June 11, 2024 • 48 mins
Want to know if your child is Highly Sensitive? TAKE THE QUIZ!
Parenting a Highly Sensitive Child
Episode Number: #25
Description: In this episode of the Whole Parent Podcast, Jon delves into the world of highly sensitive children. He explains what high sensitivity is, how it manifests in kids, and shares practical strategies for parents to help their highly sensitive children thrive. Jon also highlights the groundbreaking work of Dr. Elaine Aron, who introduced the concept of high sensitivity, and provides insights into the emotional, physical, and social needs of highly sensitive kids.
Timestamps:
- 00:01 - Introduction to highly sensitive kids
- 01:24 - Acknowledging Dr. Elaine Aron's work on high sensitivity
- 02:48 - Improved show notes and additional resources
- 03:17 - Understanding what high sensitivity is
- 05:14 - Symptoms and characteristics of highly sensitive kids
- 07:40 - Evolutionary perspective on high sensitivity
- 10:03 - Sensory amplification in highly sensitive kids
- 12:31 - Behavioral signs of high sensitivity
- 22:47 - Emotional, physical, and social needs of highly sensitive kids
- 31:52 - Practical tips for parenting highly sensitive kids
- 41:58 - Benefits of being highly sensitive (IT'S A SUPER POWER!)
- 43:26 - Conclusion
Key Takeaways: Jon's Three Practical Tips for Parenting Highly Sensitive Kids:
- Establish Routines: Create a predictable home environment to provide a sense of security for highly sensitive kids.
- Take Breaks: Allow for regular downtime to help highly sensitive kids process and cope with sensory input.
- Focus on Emotional Intelligence: Teach kids to recognize, label, and express their emotions to manage their heightened sensitivity.
Links to Resources Mentioned:
- Is Your Kid Highly Sensitive Quiz!
- The Highly Sensitive Child by Dr. Elaine Aron
- The Highly Sensitive Parent by Dr. Elaine Aron
What episode should you listen to next?
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- Share: Share this episode with friends and family, especially those who have highly sensitive children or might benefit from learning about high sensitivity.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jon @Wholeparent (00:01):
Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast.
My name is John.
Do you have a kid who seems toget really overwhelmed by things
, who just absolutely melts downover really simple things?
I'm not talking about just intoddlerhood, but it becomes a
thing later in life.
Anytime they get hurt, theyjust react emotionally huge,
(00:24):
seemingly oversized reactions.
Maybe they're sensitive to loudnoises, maybe they don't like
things like fireworks For thoseof you who live in the United
States we're coming up on forthe 4th of July they seem to
have more emotional needs thanmaybe you expected for your kids
to have.
Or maybe you have other kids andthey don't have those same
(00:45):
emotional needs, educationalstrengths and sometimes some
educational difficulties.
Well then, you might have ahighly sensitive kid, and this
episode is all about highlysensitive children how we can
help highly sensitive kids, howwe can parent highly sensitive
kids.
What high sensitivity comesfrom?
We're gonna define it, we'regonna get into it.
So, yeah, stick around, we'regonna talk about kids.
How we can parent highlysensitive kids.
What high sensitivity comesfrom?
We're going to define it, we'regoing to get into it.
(01:06):
So, yeah, stick around, we'regoing to talk about some things.
So, once again, my name is john.
This is the whole parent.
We are talking about highsensitivity today, and one of my
great criticisms of manyparenting authors, creators some
(01:29):
of the big ones is that thishigh sensitivity thing has.
There was somebody who reallycame up with this and we often
do not give her the credit thatshe deserves.
Her name is Dr Elaine Aron andshe wrote a best-selling book
called the Highly SensitivePerson and then some subsequent
books, including the HighlySensitive Child, which was my
(01:52):
first introduction to Dr Aron,and she really is the
groundbreaking mind, researcher,thought leader behind the
concept of high sensitivity.
There was a really weirddocumentary with Alanis
Morissette and Elena Aaron aboutthis, about highly sensitive
(02:15):
persons.
Maybe that's how you were firstintroduced to it, but before we
go any further into the episode, it's really important to say
and to give credit where creditis due, because oftentimes in
the world of social media, Ifind myself doing this.
I'm not trying to criticizeanyone in particular, but in the
world of social media we don't.
We're so quick to want to telleverybody about what's going on
(02:38):
and give people good advice, andall of those are good things,
but sometimes we forget to sharewhere we got that information,
and so I wanted to do that rightat the top of the episode.
So if you're looking for moreinformation, I'm going to have
linked to the show notesadditional resources.
If you have gone and looked atthe show notes and recent
episodes, or even if you've goneactually, especially if you've
gone on past episodes, we havereally overhauled the show notes
(03:01):
to try and make them morehelpful.
They give you some timestampsand additional resources.
Some of those will be mentioneddirectly in episodes, like I am
right now with her book theHighly Sensitive Child.
Others will be things that Ijust think might help you on
whatever topic that we'retalking about.
So highly sensitive kids, it'san amazing topic to talk about
(03:23):
today, but I wouldn't be talkingabout it and I would not be
half the parent for my oldestthat I am today if it wasn't for
the work of Dr Elaine Aron, whoagain gets so overlooked when
people call it other things, nothigh sensitivity, right,
because this can go by a lot ofnames.
People often will say highlysensitive kids are explosive
(03:43):
kids, referring to the work ofDr Ross Green, and while there
is definitely some overlap and Iwould say an extreme amount of
overlap, the Venn diagram ofexplosive kids and highly
sensitive kids is.
There's a big middle section.
Highly sensitive kids are notexplosive kids.
Some people call this deeplyfeeling kids.
(04:05):
Right, there's a very bigauthor who uses that term.
I don't know what that means.
I'll let that author definethat and share that.
But this concept of highsensitivity this has been around
a lot longer than the conceptof anything other by any other
name that I can find.
And if somebody else came upwith this first and Elaine Aron
is the one who is building onthat you know all research
(04:27):
builds on past research Ifthat's the case, please I would
love for you to shoot me anemail or just to hear your
thoughts about the show ingeneral.
Just send it to podcast atwholeparentacademycom.
That again is podcast atwholeparentacademycom, but if
you have other sources relatedto this, please shoot them at me
.
So we're already pretty farinto the episode and I want to
(04:48):
spend this episode as kind of anintroduction, because there's
way too much to cover abouthighly sensitive children.
If you have a highly sensitivechild, this may be totally
eye-opening to you,groundbreaking for you, and
there's way too much to cover inone episode, and so I don't
know when the next time I'lltalk about this is.
But I really think that this isrequired listening If you have
(05:09):
a kid who, as I described before, is is has any of those types
of sensitivity.
So the first explanation that Iwould like to give about high
sensitivity or the the place Ithink we should start in
understanding high sensitivityis understanding what it is,
because we're going to talk alot about symptoms of high
sensitivity and how those thingsmanifest and how understanding
(05:32):
the needs of highly sensitivekids and some practical
strategies for parenting highlysensitive kids and I know that
that's why a lot of people tuneinto these episodes is for the
type of practical understandingtype stuff.
But before that, we have tounderstand first what makes a
person highly sensitive, andaccording to Dr Elaine Aron,
high sensitivity is not just ahuman thing, it's a nature thing
(05:54):
and specifically, it is a thingwithin species of animal, of
which humans are one, where theyare pack or group species, and
so this could be a herd ofhorses or deer.
This can obviously be otherapes like chimpanzees and
(06:16):
bonobos, but it also is inhumans, and the concept that Dr
Aaron promotes or forwards isthat they have observed this for
lack of a better termeccentricity in about 20% of the
members of any given packspecies, so one out of five.
(06:38):
So she would really argue thatthis is not a disability in any
way, argue that this is not adisability in any way.
She would say that this is noteven an abnormality, because in
order for it to be anabnormality, it has to be more
or less common rather than 20%.
20% means that this is afeature, not a failure, right?
And so because of that, we haveto understand.
(07:00):
Okay.
So why would this be the case?
And what Dr Aaron posits for usis hey, I think the reason why
this is happening is because itwas beneficial for the survival
of the whole for one out of fiveof the members of the whole to
have increased sensitivity toeverything.
(07:24):
That's the first step.
It's everything Increasedsensitivity to all of the world
and the idea behind this is thatthen, in a pack environment,
the strengths of the pack couldbe built by the diversity within
that pack.
And for anybody who understandsgenetics, which is something
(07:44):
that I'm just learning about,this is like the next thing that
I'm really getting interestedin right now and relating to
parenting and genetic traits andturning those on and off based
on environment and all that.
But anybody who understandsgenetics understands that there
are certain genetic traits likewhere your nose goes on your
face that are very, veryresilient.
Those are very kind of notdiverse.
(08:05):
So some aspects of genetics arepretty common and solid.
Other aspects, like what foodsyou like to taste and how
sensitive your sense of smell isand which colors look good to
you and skin tones and thingslike that, are more diverse, and
they tend to be diverse evenwithin twin pairs, right People
(08:27):
who are otherwise almostgenetically identical.
They'll still have differencesthere, and the idea that
evolutionary biologists haveforwarded for why that occurs is
that that diversity allows fora greater chance of survival for
the whole, that that diversitycontributes to the pack.
So if you have a bunch ofdifferent members of a pack that
(08:49):
have different strengths, thatthat'll be better for the whole
and that's a really beautifulthing to think about.
And one of these strengths,according to Elaine Aron, is
that the sensory input for aboutone in five of the members of
that pack is just going to behigher.
So the first way to understandthis is just to say imagine if
(09:10):
you're a not highly sensitiveperson and we'll get to
identifying.
Maybe you're a highly sensitiveperson because there is a
definitely a genetic componentin this, where it tends to be
that children who are highlysensitive have at least one
parent who is highly sensitive.
Not always the case, but it'smuch more common to have a
highly sensitive child if youyourself are highly sensitive,
mother or father.
