Inside & Outside Body Clues

From the outside, a child might look silly, cross, very quiet, restless, distracted — or completely fine.

On the inside, the same child might be noticing a fast heartbeat, a tight tummy, heavy tiredness, busy thoughts, wiggly legs, a need for someone nearby, or a general sense of not being sure.

The outside clue and the inside clue do not always match. That gap is worth knowing about.

The word for noticing inside

Interoception is the scientific word for sensing internal bodily signals — hunger, heartbeat, temperature, tension, the need for the loo, the feeling that something is “off”.

It is a useful word, but this is not a neuroscience lesson. Learning to notice bodily signals may give children useful information about themselves, though children differ in how clearly they notice and interpret those signals, and research in younger children is still developing.

Nori's kind of question

Nori is our noticing guide, and Nori is never in a hurry for the right answer. The question is not “what is wrong with you?” It is “what do you notice?”

Children often answer far more easily with sensations than with feelings. Fizzy. Heavy. Hot. Tight. Fast. Those are much easier to reach than “anxious”.

What can I notice inside, and what might other people see outside?

Two check-ins we use

For younger Explorers, the Explorer Check-In asks one simple thing: what is your body telling you today?

For older Explorers, Inside & Outside Body Clues separates the two columns — what other people might see on the outside, and what I notice on the inside. Realising the two can differ is genuinely useful at nine or ten.

Both are free to print from our resources page, and both can be used without any explanation from an adult.