Caring for a highly sensitive child can be as challenging as it can be rewarding. It can also be downright exhausting at times, even if you are a highly sensitive adult yourself (which I am) and you get it. Things that often do not seem to bother many other children can be difficult to process for a highly sensitive child. Combine this with other people’s expectations of how children “should” be, along with ample judgment thrown into the mix, you have exhausted yourself as the parent. I’ve been there. However, as with everything in life, with genuine curiosity, an open mind, patience, practice and building the courage to step off the “norm”, we can care for our highly sensitive child in a manner that brings out their (and our) best. The point here is not to label them as HSC and use some tips and tricks to “fix” situations – it is to understand the needs and reasons beneath the behaviors so that we can connect with our children deeply. Connection is foundation of all human relationships after all.
Dr. Thomas Boyce is a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. He has spent years studying sensitivity in children. I read his book titled “The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Some Children Struggle and How All Can Thrive“. Over the years, he came to the realization there is a spectrum of sensitivity – the highly sensitive children are at one end – he calls them “orchids”. The other end, he calls “dandelions”. He says most children tend to be dandelions and are generally able to cope with stress well enough even with a less supportive environment. A smaller percentage, the orchids, are much more sensitive and neurologically reactive to their environments. According to him, “the orchid child is the child who shows great sensitivity and susceptibility to both bad and good environments in which he or she finds himself or herself.” When provided with a nurturing and supportive environment, orchid children can thrive extremely well.
Bear in mind that one cannot always clearly identify what part of challenging behavior is nature and what part is nurture. More likely it is an amalgam of both. There are stress responses emerging from the nervous system and then there are also conditioned response we pass down inadvertently to our children. Recognizing high sensitivity in our children requires us to take a step back, observe and attune ourselves to what might really be going on. As always, where we can bring about change is in our own attitudes, philosophies, biases and our own behaviors that contribute to the environment in which our children live.
Given that, here are some helpful points:
- ACCEPTANCE: This is, without a doubt, step one. Accept your child’s sensitive temperament as a natural part of them. In fact, it is a gift – it enables an openness in them that allows them to unlock their potential in ways that you never imagined. Your child will derive immense strength from your genuine trust and acceptance of who they truly are and the fact that you are not trying to *change* them. To quote Dr. Boyce, “…the orchid child will flourish whose parents offer acceptance and affirmation of the child’s true, tenderhearted and creative self.“
- DIFFERENCES: At some point, many highly sensitive children will realize that they are different in some ways from other children. You
mightwill get tons of advice on how to “toughen them up” on a regular basis, hinting, that it is not normal. Take a breath. Remind yourself that this sort of advice is rooted in traditional models of stamp-it-out / control style of parenting, which is rooted in deep fears of being different. That is not helpful to any child, let alone a highly sensitive child. To quote Dr. Thomas Boyce, “…supporting and caring for an orchid child is to recognize and honor the goodness of human differences.” To me, that is a fundamental human philosophy, not just as a parent. - ROUTINES AND PREDICTABILITY: Sensitive children thrive on a certain amount of predictability in their daily lives. It increases their confidence in handling the unscheduled and unpredictable parts better, knowing that they will return to the comfort of a routine soon enough. Routines are not the same thing as schedules and they don’t have to be crazy. They can be simple. E.g. having breakfast or dinner together every day, doing the same bed time routine every day, creating simple, repeatable traditions weekly or monthly and so on.
- GENTLE DISCIPLINE: Sensitive children most often do not respond well to harsh discipline (though I don’t recommend ANY form of harsh discipline for ANY child). Boundaries and respectful limits are important – they establish predictability and security. But boundaries must be held with genuine kindness, without impunity or judgment. We must learn to accept any fallout in the form of meltdowns or tantrums with grace. A traditionally manipulative, threatening or shaming approach to discipline will often make them dig their heels in deeper and leave them feeling misunderstood or confused. It slowly erodes the foundation of trust. Side note – gentle discipline is often confused with being passive or permissive. It is not – see this article by Janet Lansbury.
- FREEDOM: Sensitive children are often very creative and deep thinkers. They need tons of freedom and different avenues to be able to express their thoughts and creativity. Activities that encourage creative expression and freedom of thought often work wonders – free unstructured play, art, music, loose parts play, anything that helps them unleash their craziest ideas to create in any form. Giving them freedom to choose wherever possible is also highly liberating.
- LISTENING AND CONNECTION: Keeping an open atmosphere at home to express their thoughts freely is important. Sensitive children tend to ask lots and lots of questions or present their unique take on things – they are often processing situations and scenarios (from real life or movies or books). They have a deep desire to comprehend at a depth that is not typical of their age. By engaging with them in authentic, non-judgmental and meaningful conversations, not only will you be connecting with them deeply, but also helping them unlock their minds and gifts of intellect, empathy and creativity further.
- PATIENCE: This is a big one, for the parent. Often, what seems like a simple “fun” party to another child could be an exhausting experience for a highly sensitive child. This might mean that you avoid going to big parties with your child for a while. Or only occasionally take them to one and keep it short, depending on how it’s going. Something we learn through trial and error and observations. You might feel frustrated that your child is somehow “missing out” on all the fun that other are having. But bear in mind that your idea of fun might be completely different from theirs, and that’s okay. They don’t have to enjoy all the same things as you or other children. At times, you might feel constrained in the things you can or cannot do with them. As always, it is helpful to drop our expectations of how they “should” enjoy a particular experience simply because we do.
Unfortunately, our cultural narratives perpetuate the false idea that sensitivity is a bad thing. That having courage is equivalent to removing all emotions from yourself, especially sensitivity and vulnerability. I highly recommend watching Brene Brown’s talk on vulnerability or reading some of her books.
From an evolutionary standpoint, Dr. Boyce says that about one in five children are born with this level of sensitivity, an “…openness to the world that fosters a fragile duality of outcomes: in strong, supportive social settings, they thrive like no other child, but in critical, undermining settings, they can devolve into lives of disorder and despair“.
Understanding and accepting sensitivity does not happen overnight. It is a deep philosophical and a perspective shift. I cannot possibly cover the whole spectrum of changes we integrate into our lives in order for our sensitive child to thrive. As the understanding deepens, the changes follow. Once you dig deeper into the needs beneath the behaviors, you start to realize none of this is “tips” or “tricks” or “strategies”. There is no manipulation, only a quest for authenticity in our relationships and a willingness to step into the mess – it’s worth it. It is about connection. Building connection takes effort in any relationship. It’s a two-way street and requires patience and courage to admit we might have been wrong, to revamp old ways, ditch age-old cultural norms, dig out deep biases. With our children, we often make the mistake of thinking that this relationship is one-way and top-down.
There are many great resources on sensitivity for your further research. As always, simply doing bookish research is not enough – learning to step back and observe our children and our interactions with them is key.
Finally, here are the people and ideas I’ve referenced in my posts.