(09:31):
It's not specific in that way.
And so just imagine, if you'renot a highly sensitive person I
am not Imagine that the soundsthat you are hearing when it
felt like kind of a loud sound,a highly sensitive person, that
would be 40% louder.
Or when you hear a sound andit's loud if you are a highly
sensitive person, to anon-highly sensitive person, it
(09:52):
would be about 40% moretolerable.
Strong smells the same thingabout 40% more tolerable.
Strong tastes same thing 40%more extreme or 40% more
tolerable.
So just imagine that if you hadlike a dial on all of your
sensory input, you would justturn it up by a couple notches.
That's what's happening inhighly sensitive people.
(10:15):
They just have that genetictrait that it turns up.
It amplifies the experiences,the sensory input, and there's a
lot of reasons why evolutionarybiologists would say that a
species may do that have certainmembers of the species that are
better at smelling, better attasting, have a more refined
(10:36):
sense of taste or smell, and thereason is because then it
allows for the pack as a wholeto have a sort of canary in the
coal mine, where, if one memberis more alert to noticing
abnormalities in change ofroutine, or more alert to
noticing that, hey, like thissmells a little funny, maybe we
(10:56):
shouldn't eat this.
Or this tastes a little funny,maybe this has gone bad, that
the rest of the pack can respondto that and say, oh well, we
don't taste theinappropriateness of this, we
think that this is fine, andthen the pack as a whole
survives.
So it's a strength, not aweakness.
However, the way in which oursociety is set up is, generally
speaking, for the masses.
(11:16):
That is no matter how you slicethe masses, and so if there's
only 20% of people who arebothered by how loud something
is, chances are society is goingto keep making it loud, because
only one in five people areexperiencing that negatively.
Similarly, because we are adeeply social species, the
(11:40):
likelihood that a person says,when they're in a room full of
people, for other people, let'ssay, who are not experiencing
something as being overtlysmelling oh man, this smells
really bad.
I don't really think it smellsthat bad Because we're a social
species.
The way that often we areconditioned to respond to that
is oh okay, yeah, I guess it'snot really that bad either, even
though your experience of itmight be that it's that bad.
(12:02):
You may deny your ownexperience of it because the
experience of the whole isgreater in your mind, because
you again are trying to fit inwith your peers, even if you
guys are having fundamentallydifferent experiences, and so
when we understand that ourchildren may be experiencing
this, it will explain a wholelot of things very, very quickly
(12:25):
.
So that's what high sensitivityis in the most basic terms.
How does this manifestspecifically in kids?
Because we'll get into adults,maybe in a later episode.
Maybe I'll do one on highlysensitive parents.
My wife is highly sensitive, soI do have a window into what
that would look like, but fornow I want to focus in on what
(12:47):
that looks like in kids.
So here is your really quicktest, and I want to make a test.
By the way, this is a little bitof a brief aside, but I want to
get really heavy into quizzesbecause I think understanding
yourself and understanding yourkid is one of the most
fundamental parts of becomingthe parent that you want to be
and reacting and acting andresponding in the ways in which
(13:09):
you want to respond, and mywhole punishment-free parenting
paradigm, for parenting is much,much easier when you have more
information related to okay.
Well, this is not, for example,a character flaw, this is just
or this is not my kid whiningunnecessarily or my kid trying
to get my attention not thatthose are necessarily horrible
(13:31):
things all the time.
Sometimes we need our kids toget our attention, but this is
just how they're experiencingthe world.
I think that those are better.
So I want to make a quiz thatwould be much easier than this,
where it just says kind of like,how much agree, strongly agree,
strongly disagree type quizwhere I could take the work of
Elaine Aron and I couldbasically make like a 10 to 15
question quiz where I was likedo you have a highly sensitive
(13:52):
kid?
I think that that would be areally helpful tool.
Hey, it's future John.
Interrupting podcast recordingJohn, to let you know that the
quiz that I was carrying onabout for a moment there, I
actually did go ahead and createit, so I cut out the rest of me
talking about how I shouldcreate the quiz, and I just
actually did it.
Well, after I was editing thisepisode, I realized you know
(14:13):
what it would be so helpfulahead of time, before I'm going
to talk about what I'm going totalk about next If parents who
had highly sensitive kidsactually knew for sure.
Yeah, my kid is displayingthese traits, and so I need to
pay more close attention.
And so if you found thisepisode because you already took
the quiz, fantastic, I'm gladthat you've taken it.
(14:34):
But if you haven't taken thequiz yet and you don't know
whether you have a highlysensitive kid, please stop right
now.
Stop listening't taken the quizyet and you don't know whether
you have a highly sensitive kid,please stop right now.
Stop listening.
Go take the quiz, find out ifyou have a highly sensitive kid,
and then the rest of what we'regoing to talk about is going to
be so much more impactful onceyou have that information.
All information is goodinformation.
So go and take the quiz rightnow.
It is going to help youimmensely in your parenting.
(14:57):
And, yeah, I'm glad that I wasable to create it and put it out
before this episode wasfinalized.
Okay, back to what we're talkingabout.
Here's how I would recognize ifI had a highly sensitive child.
Often in my membership, when wetalk about this, with parents
group coaching calls, which arebasically these very small group
calls, like usually betweenthree and five parents who can
(15:20):
just ask me whatever questionsthey want.
Those are like a pre-scheduledtime, so like anybody who shows
up can just ask me whatever theywant.
We even did a whole workshop onhighly sensitive kids.
When people in those in thoseenvironments want to go back and
forth, I'll just ask themquestions like these and then
we'll kind of say like, okay,does this sound kind of like
your kid?
Does he do this, do they dothat?
So here, so here are here aresome kind of things that I will
(15:42):
often talk to parents about.
So number one is the is theheightened sensitivity to
sensory input.
So do you have a kid who justgets really bothered by the tags
on their clothes?
I'm not saying that that manykids get bothered by the tags on
their clothes, but for yourchild is it something that they
can't seemingly get past?
They just it bothers them andthey can't get past it.
(16:05):
If so, you might have a highlysensitive kid.
And if you're listening to thisepisode and you're going John,
this sounds a lot like ASD orthis sounds a lot like ADHD.
High sensitivity and ASD arefundamentally different things.
Yeah, there is.
There's absolutely some someoverlap in some of the things,
but you'll notice really, reallyquickly.
There are other things that arecompletely different.
(16:25):
So scratchy tags on clothes.
They do get really botheredwhen things are too loud.
For example, my son absolutely.
If I'm doing any sort of yardwork with something with a motor
, he wants to either leave mealone completely or wear ear
protection.
Too bright of lights Does that?
Is that difficult for them,just in general bothered by
(16:47):
their physical environment, andthey can't seem to move past it.
You may have a highly sensitivekid If they have no sensitivity
to any sensory input.
I would be pretty surprised ifthey are a highly sensitive kid.
So that would be step one andpart of the reason why they
can't move past it.
We'll understand the needs herein a moment and get into some
(17:09):
of the practical steps ofworking with highly sensitive
kids.
But part of the reason why theycan't get past those sensory
things is because in theirgenetic coding, like if we take
the example of the member of aspecies, let's just use a deer.
I think that's the example fromElaine Aron's book.
But if you have, like, a deer,and the highly sensitive deer is
the one that goes up and sniffsthe berries first and sees, are
(17:30):
these poisonous or these notpoisonous?
And they're the ones with thehighly tuned sense of smell.
If they were able to just kindof get over it and just kind of
move past it and just, ah,whatever, I'm just going to
ignore the smell that I'msmelling because the other deer
want to eat this and they'rewaiting for me to give them the
all clear.
If you had a deer that that didthat, that that would not be
(17:51):
good for the survival of thewhole, right.
So this highly sensitive kidshave a much harder time moving
past the overwhelming sensoryinformation, not only because
it's 40% more, but also justbecause something in them says
no, stop, this is too loud, thisis going to damage your hearing
, stop now, stop now.
So that's number one, thesensitivity to any sort of high
(18:15):
sensory input.
That's a big one, all right.
Number two is, I would say,some behavioral stuff.
How do your kids react when,for example, they get hurt, if
they react huge, huge everysingle time, like it's the end
of the world.
When they stub their toe theyjust have a huge, oversized
(18:37):
emotional reaction.
That could be a sign of highsensitivity.
So they're highly sensitivealso to pain sensation, because
that's a form kind of of touchright.
But then other things unrelatedto sensory do your kids have a
really?
Or what does your child, whoyou suspect might be highly
sensitive, have a really hardtime with changes to the plan?
(18:59):
You suspect might be highlysensitive, have a really hard
time with changes to the plan?
And again, some of these thingssound a lot like ASD but
they're not.
You could have a highlysensitive kid who also has ASD.
You could have a highlysensitive kid who does not.
So do they struggle with theconcept of a change in the
routine?
That you know okay.
(19:22):
This person said, for example,that they were going to be able
to go to the park with me thisafternoon, but now it's raining.
Is that a huge disappointmentor is that just like a seemingly
?
Oh, that's disappointing butwe'll, we'll get through it?
High sensitive kids often havea really hard time with changes
to the routine.
Third, does your child tend tobe a little bit more?
Wait and see before they justdive right in?
(19:45):
That's another sign of highsensitivity, and this is
different, by the way, fromintroversion.
And so so, as we, as we talkabout all these things, you go
well, I just thought that was atrait of my kid being kind of
introverted.
You can have a very extrovertedkid who still doesn't want to
necessarily be the first kid toclimb up on top of the tree or
maybe wants to watch the gamebeing played for a little while
(20:07):
before they jump in and join.
That wait and see approachbefore they dive headlong into
something, especially somethingnew, is very typical of highly
sensitive kids.
That's the kind of behavioralthings that you're going to be
looking for.
The last one that I would say isjust your own gut feeling and
observation, right.
