Since last week i’ve had one incident living ‘rent free’ in my brain – the Ice Cream incident. This is a bit about that incident and how it reinforces for me why little things can have a cumulative impact in helping or hindering.

Last week we were fortunate to have some family visit. As usual, my daughter hid until she felt comfortable enough to understand the social dynamics and decide if she wanted to participate. To help with this and since the weather was nice the question was raised – do you want some ice cream? For any child, this is enticing and it drew her out and into a conversation and discussion. Now for reference, she later said this was one of her favourite days so overall she thoroughly enjoyed the day despite the ice cream incident.

We walked to a local grocery store and browsed their freezer aisle, and decided we had ice blocks at home in the flavours that her and her sister wanted. A few people bought some ice blocks and we came back home. Once home, my daughter cried and hid. In her head, when we talked about ice cream, she’d associated that with going to a specific ice cream shop she’s been to before and getting 2 scoops of ice cream in a cone. What we had done did not match her expectation of the event, and she was having some big emotions accepting that and figuring out what to do next.

Since that incident, I’ve had a few questions that I’ve been pondering on:

1. Could I have done anything differently to help prevent this – yes probably. I could have explained to her what we were doing and what would happen, but honestly I was excited and happy and I didn’t even think about it.
2. Why did this tip her over the edge so much? This is the more interesting question for me that led me down this line of investigation and thinking.

Dr Dan Siegel originally created the concept of the window of tolerance, which is used to describe an optimal zone for someone to function in everyday life. The idea is that when a person is functioning within this zone or window, they can effectively manage and cope with their emotions. This means you can deal with whatever is happening in your life and you’re able to manage things that bother you. This window of tolerance can change in size and be easier or harder to move out from depending on the day (or even hour!). Think about days when you’re tired, stressed out or haven’t eaten much food – your window of tolerance is probably quite small and you would move out of it quickly, vs a day when you’re rested and fed and you’re able to cope more. This can help explain why some days slow drivers or someone cutting you off in traffic will trigger you, and some days it won’t.

The top part of the Window of tolerance is the fight/flight/freeze section (and these have now been expanded to also include fawn and flop). This response is there to protect us in life threatening situations. In these situations, the amygdala perceives a danger or threat and responds. Perceives is an important word here, because everyone perceive’s things differently. One person might view storm clouds and feel relief as it’ll mean rain for the garden, another might start to get scared or stressed at the thought of the thunder and lightening. Their amygdala’s would react differently to the same situation.

After the amygdala perceives a threat, it activates the limbic system which will shut off all thinking, planning, reasoning, language, memory and logic (things that happen in the frontal cortex), so that you have the energy you need to act. Think about if you’d need all your energy to run from a lion attacking you, you wouldn’t want you brain to also be thinking about if you should have worn different pants, or what you need to add to the shopping list.

Now, when we talk about neurodivergent children, many things in everyday life may be perceived as a danger/threat. These triggers could be sensory inputs, changes in routine and having to navigate social demands. Each time they overcome these triggers, they are pushed a little bit more towards the edges of their window of tolerance until finally not getting the ice cream they thought they would get pushes them over the edge.

So why is this relevant? Once I started thinking this way, I was looking out for triggers, especially if I could sense she was near the edge of her window. When she was on her tablet, I noticed some of the triggers were usability related – Why doesn’t clicking here do anything? Why is this part of the game locked, how can I unlock it? The background music is annoying can you turn it off? I want to go back to where I was before, why can’t I get there?

Many of these were design decisions – confusing language, unclear instructions, odd animations, storylines that didn’t quite make sense. I understand time, design and cost restraints when developing software and that some of these things won’t be front of mind, but I hope now you can also understand how these can be triggering, and therefore why they are important. Digital experiences should be inclusive and accommodating for all children, regardless of how their brain works. So if you are in a position where you are reviewing or designing products, then consider how some usability challenges can be a trigger that can tip someone over the edge (even when ice cream is involved!).

And for those curious – we compromised on the ice cream. We didn’t go to the store she wanted, but we want back and bought cones and a tub so that she could still enjoy ice cream with the family.