How Many Spoons Does This Child Have Today?

Spoon Theory was originally created to help people understand what it’s like to live with chronic illness. It uses “spoons” as a way of describing energy, with each spoon representing a unit of physical, emotional and cognitive capacity. Everyday tasks like getting dressed, concentrating, coping with noise, managing feelings uses up spoons, and when the spoons are gone, they’re gone.

For many neurodivergent children, this metaphor fits really well.

Children do not arrive in our settings with a full, identical set of spoons. Some may come in full of energy (you know the ones!) Others may already be running on empty before the day has even begun. Their capacity to manage everyday tasks, follow instructions, engage in play, and regulate their emotions is deeply shaped by how many “spoons” they have available in that moment.

When we understand this, behaviour begins to look very different.

A child who is 'refusing', melting down, withdrawing, or becoming dysregulated is not “choosing” to behave in a certain way. They may simply be out of spoons.

This is why constant, compassionate check-ins are really beneficial. Not just What is this child doing but

What might this child be experiencing?

How many spoons might they have right now?

And perhaps most importantly:

What has already used them up?

So many things can quietly drain a child’s energy:

• Hunger or low blood sugar

• Poor sleep

• Anxiety or uncertainty

• High levels of demand

• Transitions

• Social effort and expectations

• Masking

• Sensory overwhelm from noise, light, smells, touch, visual clutter

• Interoceptive differences that make it harder to recognise internal signals like hunger, thirst, or tiredness

  
  

As you can see from my list, food and nutrition play a powerful role here and i've placed them at the top and I just want to focus there for a minute. For children with interoception differences, recognising hunger can be difficult. They may not notice the body signals that tell them they need to eat, or they may feel them in confusing ways. If a child cannot access foods that feel safe and predictable to them, hunger can quietly drain spoons long before anyone realises.

Ensuring children are offered their safe foods is not “being indulgent”, it is protective. It is a way of safeguarding energy so that hunger is not yet another invisible demand on a nervous system that is already working hard.

When too much is too much

Every instruction, every expectation, every “come on, just…” costs a spoon. Every loud space, bright room, scratchy jumper, or unpredictable moment takes another and by the time we see “behaviour,” the spoons may already be gone.

When we view children through this lens, our role shifts. We stop asking, Why won’t they? and begin asking, What do they need? Sometimes what they need is:

• Fewer demands

• A quieter space

• A moment of connection

• Movement

• Predictability

• Food

• Rest

• Co-regulation

This is where curiosity becomes our most powerful tool, the child is not being difficult, the child might just be out of spoons. The poster I share with this blog below, is designed to open up these conversations between settings and families.

“How many spoons is your child arriving with today?”

"What might already have used some of them?”

"What do they need in their spoon drawer to manage the next minute, the next hour, or the morning?”

It invites us to think together rather than judge in isolation, when we understand energy, we understand behaviour and when we understand behaviour, we can respond with empathy instead of expectation.