So if you find yourself duringsocial events, school activities
(20:32):
, family gatherings, worriedabout how your child will react
to changes, different things,then you may already be kind of
acting in such a way as you knowin your subconscious that there
is something with your childwhere they require a little bit
more of your involvement.
And if that is the case andyou've said yes to some of these
(20:54):
other things, then I think thatthere's a there's a good chance
that you have a highlysensitive kid, because the
chances already were about onein five.
If you tack onto that that youor your partner have a level of
high sensitivity which we're notgoing to get into, are you
highly sensitive?
I think that can.
(21:14):
That can be much more difficultto assess because a lot of
adults, especially adults thatwere raised in the eights and
90s, have developed some copingmechanisms, because a lot of the
manifestations and behaviorsthat come from high sensitivity
are not socially accepted, andso people often have a hard time
coming to accept that they infact are highly sensitive.
They will just tell themselves,no, they'll kind of deny their
(21:37):
own lived experience of theworld and oh no, this is kind of
a dumb thing to be upset about,so I'm not going to be upset
about it.
Um, or you know, I just don'tlike pain, but, like you know,
nobody likes pain, so like it'snot weird that I don't like it.
Being able to compare yourselfcomparison, by the way, is the
thief of joy, so I almost nevertell people to compare
themselves, but being able tocompare yourself to some sort of
(21:57):
norm is the only real way toknow am I more sensitive than
the average person or not?
And if you are and you combinethat with the fact that you've
answered yes to a couple ofthese questions that I've been
asking about your kid or thissounds like we're talking about
your child then I would sayalmost guaranteed you have a
highly sensitive kid.
So if you are highly sensitiveand you're answering yes, a
(22:19):
hundred percent, if neither youor your partner knows whether
you're highly sensitive orexpects that neither of you are
and you're still answering yes,I would still treat your kid as
though they're highly sensitive,because nothing that we're
going to talk about inunderstanding the needs of
highly sensitive kids orpractical strategies for dealing
with high sensitivity andcoping with high sensitivity are
going to hurt your kid ifyou're wrong.
(22:40):
But if you're not doing thesethings and you do have a highly
sensitive kid, then you're goingto be fighting an uphill battle
, right.
So that's what I'll say aboutrecognizing and again, I would
love to have a quiz Maybe I willby the time this is even
released, and not just yourobservations.
If you're told by teachers andstuff like that or other family
members hey, your kid seems tobe really sensitive.
Sometimes it's hard for us tosee because we just know them as
(23:02):
them For the teachers for theoutside viewers.
Sometimes they can noticeespecially teachers because they
have a whole class full of kids.
They can tell which one ofthese kids are a little bit more
sensitive than the rest.
You only have your kidsometimes to base it off of,
sometimes to base it off of, andI will say that having multiple
(23:23):
kids I was much more assured inmy self-diagnosis of my oldest
is highly sensitive when my nexttwo kids came along and did not
express some of the same signsthat he did.
So that's what I'll say as wemove into understanding the
needs of highly sensitive kids.
I want to take a really, reallyquick break here just to say, if
you haven't gone at the bottomof the show notes and subscribe
(23:44):
to get updates on this podcastso that you can get emailed the
moment that the new episode isreleased and you can go and
listen to it and all that othergood stuff, please do so.
You do not want to miss it andso make sure that you do that.
Also, I have not checked thereviews because this is a
Tuesday episode.
I try and give you guys sometime, try and give you a week.
This is a Tuesday episode andso, because it's a Tuesday
(24:04):
episode.
I have not checked the reviewsyet on whether or not who's
winning or who's losing in theage old battle of Spotify versus
Apple podcast for the reviewgames.
If you missed last episode, theSpotify people even though
there are fewer Spotifydownloads and fewer Spotify
listeners, they are doing abetter job of rating and
(24:27):
reviewing the show.
So, apple listeners, you guyshave to catch up.
Spotify listeners, keep doingyour thing, keep chugging on.
I'm an Apple listener, so Iwould have.
I would have said that I wasgoing to be biased towards the
Apple listeners, but man, theSpotify listeners are just
putting up some numbers here.
So you guys got to pick up yourpace, apple listeners.
Okay.
So returning to our subjectmatter of highly sensitive kids,
(24:49):
I want to break down the needsinto three categories for highly
sensitive kids emotional needs,physical needs and social needs
.
And when I'm talking aboutphysical needs, we're talking
more about sensory type needs,right?
So the first category ofemotional needs I want to spend
(25:12):
the most time on and focus themost time on, and the first
thing I want to highlight andpoint out is that highly
sensitive people, and highlysensitive kids specifically, do
struggle often with having agood internal sense of
validation and an internal senseof self-worth.
Not always, but it cancertainly be the case, and so if
you have a highly sensitivechild, they are going to need a
lot more processing on the frontend than you might expect.
(25:36):
It can be very taxing as aparent of a highly sensitive
child, especially not being ahighly sensitive person myself
to constantly have to deal withthe like overwhelming emotions
related to any sensory issue,like the tag on the clothes is
the one I keep talking about,but it's certainly not the most
common Sticky hands, dirty hands, that's a big one.
(25:59):
Or loud noises, fireworks,right.
It seems a little bit kind oflike overdone for me sometimes
that my kid like, every singletime he like bumps his shin is
it feel it's like the world isending.
But as a highly sensitive kid,his experience of the world,
he's not lying, he feels thatway, he experiences the world
(26:24):
that way.
I think this is a Fred Rogersquote.
But children, the way thatchildren experience the world is
deeply serious to them and weshould take it very seriously.
We should, we should take itwith the same seriousness that
it experiences to them, and sokids who are highly sensitive
from an emotional perspectiveoften need a little bit more
reassurance, a little bit morelike, hey, you're doing a great
(26:46):
job, I'm not worried about it,and definitely a gentler hand of
communication.
And obviously I talk all aboutbeing a punishment free parent
on this podcast and I talk allabout being a conscious,
thoughtful, effective parent.
I will even use the wordoccasionally, gentle parent,
although I don't love that term,as as I've kind of highlighted
(27:08):
in other episodes.
But you really have tocommunicate a little bit more
gently, because for a highlysensitive kid, when you react
emotionally because they reactedemotionally, it can immediately
cause it to devolve into like aspiral, a doom spiral, and so
you have to have a little bitmore gentle communication with
(27:30):
those kids on the emotional sideand a lot of validation and
that stuff.
Number two their physical needs.
So one of the really simplethings the physical sensory need
thing.
Here it's actually much simplerthan than a lot of the other
things.
Some of this is so, sounavoidable, by the way.
So there are certain sensoryneeds that you're just never
going to be able to handle ornever going to be able to help
(27:52):
them with.
For example, if they get hurt,they get hurt Like there's
nothing you can do about that?
I'm trying to follow themaround so they never get hurt.
It's not good for them.
So you're just going to have tolearn to respond and this goes
into the emotional categoryright, you're going to have to
learn how to respond in anemotionally positive way when
they get hurt.
But you're not going to be ableto prevent them from getting
(28:12):
hurt, nor should you like that'sthat you can't.
But there are a lot of otherreally simple things that you
can do.
For example, you can get a kidear protection, like I said my
son has, or even noise cancelingheadphones that just help to
drown out if you're in a superloud environment.
Drown that out.
I'm not saying that your kid isgoing to then wear those around
everywhere that they go, oranything like that, but in
(28:33):
certain circumstances, if theyknow where to go to get those
tools, let them have the tools.
You may have to spend a littlebit more time shopping for shoes
.
It may be very hard for them topick out a pair of shoes that
feels right.
They may want to wear thoseshoes until they are long past
their usable life.
This is something that we'vestruggled with my son for his
entire life.
He wants to just hold on to hisshoes and his coats forever.
(28:56):
Why?
Because they're comfortable,and he knows that many things
aren't comfortable.
But you can just spend thatadditional time to make sure you
do.
You can cut tags off of thingsvery easy.
We have never made my son wearwhat he calls crunchy pants,
which are like jean denimmaterial or khaki material.
Just you know, maybe for aphoto shoot or something he has
(29:17):
to put them on for five minutes,10 minutes or something.
But we do not make him walkaround in jeans.
Why?
Because he's just much happier,much more satisfied if he just
is in sweat pant material pants.
That's just what he wants towear and it's not hard.
The main thing here is justtrust your kid.
If they say that something'sbothering them, trust them, fix
it right Like it's the simplestthing in the world.
(29:39):
But you have to trust them,especially as the not highly
sensitive adult.
If you are the not highlysensitive adult, they may be
experiencing something.
I promise you they're not justtrying to pull your leg about it
Like they may experience it ina really big way and you may
well.
Why does that bother you?
Like it doesn't bother me thatI have tags on the back of my
shirt.
It's like why should thatbother you?
Well, they're highly sensitive,so it does.
(30:04):
And then the last thing issocial needs, and this is a
continuing struggle for anyparent who has highly sensitive
kids.
And the reason is the world,again, is not set up for highly
sensitive people.
It is set up for people who arenot highly sensitive because
they are in the majority, and sounderstanding that your kid is
highly sensitive in a not highlysensitive world may lead to
social interactions that need tobe processed in a different way
(30:27):
.
You may have to help them to bea little bit more assertive,
especially if you have a highlysensitive kid who is also an
introvert.
Right, then you have the socialintroversion factor of like, I
don't really want to be in thisgroup anyway and I'm anxious
about joining it.
If you have an extroverted kid,you're just going to let them
take their time, but forintroverted kids, it may be that
(30:49):
you have to kind of push them alittle bit.
Just realize that you're goingto have to do that very
carefully.
So it's good to push your kids,it's good to help them to learn
, but if you push them too far,too fast, you're going to wind
up burning them out and in thatcase you're really not going to
(31:09):
wind up in a good place withthem.
So that would be understandingthose needs emotionally,
physically and socially.
