncertainty

There is another layer.

When we ask a child “what are you feeling?”, we often expect an answer.

When they do not know, we may feel tempted to fill the space:

Sometimes we are right.

At other times, we are placing our interpretation over the child’s experience.

We can offer language without closing down the investigation:

In this way, the adult supports the construction of meaning while keeping the child’s experience at the centre.

Teaching children to listen to the body can begin by teaching that the body is complex

Interoception offers a very interesting foundation for social-emotional development. Research involving children remains relatively limited and methodologically diverse. The systematic review published this month found only 13 relevant studies involving children and young people, and highlights that much of the evidence relies on self-report, with little direct research in educational contexts. [1]

It is worth holding two ideas at the same time.

The body is a precious source of information.

Learning to listen to it is a gradual, contextual and deeply individual process.

Some children will say immediately:

“It is here.”

Others will need time.

Others will find contradictory signals.

Others will know only:

“This does not feel right for me.”

There is a great deal of competence beginning there too.

Learning to know one’s own body includes noticing, investigating, questioning, making meaning, communicating and, gradually, making choices based on what we discover.

Sometimes the beginning may simply be:

“I don’t know yet. Let’s find out.”