Parenting Sensitive Kids
[Originally posted at Just the Facts, Baby]
Highly sensitive kids can be wonderful, but challenging to parent. They are emotionally delicate in many ways and as parents we worry about their ability to cope in the world with everyday struggles. Often these highly sensitive children are very intelligent and many are gifted. Chances are, you have a sensitive kid if your child:
- tends to give up quickly and melts down when they can’t master something right away
- is often highly anxious and struggles with peers
- has tactile issues, such as getting very upset over the feeling of a bump in their sock or a tag in their shirt
- has big reactions to tastes they don’t like or overreacts to voices, reporting that people are yelling at them when they are not
- has trouble sleeping and self soothing
- is dramatic and gets incredibly upset, and is difficult to soothe
- tends to be worry about things before they happen
It can be incredibly frustrating to parent such a reactive child. It is very difficult to help them learn to calm themselves and organize their big feelings, but very important that they learn to master this ability and develop resilience.
The parenting bond, as much as you love them, can get frayed by this overwhelming behaviour and can cause us as parents to withdraw, become frustrated or try to constantly talk these kids out of their feelings. This then adds to their anxiety and emotional disorganization. Here are some things you can try:
1. Try really listening to your child’s feelings and try to understand her before you correct her behaviour, even if those feelings seem unreasonable to you.
2. Spending extra time cuddling and connecting with sensitive kids will help a great deal.
3. Be empathic, but neutral, when they are upset, getting mad at them will only make the situation worse.
4. Try not to do too many activities in a day. These kids tend to get overwhelmed and meltdown when they have had enough stimulation.
5. If they continue to have difficulty, talk to your paediatrician. Your child may benefit from a few sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy to help give them a sense of control over their emotions.
Leave a Comment
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Posted On: Nov 29th, 2010 at 12:49 am
As one of these “Sensitive” kids, now a resilient adult, I have since learned from an excellent example of sensitivity, Dr Judith Orloff. She was on PBS one day and explained what no one had ever been able to really make sense of to me before. I have always been extremely empathetic, and compassionate. I have had to learn to balance that over the years, but where some had suggested I might need “thicker skin”, Dr Judith, told us that empathy is actually a good trait, and we should celebrate it, but that we must learn to stay in our own skin, as we have a tendency to feel like all of the feelings out there are our own, and that is overwhelming. To help kids and adults to understand if they are sensitive, they need to know their limits and honor them, take as much alone time to recoup as we need, and try not to absorb too much of other’s feelings. We are empaths and that is not something that disallows resilience, we just need good boundaries and to love ourselves.
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