And I know I didn't get into aton of the social stuff but I
don't want to go into too muchof that, partially because I'm
just not really, I haven'treally thought about how I want
to talk about that yet in anysort of kind of in-depth way,
and partially because we justdon't have the time in an
introductory episode about highsensitivity, to get into the
(31:32):
complex needs socially of highlysensitive persons, because they
do also have a very strongsense of belonging, of wanting
to belong to a group and so, aswe said before, they may
struggle a little bit more withinternal validation.
That was on the emotional needsside, but that may mean that
they're a little bit moreexternally validated.
(31:54):
And then if their highsensitivity leads to kids who
are unthoughtful, who don'tunderstand, leads to kids who
are unthoughtful, who don'tunderstand, being a little bit
unkind or not being inclusive tothem, then that can compound
the issue because then itbecomes you know, sometimes all
of those a social wound, aphysical I don't want to say a
(32:17):
physical wound, but a physicalsensory wound and also an
emotional wound all at once.
So that can be challenging, soI'll get into that later.
But I do think that it'simportant just to understand
that social interactions aregoing to present unique
challenges for you as a parentof a highly sensitive child.
Okay, so I want to kind of getto a conclusion here, because
(32:39):
we've talked a lot about highsensitivity.
You always can go back andlisten to the rest of the whole
episode again.
Absolutely, go and get Elaine'sbook.
If you have not done so,message me and tell me that this
is something that you want tohear more about.
Tell me that I need to make thequiz if I haven't made it yet,
but I do want to leave you withthree really key practical tips,
(33:01):
strategies, whatever, when youhave a highly sensitive kid.
Number one tip routines.
Routines are the bedrock ofparenting generally, for kids in
general, and this is becausekids with an underdeveloped
prefrontal cortex struggle topredict what's going to happen
(33:21):
next.
I've said this so many times.
You're probably all sick ofhearing it if you've listened to
this podcast for any length oftime, but really, if you want to
break down the human brain intoones and zeros.
It's just did I predictcorrectly or not?
Over and over and over Somethings you almost always predict
(33:42):
correctly.
The laws of physics right?
You drop something and it falls.
You can predict a thousandtimes out of a thousand times
that when you drop somethingit's going to fall down in your
brain.
That's a really easy Yep, Ipredicted correctly.
Everything in my life hasalways led to that prediction
coming true.
(34:02):
For kids it's much moredifficult because they just lack
the cognitive processing to beable to predict with any sort of
accuracy, and so adults aremuch better at predicting the
future than kids.
Highly sensitive kids take thisfailure to predict accurately
as deep threats to themselvesoften, and we can get into like
(34:26):
why?
Maybe you know the deersniffing the berries?
If they predict wrong, it couldbe bad for everybody.
Right, but kids especiallyreally struggle when they don't
do this well, when they don'tpredict well, and so creating
really established routines canprovide a deep sense of security
for kids who are highlysensitive, and then it can allow
(34:47):
them to grow and change andbuild and have freedom outside
of those routines because theyhave the structure of those
routines.
Without a predictable homeenvironment, a highly sensitive
kid is trying to play too manygames all at once.
Basically, they're trying topredict too many things and so
allow them to have a verypredictable home environment so
that when they're out in theworld and you cannot force the
(35:08):
world to be predictable for them, you cannot force their school
environment to be predictablefor them.
Although, if you're an educatorlistening to this and you have
a classroom full of kids, allthe more reason why you
shouldn't be just springingthings on them, because the
highly sensitive kids in thatclass do not appreciate it.
I'll give you an example fromour life.
My son does not like surprises.
He does not like not knowingwhat he's going to get for his
(35:29):
birthday.
A lot of people are like John,that's terrible parenting.
You should make him wait untilhis birthday to find out what
you're getting him.
Why?
Because that's socially whatwe've decided about birthday
presents, and then we don'talways even do it in adulthood.
(35:49):
No, that's ridiculous.
He wants to know what's coming.
That's part of his deepinternal sense of coding.
He, he, it's a part of hisgenes, if we're going to believe
what Elaine Aaron is saying.
And so we created a predictablehome environment where we just
said hey, look we're.
We'll tell you what you'regoing to get.
You can have it.
You know, understand, so youcan predict and know what's
coming and then move forwardappropriately.
(36:10):
So that would be number oneroutines, routines, routines.
Establish routines.
Stick to the routines.
If you move off of thoseroutines, expect the meltdown,
change of plans, expect themeltdown.
You're going to be much betterat handling it If you move off
of those routines, expect themeltdown, change of plans,
expect the meltdown.
You're going to be much betterat handling it if you know that
it's coming.
Okay, tip number two takebreaks, take breaks.
(36:33):
A lot of people think that youcan just kind of drive kids, you
know, thing to thing to thingto thing to thing to thing to
thing, and you can just exhaustyourself.
I call it Disney worldparenting.
Maybe this is just me and theway that I do Disney, but the
moment I step out of that carI'm like agenda for the day,
we're going to do this, this, wegot to get to this line first.
(37:00):
We're going to go to this.
Well, I want to be there at 945.
And like, and you make allthese things and it can just be
like you need a vacation fromyour day at Disney, because it's
just like exhausting.
If you do that with a highlysensitive kid without taking any
breaks, without having anydowntime, without having any
chance for them to just pauseand reflect, I promise you they
(37:22):
are going to lose it.
So set up good, consistentroutines and then also
appreciate that your kids aregoing to need breaks.
My son has a break in the middleof the day every single day,
every single day.
I do not try and force him todo anything from like 12 to one,
there's just no point.
Or maybe 1230 to 130.
(37:43):
There's just no point.
Or maybe 1230 to 130.
There's just no point.
It's going to ruin the rest ofthe day.
Or it's if he doesn't get thatchance of downtime to process,
to deal, to have some lowsensory time right, this is a
time when we're not listening toa lot of music and other things
like that.
He needs that.
When you start to see thetriggers coming, take a break
right away.
Take a break If you know thatyou're going to have, you know,
(38:05):
an exhausting rest of theevening because you're going to
go to your parents' house andit's just going to be wild all
the time.
Take some extra breaks, allowfor additional downtime, because
that is absolutely essential.
And then the last thing is, aswe've talked about emotional
intelligence in a coupleepisodes ago if you haven't
listened to that one, please goback and listen to it we talked
(38:26):
about the importance ofrecognizing, labeling and
expressing emotions.
This is even more appropriateand more necessary when a kid is
highly sensitive.
Why?
Because their reactions toemotional situations are going
to be bigger and so they needadditional help.
Grounding, you know, deepbreathing, exercises, just other
(38:51):
emotional regulation skills.
They're going to needadditional frustration tolerance
training.
They're going to needadditional ability to the
labeling of their emotions isgoing to be paramount, because
they're going to have all ofthese emotions and if they don't
have anywhere to put them orhow to express them, it's going
to create issues.
So emotional intelligence iskey.
(39:13):
So my three tips to you numberone routines, routines, routines
.
Number two take a lot of breaks.
Number three really focus in onthat emotional intelligence
stuff and coping skills.
Strategies like deep breathingI have so many all of my tantrum
hacks still work.
I mean, in fact, they're evenmore important if you have a
(39:34):
highly sensitive kid.
So all of that, that's.
That's what I would say aboutthose, right?
So those are my three tips andwe're getting to the end of the
episode and I'm not going to dolike a whole long outro or
anything like that.
But before we do I want to.
I want to say one really, reallyimportant thing, because the
way I've just described highlysensitive kids makes it seem
(39:54):
like it's a huge chore to parenta highly sensitive kid.
That it's this huge like downer, like if there was a genetic
test that they could give to youwhen you're pregnant and you're
, you'd be able to tell ifyou're highly sensitive, your
child's going to be highlysensitive, and you're like, oh
no, my child's going to behighly sensitive.
You know like this is notaccurate.
Highly sensitive kids are, Ithink, probably more challenging
(40:17):
to parent in the early toddleryears, maybe early grade school
years, but you're justfront-ending a lot of your
parenting.
I'm going to say that againYou're just front-ending a lot
of your parenting with a highlysensitive kid, because once they
know the coping strategies,they'll just do them.
Here's the thing that nobodytalks about with high
(40:38):
sensitivity, it has morebenefits than drawbacks, because
all of that extrasensoryinformation that your kids are
taking in is data.
Your kid could be the greatestsales person in the history of
the world as a highly sensitiveperson, far better than their
nine highly sensitive peers.
Why?
Because they can assess theperson across the table from
(41:01):
them in a much more nuanced way.
So I would argue that probablyall of the great chefs in
history, most of the greatartists in history, these are
all highly sensitive people.
Why?
Because it required that levelof deep emotional processing and
when that emotional processinghappens in a positive way, when
we build those skills, when wedevelop frustration, tolerance
(41:23):
and resilience, those things cancome to bear in these really,
really beautiful ways, yourchild will be the most
empathetic.
I have watched my kids highlysensitive and not, but
especially my not highlysensitive kids learn from their
highly sensitive older brotherhow to be empaths, how to be
deeply caring.
Does he still pick on himsometimes?
Of course he does.
Kids are kids, but absolutelydeeply cares about people,
(41:46):
intrinsically loves people.
My wife highly sensitive,intuitively parents in all of
the ways that we talk about anwhole parent.
I had to know the data.
I had to understand thepsychology behind of it.
I had to do all of this work tobecome the parent that she
automatically is just by beinghighly sensitive.
She just gets it.
She gets what my son needs.
(42:07):
She didn't need to know he washighly sensitive to know how to
assess his needs.
Why?
Because she's highly sensitive.
So highly sensitive people havea superpower.
I want to say that again.
Highly sensitive people have asuperpower, but it's going to be
a challenge to hone thatsuperpower, especially in the
early years, and you can stompit out.
