You know what’s wild?
How many times I hear this:
‘Just keep taking them. They’ll get used to it.’
No.
They won’t.
You can’t train a brain to enjoy being flooded with noise, light, smells, and chaos.
You can only push it until it shuts down — or shuts you out.
And yet, families get told every day that ‘exposure therapy’ will fix it. That if we just keep dragging our kids back into the places that break them, they’ll magically cope.
Let’s talk about why that’s not just wrong — it’s dangerous.
A Shopping Centre, A Meltdown, A Misunderstanding
Picture this.
Fluorescent lights buzzing.
Music blaring from three different shops at once.
Perfume clouds hitting in waves as you walk past cosmetics.
Your child’s hand tightens in yours.
Their breathing quickens.
They’re already done before you even start.
But a professional says: ‘It’s exposure therapy — they’ll adjust.’
Except this isn’t fear.
This is a brain processing too much, all at once.
Exposure Doesn’t Work on Sensory Processing Differences
If you’re afraid of dogs, repeated safe exposure might reduce the fear.
If you have sensory overload from bright lights and noise, exposure will just keep hurting.
You can’t ‘toughen up’ sensory processing differences. You can only push them into shutdown or meltdown faster.
And when they hit breaking point?
That’s not a step forward.
That’s a setback — and a child who now trusts you less.
Fear-Based vs Processing-Based: Why It Matters
Here’s the piece no one explains clearly enough:
- Fear-based = social anxiety, phobias → exposure can help.
- Processing-based = autism sensory overload → exposure can harm.
Get them mixed up, and the so-called treatment becomes trauma.
This is why correct assessment matters. Not so we can stick kids with labels for fun, but because the wrong approach actively damages them.
The Cost of Getting It Wrong
When a child’s meltdown in a shopping centre is treated like a fear to conquer instead of a sign they’re overwhelmed, we set them up to fail.
We call it resilience training.
They call it the day they stopped trusting us.
Think about that.
If every ‘support’ feels like a trap, what happens to their willingness to try again?
What It Really Means When They Break Down
It’s not weakness.
It’s not bad behaviour.
It’s a body saying: this is too much.
That’s valid.
It’s protective.
It’s their nervous system doing its job.
And it’s our job to listen — even if the world tells us to push harder.
The World Doesn’t Need Them Tougher. It Needs to Stop Hurting Them.
The solution isn’t dragging them back into the same environment until they comply.
The solution is making the environment kinder, quieter, less overwhelming — or finding alternatives altogether.
We don’t need kids to ‘cope’.
We need systems and spaces that don’t make them need to cope.
Why I’m Talking About This Now
Because so many parents in the ADHD Mums community have been through this exact thing — told to keep pushing, keep exposing, keep making it worse.
And because the difference between fear-based and processing-based struggles is exactly what we unpack in my new podcast episode: Is It Social Anxiety — or Is It Autism.
If you’ve ever been unsure whether your child’s anxiety is about fear of judgment or a brain processing overload… this episode will give you the language, the questions, and the confidence to tell the difference.
Listen now:
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/59xNRfiHEOWU9YVzBPCNlP?si=CzAVUs4NR3i5lUo655CvuA
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/34-is-it-social-anxiety-or-is-it-autism/id1686843092?i=1000723483737
- Website: https://omny.fm/shows/adhd-mums/34-is-it-social-anxiety-or-is-it-autism
You’re not alone in this. And no — you’re not being overprotective. You’re doing the job the system still can’t seem to do: protecting your child from harm.
