If there’s one thing I’ve learned from raising two autistic boys, it’s this — the world doesn’t need to change our children. It needs to learn how to listen to them.
And one of the most powerful places to start? Personal space.
For a lot of autistic children, personal space isn’t just a preference or a personality quirk. It’s a genuine need. Noise, touch, proximity, even certain smells — these things can feel completely overwhelming in a way that’s really hard to describe if you haven’t experienced it. When we teach our children that their need for space is valid, we give them something really important: confidence. And when we teach the people around them to honour that need, we give them something even more important — safety.
When Matthew was younger, we used to talk about the idea of a “personal bubble.” I loved this concept because it made something invisible feel real and concrete. Everyone has an invisible bubble around their body, and that bubble belongs to them. Nobody gets to burst it without permission. We made it playful — we’d actually pretend to blow bubbles, we’d draw pictures, we’d use his favourite toys to demonstrate. Because for kids who are very visual and literal in how they understand the world, making something tangible makes all the difference.
Once he understood the concept, the next step was finding a way for him to communicate when his bubble needed more room. And here’s the thing — that doesn’t have to be words. For some children, it’s a hand signal. For others, it’s stepping back, or covering their ears, or holding up a little card. Communication doesn’t have to be verbal to be powerful. What matters is that whatever method your child uses feels natural and comfortable for them — and that the people around them actually pay attention to it.
When a child knows they have a way to signal how they’re feeling, something shifts. The anxiety eases a little, because they’re no longer trapped inside a situation with no way out. They have a voice. Even if that voice is a hand signal.
But — and this is the part that I think is so often overlooked — boundaries only work when people respect them.
Siblings, grandparents, extended family, school friends — they won’t automatically understand why space matters so much. They’re not being unkind; they just genuinely don’t know. That’s where we come in. We role-play. We practise. We say, “Can you show me what you’d do if Matthew puts his hand up like this?” We praise kids when they respond well — because “that’s okay, I’ll give you space” is a beautiful thing for any child to learn to say. It teaches empathy. It teaches respect. It teaches them that everyone’s needs matter, not just their own.
Something else that made a huge difference for us was making sure Matthew had a safe space at home. Somewhere he could go when the world felt like too much. Ours was nothing fancy — a little Disney Cars tent with cushions and some of his favourite things around him. But the effect was enormous. Because when a child has somewhere predictable and calm to retreat to, they don’t have to hold everything together all the time. They know relief is available. And that knowledge alone can reduce the panic of a hard moment.
I think sometimes people worry that by accommodating these needs — the space, the quiet corners, the signals and systems — we’re somehow making our children more fragile. Like we’re wrapping them in cotton wool.
We’re not.
We’re doing the opposite.
When we teach an autistic child that their needs are valid, that their body belongs to them, that the people around them will actually listen — we are building confidence. We are building trust. We are showing them, in the most practical way possible, that they don’t have to shrink themselves to fit into the world.
And honestly? That’s something I wish someone had taught me when I was a child too.