That's why a lot of adultsdon't know if they're highly
(42:30):
sensitive.
Because their sensoryprocessing, information, their
empathy you know their deepempathy, their slow processing
that's another thing that highlysensitive people can have.
They can process things sodeeply that it takes them longer
to process them.
They're not slower or dumber oranything like that.
Lower IQ In fact, highlysensitive people tend to have
(42:50):
higher IQ, as far as what I'vebeen able to find, the research
on that, although there's not alot of good research on highly
sensitive people and secondarilyto that, there are highly
sensitive people but basically,anecdotally, everybody in my
life who is highly sensitive arethe people with high IQs my
wife, much higher than mine, I'msure.
So like that.
All of that understand.
It's not that they're dumb oranything, but they might be
(43:12):
slower to process.
Why?
Because they really care.
They can tend to beperfectionists.
That's kind of another you knowdrawback I don't want to have a
perfectionist kid.
Okay, that's fine.
But do you understand that manypeople who produce excellence
it's because they care about thedetails.
And highly sensitive peopleSometimes they're the only ones
who can see the details.
(43:32):
I can't tell you what anightmare it was to paint a
house with me as my wife whenshe was just like I don't.
I don't understand how you cannot tell the difference between
like four different colors.
They're so different to me andI was like the amount of yellow
paint in this one over the otherone was like literally less
than one drop before they shookthis whole bucket up and that
(43:54):
was the only difference.
She's like, but I can see it,and I'm like, but I can't.
It's going to prevent presentadditional challenges, but it
comes with the additionalpositives.
Again a feature, not a failureof amazing, amazing ability to
go deep, to go into places thatyou've never experienced.
So that's what I have.
(44:14):
On highly sensitive kids.
If you've liked this episode, ifyou think you might have a
highly sensitive child, pleasemake sure to subscribe to the
podcast, get email updates.
Again, that's in the show notesIf you're not following me on
all the social medias.
Please go ahead and do that.
I have had some real tough timegetting my social posts to have
any sort of traction, so youwant to help me out with that.
I'd appreciate it, but that'sjust a side note Until next time
(44:38):
.
This has been the whole parentpodcast.
Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast.
My name is John.
Do you have a kid who seems toget really overwhelmed by things
, who just absolutely melts downover really simple things?
I'm not talking about just intoddlerhood, but it becomes a
thing later in life.
Anytime they get hurt, theyjust react emotionally huge,
(00:24):
seemingly oversized reactions.
Maybe they're sensitive to loudnoises, maybe they don't like
things like fireworks For thoseof you who live in the United
States we're coming up on forthe 4th of July they seem to
have more emotional needs thanmaybe you expected for your kids
to have.
Or maybe you have other kids andthey don't have those same
(00:45):
emotional needs, educationalstrengths and sometimes some
educational difficulties.
Well then, you might have ahighly sensitive kid, and this
episode is all about highlysensitive children how we can
help highly sensitive kids, howwe can parent highly sensitive
kids.
What high sensitivity comesfrom?
We're gonna define it, we'regonna get into it.
So, yeah, stick around, we'regonna talk about kids.
How we can parent highlysensitive kids.
What high sensitivity comesfrom?
We're going to define it, we'regoing to get into it.
(01:06):
So, yeah, stick around, we'regoing to talk about some things.
So, once again, my name is john.
This is the whole parent.
We are talking about highsensitivity today, and one of my
great criticisms of manyparenting authors, creators some
(01:29):
of the big ones is that thishigh sensitivity thing has.
There was somebody who reallycame up with this and we often
do not give her the credit thatshe deserves.
Her name is Dr Elaine Aron andshe wrote a best-selling book
called the Highly SensitivePerson and then some subsequent
books, including the HighlySensitive Child, which was my
(01:52):
first introduction to Dr Aron,and she really is the
groundbreaking mind, researcher,thought leader behind the
concept of high sensitivity.
There was a really weirddocumentary with Alanis
Morissette and Elena Aaron aboutthis, about highly sensitive
(02:15):
persons.
Maybe that's how you were firstintroduced to it, but before we
go any further into the episode, it's really important to say
and to give credit where creditis due, because oftentimes in
the world of social media, Ifind myself doing this.
I'm not trying to criticizeanyone in particular, but in the
world of social media we don't.
We're so quick to want to telleverybody about what's going on
(02:38):
and give people good advice, andall of those are good things,
but sometimes we forget to sharewhere we got that information,
and so I wanted to do that rightat the top of the episode.
So if you're looking for moreinformation, I'm going to have
linked to the show notesadditional resources.
If you have gone and looked atthe show notes and recent
episodes, or even if you've goneactually, especially if you've
gone on past episodes, we havereally overhauled the show notes
(03:01):
to try and make them morehelpful.
They give you some timestampsand additional resources.
Some of those will be mentioneddirectly in episodes, like I am
right now with her book theHighly Sensitive Child.
Others will be things that Ijust think might help you on
whatever topic that we'retalking about.
So highly sensitive kids, it'san amazing topic to talk about
(03:23):
today, but I wouldn't be talkingabout it and I would not be
half the parent for my oldestthat I am today if it wasn't for
the work of Dr Elaine Aron, whoagain gets so overlooked when
people call it other things, nothigh sensitivity, right,
because this can go by a lot ofnames.
People often will say highlysensitive kids are explosive
(03:43):
kids, referring to the work ofDr Ross Green, and while there
is definitely some overlap and Iwould say an extreme amount of
overlap, the Venn diagram ofexplosive kids and highly
sensitive kids is.
There's a big middle section.
Highly sensitive kids are notexplosive kids.
Some people call this deeplyfeeling kids.
(04:05):
Right, there's a very bigauthor who uses that term.
I don't know what that means.
I'll let that author definethat and share that.
But this concept of highsensitivity this has been around
a lot longer than the conceptof anything other by any other
name that I can find.
And if somebody else came upwith this first and Elaine Aron
is the one who is building onthat you know all research
(04:27):
builds on past research Ifthat's the case, please I would
love for you to shoot me anemail or just to hear your
thoughts about the show ingeneral.
Just send it to podcast atwholeparentacademycom.
That again is podcast atwholeparentacademycom, but if
you have other sources relatedto this, please shoot them at me
.
So we're already pretty farinto the episode and I want to
(04:48):
spend this episode as kind of anintroduction, because there's
way too much to cover abouthighly sensitive children.
If you have a highly sensitivechild, this may be totally
eye-opening to you,groundbreaking for you, and
there's way too much to cover inone episode, and so I don't
know when the next time I'lltalk about this is.
But I really think that this isrequired listening If you have
(05:09):
a kid who, as I described before, is is has any of those types
of sensitivity.
So the first explanation that Iwould like to give about high
sensitivity or the the place Ithink we should start in
understanding high sensitivityis understanding what it is,
because we're going to talk alot about symptoms of high
sensitivity and how those thingsmanifest and how understanding
(05:32):
the needs of highly sensitivekids and some practical
strategies for parenting highlysensitive kids and I know that
that's why a lot of people tuneinto these episodes is for the
type of practical understandingtype stuff.
But before that, we have tounderstand first what makes a
person highly sensitive, andaccording to Dr Elaine Aron,
high sensitivity is not just ahuman thing, it's a nature thing
(05:54):
and specifically, it is a thingwithin species of animal, of
which humans are one, where theyare pack or group species, and
so this could be a herd ofhorses or deer.
This can obviously be otherapes like chimpanzees and
(06:16):
bonobos, but it also is inhumans, and the concept that Dr
Aaron promotes or forwards isthat they have observed this for
lack of a better termeccentricity in about 20% of the
members of any given packspecies, so one out of five.
(06:38):
So she would really argue thatthis is not a disability in any
way, argue that this is not adisability in any way.
She would say that this is noteven an abnormality, because in
order for it to be anabnormality, it has to be more
or less common rather than 20%.
20% means that this is afeature, not a failure, right?
And so because of that, we haveto understand.
(07:00):
Okay.
So why would this be the case?
And what Dr Aaron posits for usis hey, I think the reason why
this is happening is because itwas beneficial for the survival
of the whole for one out of fiveof the members of the whole to
have increased sensitivity toeverything.
(07:24):
That's the first step.
It's everything Increasedsensitivity to all of the world
and the idea behind this is thatthen, in a pack environment,
the strengths of the pack couldbe built by the diversity within
that pack.
And for anybody who understandsgenetics, which is something
(07:44):
that I'm just learning about,this is like the next thing that
I'm really getting interestedin right now and relating to
parenting and genetic traits andturning those on and off based
on environment and all that.
But anybody who understandsgenetics understands that there
are certain genetic traits likewhere your nose goes on your
face that are very, veryresilient.
Those are very kind of notdiverse.
(08:05):
So some aspects of genetics arepretty common and solid.
Other aspects, like what foodsyou like to taste and how
sensitive your sense of smell isand which colors look good to
you and skin tones and thingslike that, are more diverse, and
they tend to be diverse evenwithin twin pairs, right People
(08:27):
who are otherwise almostgenetically identical.
They'll still have differencesthere, and the idea that
evolutionary biologists haveforwarded for why that occurs is
that that diversity allows fora greater chance of survival for
the whole, that that diversitycontributes to the pack.
So if you have a bunch ofdifferent members of a pack that
(08:49):
have different strengths, thatthat'll be better for the whole
and that's a really beautifulthing to think about.
And one of these strengths,according to Elaine Aron, is
that the sensory input for aboutone in five of the members of
that pack is just going to behigher.
So the first way to understandthis is just to say imagine if
(09:10):
you're a not highly sensitiveperson and we'll get to
identifying.
Maybe you're a highly sensitiveperson because there is a
definitely a genetic componentin this, where it tends to be
that children who are highlysensitive have at least one
parent who is highly sensitive.
Not always the case, but it'smuch more common to have a
highly sensitive child if youyourself are highly sensitive,
mother or father.
