What do sensitive children need?

© Mira Katja Watson, Sep 2011

Being taken more seriously, faster responses to their emotional needs… more time and space to recover from activity and figure things out for themselves… Sensitive children often need help calming their nervous systems, processing emotion, and learning to name and express the wealth of sensations and emotions they are experiencing. They also need their parents to learn not to dominate them accidentally, and to be very calm and centred around them, since they cant express these needs verbally, and rely on parents to feel them and help them…

Sensitivity is not just an inconvenience or something that you can make disappear if it doesn’t suit you. One of five people seems to have a much more sensitive nervous system than other people. This means that their experience is heightened – things are louder, brighter, faster and more intense for these kind of people. They are more easily overwhelmed and take longer to recover than others. They feel things deeper, need to process events more thoroughly and tend to be very careful about making decisions to do things… only acting when they are absolutely sure…

How are their requirements different from those of other children?

They need more sensitive parenting! In practise, that means that attuned attention or precise emotional empathy is vital. Imagine a child with a highly magnified bubble around them full of their own experiences and thoughts and observations. Their life is rich with things they want to share with you. A sesame seed on their finger tip. The fly on the table. Chalk dust under the blackboard. If you don’t make the effort to tune into their world as a parent, you will miss out on connecting with them, and they are left with the sense of being totally alone, totally unconnected and ignored.

They will try to make sense of this by assuming they are wrong and will think their needs are not relevant, which can be really crippling for such sensitive children. The cycle of self-criticism and self-denial begins, and often leads to later depression and relational problems. And it does take a lot of effort and concentration to do this – its definitely a skill that needs to be practised. If parents can acknowledge and support their child’s sensitivity, such a child can grow up healthy with their identity in tact, rather than being heavily traumatised and having little confidence – so it’s well worth the effort.

Importance of Attuned Attention and Emotional Regulation

More than other children, they really can’t exist without daily quality attention and feedback on their states. They require a more immediate response to their emotional needs than other children because their sensitivity means they don’t have as much tolerance. A small change in their internal environment may feel huge and very frightenting, and if left unattended leads to shock and then trauma as the nervous system overloads and shuts down.Highly sensitive children react more intensely when their blood sugar falls and they get hungry. A highly senstitive child can’t be asked to wait to eat when they are hungry, or the internal storm of sensation and emotion becomes so intense that the rest of the day is a wipe-out. This is not a dysfunction in the child, but rather the result of a highly sensitive nervous system with less slack or tolerance of extremes.

They also tend to appear to be “shy” in that they pull away from new people and observe. Its not actually the case that they are shy, but rather that they perceive a lot more than other kids, and take longer to process the information. They also test people carefully to see whether they are respectful of their needs and boundaries or not, and physically run away from adults who unknowlingly try to overwhelm them. This is a very healthy trait and should be respected and encouraged. Such children know what they can and can’t handle, and even at age 12 months are taking active care of themselves. It is important for parents to respect and support such responses rather than over-rule them, or the child ‘s nervous system will get very confused.

So as the parent of such a child, it is important that you are present and connected with your feelings and sensations, rather than lost in thought. This will allow you to perceive what is going on with your child, and to respond instinctively through the connection you build up with them. If you want to improve the connection you have with yourself and your child, you might like to take the transformational parenting course, which teaches the practicals through experiential excercises.

HS children are ususally very sensitive to sound and smell, and easily disturbed by abrupt movements, loud aggressive people, and hysterical or frightened behaviour. These are kids who really need adults to calm down before they approach them because their systems are to sensitive that they pick up and resonate with the slightest hint of emotion or nervous energy, and they don’t have the capacity to get themselves calm whilst the stimulous is still around. If you the parent are that source of nervous agitation, then they will really suffer constantly… which is why working on your own calm as a priority is even more important for these children. See the articles on calm parenting and handling emotions for further information.

HS  children can benefit immensely from having the chance to learn to feel sensation in their own body during a quiet, safe craniosacral session when they will not be overwhelmed or too frightened to cope. Sensitive children often go mute around more boisterous children or adults, and are mistaken for being quiet or introverted, when in fact they are too frightened or overwhelmed to find a way to speak. Craniosacral sessions can help them to begin to learn to name emotions, allow anger and express their inner states and needs. In a normal family environment this can be very hard for sensitive children because they just cant seem to find enough space or quiet to get connect with themselves, and parents may simly not know be able to tell what they need. Often accompanying a child to a session and witnessing the changes that happen, and feeling the way a therapist connects with the child can be a good way to learn what your child needs instinctively…

More rest and quiet time

Highly sensitive children also need more down time to rest between activities. In general it is not that they are anti-social, but they tend to enjoy their own company, and need solitary time every day because other people are so “loud” energetically and emotionally that they smother and squash them so they can’t feel themselves. Once their nervous systems get aroused they take longer to calm back down to a comfortable state, and they are also more affected by eg. A visit to the swings, or a friend coming to play. They take longer to recover and come back to themselves. Similarly, if you give them strong or sugary foods, they may react more than a less sensitive child. This doesn’t mean they need to be sheltered from life, but rather shown more tolerance in handling their experience, and space to work out what they need for themselves.

Above all they need to be taken seriously. When a boy says he wants to play football for 5 minutes in the garage, then he really does, and out in the patio is not the same. A sensitive child will feel denial as an extreme hurt and rejection of his self, whereas a more robust child might be able to brush it off.

Relating to sensitive children effectively

Parents of sensitive children need to be careful not to dominate them with their own emotions, and to leave plenty of space and time in conversations for these children to form their own opinions and responses. This can be agonisingly slow and frustrating, especially when there are other children in the family who are not like this. However if you don’t make these allowances you give the child the message that they should be different. Not only does this destroy their self-worth, but it is an impossible demand on their nervous system, which can only process things at the speed and volume that it does, and it can create physiological problems, nervous system distrubances and eventually extreme trauma.

What does not dominating your children mean in practice? In practical terms it means asking questions without expecting a particular answer. It means listening openly without thinking, and experiencing the answers without reacting. It means not forcing them to do what you want, but letting them be and negotiating a course of action. In energetic terms it means not speaking until you can feel your feet are calm and with yourself, and to check that you can feel yourself, and feel the child when you communicate. If you take the time to sense yourself, you will feel where the edge of your being or energy meets your child, and whether you are meeting them at the right distance and intensity to make them feel comfortable and able to respond. If this is something that is unfamiliar to you or you would like to know more, you can take the transformational parenting course by skype or in person, and learn the details of how to increase your awareness and ability to relate empathetically to your children. Learning to feel your own body and experience your own emotions are simple but essential steps in being able to relate effectively to a highly sensitive child. The better you are connected with yourself the more effectively you will be able to feel and respond to the child clearly. It’s common sense…There is also good information on highly sensitive children available on www.hsperson.com.