How to Nourish Self-Esteem in Autistic Children

As a parent of two Autistic boys, I have a first-hand appreciation of how vulnerable autistic young persons are to low self-esteem.

From a confident, playful toddler, I witnessed my son’s self-esteem taking a blow around the time he entered kindergarten─as the social and cognitive expectations increased and the schooling context became more academically focused (despite attending an incredibly supportive school).

At this time, I noticed that he was becoming increasingly aware of others’ frustration, whether in response to his attention and listening shortcomings or his misconstruing the meaning of others.

Research suggests that many autistic young people gravitate towards hostile attributions in threatening situations (Meyer et al., 2006), in my son’s case the beliefs he was developing revolved around the theme of “being in trouble.”

I remember him becoming ever more sensitive to cues implying criticism, all the while applying himself to meeting others’ expectations, often expressing, “Mummy, I’m trying so hard!”

I find that many caretakers can relate to feeling concerned about high-functioning autistic children’s self-esteem as they navigate transitions from therapeutic environments to new challenges of full-time mainstream schooling.

There is a wide consensus among therapists around self-esteem developing within a relational context, where children infer their worth from their experiences within relationships: with family, peers, or the wider community (Laible & Roesch, 2004).

Autistic children’s experience within relationships with neurotypical peers is wrought with challenges relating to what’s popularly referred to as the theory of mind (such as difficulties with considering multiple perspectives, reading others’ assumptions, meanings, or intentions, or interpreting others’ thoughts about themselves) (Schilbach et al., 2013), and other frequently occurring co-morbid intra-personal challenges such as the experience of anxiety and self-consciousness (Zaboski & Storch, 2018) or ADHD (Leitner, 2014).

Recent research has shown that lower measures of the theory of mind are related to autistic children being less likely to internalize judgment and negative feedback. However, as their abilities to read others’ intentions and behavior advance, so does their awareness of interpersonal cues relating to rejection, and this has a negative impact on their self-esteem (McCauley, 2019).

My personal experience supports this finding. I remember my son being remarkably resilient to episodes of playground rejection pre-kindergarten when he wasn’t as skilled at reading other children’s intentions, then becoming increasingly sensitive to social challenges within the mainstream school setting as he developed in his ability to take on the perspectives of his peers.

Given the above challenges listed above, we can understand that autistic children generally rate themselves lower on social competence (within predominantly mainstream settings) than their neurotypical peers; and that for both neurotypical and autistic children, social competence influences self-esteem (McCauley, 2019). Many researchers have flagged the importance of finding out more about the support benefits of autistic children’s relationships with autistic peers, suggesting that these relationships may be a source of relational satisfaction and health benefits such as feeling validated and accepted (Crompton et al., 2020).

As it is generally assumed that self-esteem is learned within a relational context (and appreciating the link between perceived social competence and self-esteem), my starting point in intending to positively nourish my children’s self-esteem is reflecting on ways I can nurture our interactions, to include playful attunement, praise, and most importantly, presence.

“Presence,” for me, means striving to cultivate a here-and-now caring attention, “being” with another person’s experience with interest, non-judgment, and sensitivity.

I hope that my efforts to nurture positive interpersonal experiences within my family unit help to nourish my children’s positive self-beliefs, on an emotional experiential level, as well as cognitively.

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Research suggests that (within a neurotypical population) the practice of mindfulness “facilitates attachment security” (Yang & Oka, 2022). In relation to autistic families, preliminary research suggests that mindfulness techniques (that include here-and-now presence as a key practice) have a positive impact on well-being, both for autistic children and their parents (Singh et al., 2006).

This leads me to my second way of nourishing the self-esteem of my children, and that is through my modeling of another mindfulness practice, inner compassion, and kindness.

Research suggests that mindfulness interventions support autistic children to relate to their experience with greater acceptance and compassion, supporting them in developing greater emotional regulation (Ridderinkhof et al., 2018).

Research also suggests that when teaching autistic children mindfulness techniques, making use of simple language and a narrow intervention focus increases the effectiveness of the intervention (Beck et al., 2020).

In line with this recommendation, I like to model Tara Brach’s mudra of placing a hand on my heart any time I am experiencing a challenging emotion (Brach, 2020) and verbalizing simple words that are a reminder to offer kindness to my experience, “be kind.”

Something I often add to this practice is describing how my experience feels in my body and what it tells me about what’s important for me, my needs, or how I see a situation. This exploration can be simplified, or expanded, according to a particular child’s preference and ability.

A similar intervention that I found particularly helpful for my autistic 8-year-old is psychoeducation around the process behind the experience of self-esteem. In simple words, I strive to explain to him that in situations where someone feels different or not liked, they may experience feeling not good about themselves, shyness, or worry.

These feelings can bring about thoughts such as: “I’m so bad.” “I’m not as clever.” “No one likes me.”

What we do next, is talk about examples of thoughts that may help him to feel good about himself or focus on what he likes about himself, if he were to de-tangle himself from thoughts that get triggered alongside an experience of feeling not good about oneself.

To supplement this practice and make positive self-esteem experiences easier to identify and strengthen, we additionally pay attention to instances of empowered coping such as asking for support, choosing an uncomfortable but valuable behavior such as doing homework, or challenging oneself and feeling good about that, as well as savoring feel-good moments of celebration, self-care, and achievement, to name a few.

In this brief post, I wanted to highlight the importance of being mindful of autistic children’s self-esteem and share strategies I found effective in supporting my son’s self-esteem journey.

I continually find myself learning to appreciate the many aspects of how my autistic loved ones relate to the world, each in their unique way. I feel like my own theory of mind around understanding their inner experience is continuously evolving, as we work on mutual understanding and support within our family. The more I explore and understand the world from their point of view, the more I can relate to my loved ones from a compassionate and non-judgmental place that nurtures their self-esteem.