(09:31):
It's not specific in that way.
And so just imagine, if you'renot a highly sensitive person I
am not Imagine that the soundsthat you are hearing when it
felt like kind of a loud sound,a highly sensitive person, that
would be 40% louder.
Or when you hear a sound andit's loud if you are a highly
sensitive person, to anon-highly sensitive person, it
(09:52):
would be about 40% moretolerable.
Strong smells the same thingabout 40% more tolerable.
Strong tastes same thing 40%more extreme or 40% more
tolerable.
So just imagine that if you hadlike a dial on all of your
sensory input, you would justturn it up by a couple notches.
That's what's happening inhighly sensitive people.
(10:15):
They just have that genetictrait that it turns up.
It amplifies the experiences,the sensory input, and there's a
lot of reasons why evolutionarybiologists would say that a
species may do that have certainmembers of the species that are
better at smelling, better attasting, have a more refined
(10:36):
sense of taste or smell, and thereason is because then it
allows for the pack as a wholeto have a sort of canary in the
coal mine, where, if one memberis more alert to noticing
abnormalities in change ofroutine, or more alert to
noticing that, hey, like thissmells a little funny, maybe we
(10:56):
shouldn't eat this.
Or this tastes a little funny,maybe this has gone bad, that
the rest of the pack can respondto that and say, oh well, we
don't taste theinappropriateness of this, we
think that this is fine, andthen the pack as a whole
survives.
So it's a strength, not aweakness.
However, the way in which oursociety is set up is, generally
speaking, for the masses.
(11:16):
That is no matter how you slicethe masses, and so if there's
only 20% of people who arebothered by how loud something
is, chances are society is goingto keep making it loud, because
only one in five people areexperiencing that negatively.
Similarly, because we are adeeply social species, the
(11:40):
likelihood that a person says,when they're in a room full of
people, for other people, let'ssay, who are not experiencing
something as being overtlysmelling oh man, this smells
really bad.
I don't really think it smellsthat bad Because we're a social
species.
The way that often we areconditioned to respond to that
is oh okay, yeah, I guess it'snot really that bad either, even
though your experience of itmight be that it's that bad.
(12:02):
You may deny your ownexperience of it because the
experience of the whole isgreater in your mind, because
you again are trying to fit inwith your peers, even if you
guys are having fundamentallydifferent experiences, and so
when we understand that ourchildren may be experiencing
this, it will explain a wholelot of things very, very quickly
(12:25):
.
So that's what high sensitivityis in the most basic terms.
How does this manifestspecifically in kids?
Because we'll get into adults,maybe in a later episode.
Maybe I'll do one on highlysensitive parents.
My wife is highly sensitive, soI do have a window into what
that would look like, but fornow I want to focus in on what
(12:47):
that looks like in kids.
So here is your really quicktest, and I want to make a test.
By the way, this is a little bitof a brief aside, but I want to
get really heavy into quizzesbecause I think understanding
yourself and understanding yourkid is one of the most
fundamental parts of becomingthe parent that you want to be
and reacting and acting andresponding in the ways in which
(13:09):
you want to respond, and mywhole punishment-free parenting
paradigm, for parenting is much,much easier when you have more
information related to okay.
Well, this is not, for example,a character flaw, this is just
or this is not my kid whiningunnecessarily or my kid trying
to get my attention not thatthose are necessarily horrible
(13:31):
things all the time.
Sometimes we need our kids toget our attention, but this is
just how they're experiencingthe world.
I think that those are better.
So I want to make a quiz thatwould be much easier than this,
where it just says kind of like,how much agree, strongly agree,
strongly disagree type quizwhere I could take the work of
Elaine Aron and I couldbasically make like a 10 to 15
question quiz where I was likedo you have a highly sensitive
(13:52):
kid?
I think that that would be areally helpful tool.
Hey, it's future John.
Interrupting podcast recordingJohn, to let you know that the
quiz that I was carrying onabout for a moment there, I
actually did go ahead and createit, so I cut out the rest of me
talking about how I shouldcreate the quiz, and I just
actually did it.
Well, after I was editing thisepisode, I realized you know
(14:13):
what it would be so helpfulahead of time, before I'm going
to talk about what I'm going totalk about next If parents who
had highly sensitive kidsactually knew for sure.
Yeah, my kid is displayingthese traits, and so I need to
pay more close attention.
And so if you found thisepisode because you already took
the quiz, fantastic, I'm gladthat you've taken it.
(14:34):
But if you haven't taken thequiz yet and you don't know
whether you have a highlysensitive kid, please stop right
now.
Stop listening't taken the quizyet and you don't know whether
you have a highly sensitive kid,please stop right now.
Stop listening.
Go take the quiz, find out ifyou have a highly sensitive kid,
and then the rest of what we'regoing to talk about is going to
be so much more impactful onceyou have that information.
All information is goodinformation.
So go and take the quiz rightnow.
It is going to help youimmensely in your parenting.
(14:57):
And, yeah, I'm glad that I wasable to create it and put it out
before this episode wasfinalized.
Okay, back to what we're talkingabout.
Here's how I would recognize ifI had a highly sensitive child.
Often in my membership, when wetalk about this, with parents
group coaching calls, which arebasically these very small group
calls, like usually betweenthree and five parents who can
(15:20):
just ask me whatever questionsthey want.
Those are like a pre-scheduledtime, so like anybody who shows
up can just ask me whatever theywant.
We even did a whole workshop onhighly sensitive kids.
When people in those in thoseenvironments want to go back and
forth, I'll just ask themquestions like these and then
we'll kind of say like, okay,does this sound kind of like
your kid?
Does he do this, do they dothat?
So here, so here are here aresome kind of things that I will
(15:42):
often talk to parents about.
So number one is the is theheightened sensitivity to
sensory input.
So do you have a kid who justgets really bothered by the tags
on their clothes?
I'm not saying that that manykids get bothered by the tags on
their clothes, but for yourchild is it something that they
can't seemingly get past?
They just it bothers them andthey can't get past it.
(16:05):
If so, you might have a highlysensitive kid.
And if you're listening to thisepisode and you're going John,
this sounds a lot like ASD orthis sounds a lot like ADHD.
High sensitivity and ASD arefundamentally different things.
Yeah, there is.
There's absolutely some someoverlap in some of the things,
but you'll notice really, reallyquickly.
There are other things that arecompletely different.
(16:25):
So scratchy tags on clothes.
They do get really botheredwhen things are too loud.
For example, my son absolutely.
If I'm doing any sort of yardwork with something with a motor
, he wants to either leave mealone completely or wear ear
protection.
Too bright of lights Does that?
Is that difficult for them,just in general bothered by
(16:47):
their physical environment, andthey can't seem to move past it.
You may have a highly sensitivekid If they have no sensitivity
to any sensory input.
I would be pretty surprised ifthey are a highly sensitive kid.
So that would be step one andpart of the reason why they
can't move past it.
We'll understand the needs herein a moment and get into some
(17:09):
of the practical steps ofworking with highly sensitive
kids.
But part of the reason why theycan't get past those sensory
things is because in theirgenetic coding, like if we take
the example of the member of aspecies, let's just use a deer.
I think that's the example fromElaine Aron's book.
But if you have, like, a deer,and the highly sensitive deer is
the one that goes up and sniffsthe berries first and sees, are
(17:30):
these poisonous or these notpoisonous?
And they're the ones with thehighly tuned sense of smell.
If they were able to just kindof get over it and just kind of
move past it and just, ah,whatever, I'm just going to
ignore the smell that I'msmelling because the other deer
want to eat this and they'rewaiting for me to give them the
all clear.
If you had a deer that that didthat, that that would not be
(17:51):
good for the survival of thewhole, right.
So this highly sensitive kidshave a much harder time moving
past the overwhelming sensoryinformation, not only because
it's 40% more, but also justbecause something in them says
no, stop, this is too loud, thisis going to damage your hearing
, stop now, stop now.
So that's number one, thesensitivity to any sort of high
(18:15):
sensory input.
That's a big one, all right.
Number two is, I would say,some behavioral stuff.
How do your kids react when,for example, they get hurt, if
they react huge, huge everysingle time, like it's the end
of the world.
When they stub their toe theyjust have a huge, oversized
(18:37):
emotional reaction.
That could be a sign of highsensitivity.
So they're highly sensitivealso to pain sensation, because
that's a form kind of of touchright.
But then other things unrelatedto sensory do your kids have a
really?
Or what does your child, whoyou suspect might be highly
sensitive, have a really hardtime with changes to the plan?
(18:59):
You suspect might be highlysensitive, have a really hard
time with changes to the plan?
And again, some of these thingssound a lot like ASD but
they're not.
You could have a highlysensitive kid who also has ASD.
You could have a highlysensitive kid who does not.
So do they struggle with theconcept of a change in the
routine?
That you know okay.
(19:22):
This person said, for example,that they were going to be able
to go to the park with me thisafternoon, but now it's raining.
Is that a huge disappointmentor is that just like a seemingly
?
Oh, that's disappointing butwe'll, we'll get through it?
High sensitive kids often havea really hard time with changes
to the routine.
Third, does your child tend tobe a little bit more?
Wait and see before they justdive right in?
(19:45):
That's another sign of highsensitivity, and this is
different, by the way, fromintroversion.
And so so, as we, as we talkabout all these things, you go
well, I just thought that was atrait of my kid being kind of
introverted.
You can have a very extrovertedkid who still doesn't want to
necessarily be the first kid toclimb up on top of the tree or
maybe wants to watch the gamebeing played for a little while
(20:07):
before they jump in and join.
That wait and see approachbefore they dive headlong into
something, especially somethingnew, is very typical of highly
sensitive kids.
That's the kind of behavioralthings that you're going to be
looking for.
The last one that I would say isjust your own gut feeling and
observation, right.
