Would a child know that he is sensory?

[Anonymous]

I would be really careful saying things like that to my kid. Not only is it a get out of jail free card, but it's a tip off to others that your child is 'special'. Why encourage/advertise that? It just seems fundamentally disrespectful to the child. Can you imagine saying to another adult "oh, it's a sensory day, huh?" Very insulting.

[Anonymous]

This can be complicated stuff, OP. I think the subtext of your post is that the child does not have real challenges, that the mother has pathologized his bad behavior, and that the child now has free license to behave as he pleases.

I am going to assume that the child does have some challenges (sensory processing, adhd, asd... something neurological)... well, in this case, I think that parents are put in a difficult position. You want children to learn to articulate their feelings--something especially challenging to a lot of kids with these issues--and you don't want them to grow up ashamed of them, ashamed of themselves and their struggles. If they can recognize how they feel, as they get older they can do something to address it and cope. This is the idea behind CBT and a lot of different therapies.

That said, I personally never use this kind of language with my own kids because I do believe that children can learn to manipulate situations. To give an example, I have a child with severe generalized anxiety and I have to be very careful with what I say to him and more careful than any parent about ever letting him get out of anything because of what he feels. I send him to school pale, with terrible stomach aches, head aches, you name it, all the time. These occasionally turn out to be stomach bugs or the flu, but I do it again the next time because I can't risk that he pick up on the pattern that "saying you're sick = no school." I hate being a hard ass and it does not come naturally to me. I know he has been dealt a tough hand and I am very sympathetic but I am also doing my best to help him.

Though we talk about his feelings all the time, we have not yet shared the diagnosis with him. I believe that I am making the right choice. That said, I also know that I run certain risks. I think your SIL is trying to connect with her child and show him that she believes that he is having a tough time, that she believes that he is actually trying, that she believes he is a good kid. Sometimes putting a name on something can help.