So if you find yourself duringsocial events, school activities
(20:32):
, family gatherings, worriedabout how your child will react
to changes, different things,then you may already be kind of
acting in such a way as you knowin your subconscious that there
is something with your childwhere they require a little bit
more of your involvement.
And if that is the case andyou've said yes to some of these
(20:54):
other things, then I think thatthere's a there's a good chance
that you have a highlysensitive kid, because the
chances already were about onein five.
If you tack onto that that youor your partner have a level of
high sensitivity which we're notgoing to get into, are you
highly sensitive?
I think that can.
(21:14):
That can be much more difficultto assess because a lot of
adults, especially adults thatwere raised in the eights and
90s, have developed some copingmechanisms, because a lot of the
manifestations and behaviorsthat come from high sensitivity
are not socially accepted, andso people often have a hard time
coming to accept that they infact are highly sensitive.
They will just tell themselves,no, they'll kind of deny their
(21:37):
own lived experience of theworld and oh no, this is kind of
a dumb thing to be upset about,so I'm not going to be upset
about it.
Um, or you know, I just don'tlike pain, but, like you know,
nobody likes pain, so like it'snot weird that I don't like it.
Being able to compare yourselfcomparison, by the way, is the
thief of joy, so I almost nevertell people to compare
themselves, but being able tocompare yourself to some sort of
(21:57):
norm is the only real way toknow am I more sensitive than
the average person or not?
And if you are and you combinethat with the fact that you've
answered yes to a couple ofthese questions that I've been
asking about your kid or thissounds like we're talking about
your child then I would sayalmost guaranteed you have a
highly sensitive kid.
So if you are highly sensitiveand you're answering yes, a
(22:19):
hundred percent, if neither youor your partner knows whether
you're highly sensitive orexpects that neither of you are
and you're still answering yes,I would still treat your kid as
though they're highly sensitive,because nothing that we're
going to talk about inunderstanding the needs of
highly sensitive kids orpractical strategies for dealing
with high sensitivity andcoping with high sensitivity are
going to hurt your kid ifyou're wrong.
(22:40):
But if you're not doing thesethings and you do have a highly
sensitive kid, then you're goingto be fighting an uphill battle
, right.
So that's what I'll say aboutrecognizing and again, I would
love to have a quiz Maybe I willby the time this is even
released, and not just yourobservations.
If you're told by teachers andstuff like that or other family
members hey, your kid seems tobe really sensitive.
Sometimes it's hard for us tosee because we just know them as
(23:02):
them For the teachers for theoutside viewers.
Sometimes they can noticeespecially teachers because they
have a whole class full of kids.
They can tell which one ofthese kids are a little bit more
sensitive than the rest.
You only have your kidsometimes to base it off of,
sometimes to base it off of, andI will say that having multiple
(23:23):
kids I was much more assured inmy self-diagnosis of my oldest
is highly sensitive when my nexttwo kids came along and did not
express some of the same signsthat he did.
So that's what I'll say as wemove into understanding the
needs of highly sensitive kids.
I want to take a really, reallyquick break here just to say, if
you haven't gone at the bottomof the show notes and subscribe
(23:44):
to get updates on this podcastso that you can get emailed the
moment that the new episode isreleased and you can go and
listen to it and all that othergood stuff, please do so.
You do not want to miss it andso make sure that you do that.
Also, I have not checked thereviews because this is a
Tuesday episode.
I try and give you guys sometime, try and give you a week.
This is a Tuesday episode andso, because it's a Tuesday
(24:04):
episode.
I have not checked the reviewsyet on whether or not who's
winning or who's losing in theage old battle of Spotify versus
Apple podcast for the reviewgames.
If you missed last episode, theSpotify people even though
there are fewer Spotifydownloads and fewer Spotify
listeners, they are doing abetter job of rating and
(24:27):
reviewing the show.
So, apple listeners, you guyshave to catch up.
Spotify listeners, keep doingyour thing, keep chugging on.
I'm an Apple listener, so Iwould have.
I would have said that I wasgoing to be biased towards the
Apple listeners, but man, theSpotify listeners are just
putting up some numbers here.
So you guys got to pick up yourpace, apple listeners.
Okay.
So returning to our subjectmatter of highly sensitive kids,
(24:49):
I want to break down the needsinto three categories for highly
sensitive kids emotional needs,physical needs and social needs
.
And when I'm talking aboutphysical needs, we're talking
more about sensory type needs,right?
So the first category ofemotional needs I want to spend
(25:12):
the most time on and focus themost time on, and the first
thing I want to highlight andpoint out is that highly
sensitive people, and highlysensitive kids specifically, do
struggle often with having agood internal sense of
validation and an internal senseof self-worth.
Not always, but it cancertainly be the case, and so if
you have a highly sensitivechild, they are going to need a
lot more processing on the frontend than you might expect.
(25:36):
It can be very taxing as aparent of a highly sensitive
child, especially not being ahighly sensitive person myself
to constantly have to deal withthe like overwhelming emotions
related to any sensory issue,like the tag on the clothes is
the one I keep talking about,but it's certainly not the most
common Sticky hands, dirty hands, that's a big one.
(25:59):
Or loud noises, fireworks,right.
It seems a little bit kind oflike overdone for me sometimes
that my kid like, every singletime he like bumps his shin is
it feel it's like the world isending.
But as a highly sensitive kid,his experience of the world,
he's not lying, he feels thatway, he experiences the world
(26:24):
that way.
I think this is a Fred Rogersquote.
But children, the way thatchildren experience the world is
deeply serious to them and weshould take it very seriously.
We should, we should take itwith the same seriousness that
it experiences to them, and sokids who are highly sensitive
from an emotional perspectiveoften need a little bit more
reassurance, a little bit morelike, hey, you're doing a great
(26:46):
job, I'm not worried about it,and definitely a gentler hand of
communication.
And obviously I talk all aboutbeing a punishment free parent
on this podcast and I talk allabout being a conscious,
thoughtful, effective parent.
I will even use the wordoccasionally, gentle parent,
although I don't love that term,as as I've kind of highlighted
(27:08):
in other episodes.
But you really have tocommunicate a little bit more
gently, because for a highlysensitive kid, when you react
emotionally because they reactedemotionally, it can immediately
cause it to devolve into like aspiral, a doom spiral, and so
you have to have a little bitmore gentle communication with
(27:30):
those kids on the emotional sideand a lot of validation and
that stuff.
Number two their physical needs.
So one of the really simplethings the physical sensory need
thing.
Here it's actually much simplerthan than a lot of the other
things.
Some of this is so, sounavoidable, by the way.
So there are certain sensoryneeds that you're just never
going to be able to handle ornever going to be able to help
(27:52):
them with.
For example, if they get hurt,they get hurt Like there's
nothing you can do about that?
I'm trying to follow themaround so they never get hurt.
It's not good for them.
So you're just going to have tolearn to respond and this goes
into the emotional categoryright, you're going to have to
learn how to respond in anemotionally positive way when
they get hurt.
But you're not going to be ableto prevent them from getting
(28:12):
hurt, nor should you like that'sthat you can't.
But there are a lot of otherreally simple things that you
can do.
For example, you can get a kidear protection, like I said my
son has, or even noise cancelingheadphones that just help to
drown out if you're in a superloud environment.
Drown that out.
I'm not saying that your kid isgoing to then wear those around
everywhere that they go, oranything like that, but in
(28:33):
certain circumstances, if theyknow where to go to get those
tools, let them have the tools.
You may have to spend a littlebit more time shopping for shoes
.
It may be very hard for them topick out a pair of shoes that
feels right.
They may want to wear thoseshoes until they are long past
their usable life.
This is something that we'vestruggled with my son for his
entire life.
He wants to just hold on to hisshoes and his coats forever.
(28:56):
Why?
Because they're comfortable,and he knows that many things
aren't comfortable.
But you can just spend thatadditional time to make sure you
do.
You can cut tags off of thingsvery easy.
We have never made my son wearwhat he calls crunchy pants,
which are like jean denimmaterial or khaki material.
Just you know, maybe for aphoto shoot or something he has
(29:17):
to put them on for five minutes,10 minutes or something.
But we do not make him walkaround in jeans.
Why?
Because he's just much happier,much more satisfied if he just
is in sweat pant material pants.
That's just what he wants towear and it's not hard.
The main thing here is justtrust your kid.
If they say that something'sbothering them, trust them, fix
it right Like it's the simplestthing in the world.
(29:39):
But you have to trust them,especially as the not highly
sensitive adult.
If you are the not highlysensitive adult, they may be
experiencing something.
I promise you they're not justtrying to pull your leg about it
Like they may experience it ina really big way and you may
well.
Why does that bother you?
Like it doesn't bother me thatI have tags on the back of my
shirt.
It's like why should thatbother you?
Well, they're highly sensitive,so it does.
(30:04):
And then the last thing issocial needs, and this is a
continuing struggle for anyparent who has highly sensitive
kids.
And the reason is the world,again, is not set up for highly
sensitive people.
It is set up for people who arenot highly sensitive because
they are in the majority, and sounderstanding that your kid is
highly sensitive in a not highlysensitive world may lead to
social interactions that need tobe processed in a different way
(30:27):
.
You may have to help them to bea little bit more assertive,
especially if you have a highlysensitive kid who is also an
introvert.
Right, then you have the socialintroversion factor of like, I
don't really want to be in thisgroup anyway and I'm anxious
about joining it.
If you have an extroverted kid,you're just going to let them
take their time, but forintroverted kids, it may be that
(30:49):
you have to kind of push them alittle bit.
Just realize that you're goingto have to do that very
carefully.
So it's good to push your kids,it's good to help them to learn
, but if you push them too far,too fast, you're going to wind
up burning them out and in thatcase you're really not going to
(31:09):
wind up in a good place withthem.
So that would be understandingthose needs emotionally,
physically and socially.
And I know I didn't get into aton of the social stuff but I
don't want to go into too muchof that, partially because I'm
just not really, I haven'treally thought about how I want
to talk about that yet in anysort of kind of in-depth way,
and partially because we justdon't have the time in an
introductory episode about highsensitivity, to get into the
(31:32):
complex needs socially of highlysensitive persons, because they
do also have a very strongsense of belonging, of wanting
to belong to a group and so, aswe said before, they may
struggle a little bit more withinternal validation.
That was on the emotional needsside, but that may mean that
they're a little bit moreexternally validated.
(31:54):
And then if their highsensitivity leads to kids who
are unthoughtful, who don'tunderstand, leads to kids who
are unthoughtful, who don'tunderstand, being a little bit
unkind or not being inclusive tothem, then that can compound
the issue because then itbecomes you know, sometimes all
of those a social wound, aphysical I don't want to say a
(32:17):
physical wound, but a physicalsensory wound and also an
emotional wound all at once.
So that can be challenging, soI'll get into that later.
But I do think that it'simportant just to understand
that social interactions aregoing to present unique
challenges for you as a parentof a highly sensitive child.
Okay, so I want to kind of getto a conclusion here, because
(32:39):
we've talked a lot about highsensitivity.
You always can go back andlisten to the rest of the whole
episode again.
Absolutely, go and get Elaine'sbook.
If you have not done so,message me and tell me that this
is something that you want tohear more about.
Tell me that I need to make thequiz if I haven't made it yet,
but I do want to leave you withthree really key practical tips,
(33:01):
strategies, whatever, when youhave a highly sensitive kid.
Number one tip routines.
Routines are the bedrock ofparenting generally, for kids in
general, and this is becausekids with an underdeveloped
prefrontal cortex struggle topredict what's going to happen
(33:21):
next.
I've said this so many times.
You're probably all sick ofhearing it if you've listened to
this podcast for any length oftime, but really, if you want to
break down the human brain intoones and zeros.
It's just did I predictcorrectly or not?
Over and over and over Somethings you almost always predict
(33:42):
correctly.
The laws of physics right?
You drop something and it falls.
You can predict a thousandtimes out of a thousand times
that when you drop somethingit's going to fall down in your
brain.
That's a really easy Yep, Ipredicted correctly.
Everything in my life hasalways led to that prediction
coming true.
(34:02):
For kids it's much moredifficult because they just lack
the cognitive processing to beable to predict with any sort of
accuracy, and so adults aremuch better at predicting the
future than kids.
Highly sensitive kids take thisfailure to predict accurately
as deep threats to themselvesoften, and we can get into like
(34:26):
why?
Maybe you know the deersniffing the berries?
If they predict wrong, it couldbe bad for everybody.
Right, but kids especiallyreally struggle when they don't
do this well, when they don'tpredict well, and so creating
really established routines canprovide a deep sense of security
for kids who are highlysensitive, and then it can allow
(34:47):
them to grow and change andbuild and have freedom outside
of those routines because theyhave the structure of those
routines.
Without a predictable homeenvironment, a highly sensitive
kid is trying to play too manygames all at once.
Basically, they're trying topredict too many things and so
allow them to have a verypredictable home environment so
that when they're out in theworld and you cannot force the
(35:08):
world to be predictable for them, you cannot force their school
environment to be predictablefor them.
Although, if you're an educatorlistening to this and you have
a classroom full of kids, allthe more reason why you
shouldn't be just springingthings on them, because the
highly sensitive kids in thatclass do not appreciate it.
I'll give you an example fromour life.
My son does not like surprises.
He does not like not knowingwhat he's going to get for his
(35:29):
birthday.
A lot of people are like John,that's terrible parenting.
You should make him wait untilhis birthday to find out what
you're getting him.
Why?
Because that's socially whatwe've decided about birthday
presents, and then we don'talways even do it in adulthood.
(35:49):
No, that's ridiculous.
He wants to know what's coming.
That's part of his deepinternal sense of coding.
He, he, it's a part of hisgenes, if we're going to believe
what Elaine Aaron is saying.
And so we created a predictablehome environment where we just
said hey, look we're.
We'll tell you what you'regoing to get.
You can have it.
You know, understand, so youcan predict and know what's
coming and then move forwardappropriately.
(36:10):
So that would be number oneroutines, routines, routines.
Establish routines.
Stick to the routines.
If you move off of thoseroutines, expect the meltdown,
change of plans, expect themeltdown.
You're going to be much betterat handling it If you move off
of those routines, expect themeltdown, change of plans,
expect the meltdown.
You're going to be much betterat handling it if you know that
it's coming.
Okay, tip number two takebreaks, take breaks.
(36:33):
A lot of people think that youcan just kind of drive kids, you
know, thing to thing to thingto thing to thing to thing to
thing, and you can just exhaustyourself.
I call it Disney worldparenting.
Maybe this is just me and theway that I do Disney, but the
moment I step out of that carI'm like agenda for the day,
we're going to do this, this, wegot to get to this line first.
(37:00):
We're going to go to this.
Well, I want to be there at 945.
And like, and you make allthese things and it can just be
like you need a vacation fromyour day at Disney, because it's
just like exhausting.
If you do that with a highlysensitive kid without taking any
breaks, without having anydowntime, without having any
chance for them to just pauseand reflect, I promise you they
(37:22):
are going to lose it.
So set up good, consistentroutines and then also
appreciate that your kids aregoing to need breaks.
My son has a break in the middleof the day every single day,
every single day.
I do not try and force him todo anything from like 12 to one,
there's just no point.
Or maybe 1230 to 130.
(37:43):
There's just no point.
Or maybe 1230 to 130.
There's just no point.
It's going to ruin the rest ofthe day.
Or it's if he doesn't get thatchance of downtime to process,
to deal, to have some lowsensory time right, this is a
time when we're not listening toa lot of music and other things
like that.
He needs that.
When you start to see thetriggers coming, take a break
right away.
Take a break If you know thatyou're going to have, you know,
(38:05):
an exhausting rest of theevening because you're going to
go to your parents' house andit's just going to be wild all
the time.
Take some extra breaks, allowfor additional downtime, because
that is absolutely essential.
And then the last thing is, aswe've talked about emotional
intelligence in a coupleepisodes ago if you haven't
listened to that one, please goback and listen to it we talked
(38:26):
about the importance ofrecognizing, labeling and
expressing emotions.
This is even more appropriateand more necessary when a kid is
highly sensitive.
Why?
Because their reactions toemotional situations are going
to be bigger and so they needadditional help.
Grounding, you know, deepbreathing, exercises, just other
(38:51):
emotional regulation skills.
They're going to needadditional frustration tolerance
training.
They're going to needadditional ability to the
labeling of their emotions isgoing to be paramount, because
they're going to have all ofthese emotions and if they don't
have anywhere to put them orhow to express them, it's going
to create issues.
So emotional intelligence iskey.
(39:13):
So my three tips to you numberone routines, routines, routines
.
Number two take a lot of breaks.
Number three really focus in onthat emotional intelligence
stuff and coping skills.
Strategies like deep breathingI have so many all of my tantrum
hacks still work.
I mean, in fact, they're evenmore important if you have a
(39:34):
highly sensitive kid.
So all of that, that's.
That's what I would say aboutthose, right?
So those are my three tips andwe're getting to the end of the
episode and I'm not going to dolike a whole long outro or
anything like that.
But before we do I want to.
I want to say one really, reallyimportant thing, because the
way I've just described highlysensitive kids makes it seem
(39:54):
like it's a huge chore to parenta highly sensitive kid.
That it's this huge like downer, like if there was a genetic
test that they could give to youwhen you're pregnant and you're
, you'd be able to tell ifyou're highly sensitive, your
child's going to be highlysensitive, and you're like, oh
no, my child's going to behighly sensitive.
You know like this is notaccurate.
Highly sensitive kids are, Ithink, probably more challenging
(40:17):
to parent in the early toddleryears, maybe early grade school
years, but you're justfront-ending a lot of your
parenting.
I'm going to say that againYou're just front-ending a lot
of your parenting with a highlysensitive kid, because once they
know the coping strategies,they'll just do them.
Here's the thing that nobodytalks about with high
(40:38):
sensitivity, it has morebenefits than drawbacks, because
all of that extrasensoryinformation that your kids are
taking in is data.
Your kid could be the greatestsales person in the history of
the world as a highly sensitiveperson, far better than their
nine highly sensitive peers.
Why?
Because they can assess theperson across the table from
(41:01):
them in a much more nuanced way.
So I would argue that probablyall of the great chefs in
history, most of the greatartists in history, these are
all highly sensitive people.
Why?
Because it required that levelof deep emotional processing and
when that emotional processinghappens in a positive way, when
we build those skills, when wedevelop frustration, tolerance
(41:23):
and resilience, those things cancome to bear in these really,
really beautiful ways, yourchild will be the most
empathetic.
I have watched my kids highlysensitive and not, but
especially my not highlysensitive kids learn from their
highly sensitive older brotherhow to be empaths, how to be
deeply caring.
Does he still pick on himsometimes?
Of course he does.
Kids are kids, but absolutelydeeply cares about people,
(41:46):
intrinsically loves people.
My wife highly sensitive,intuitively parents in all of
the ways that we talk about anwhole parent.
I had to know the data.
I had to understand thepsychology behind of it.
I had to do all of this work tobecome the parent that she
automatically is just by beinghighly sensitive.
She just gets it.
She gets what my son needs.
(42:07):
She didn't need to know he washighly sensitive to know how to
assess his needs.
Why?
Because she's highly sensitive.
So highly sensitive people havea superpower.
I want to say that again.
Highly sensitive people have asuperpower, but it's going to be
a challenge to hone thatsuperpower, especially in the
early years, and you can stompit out.
That's why a lot of adultsdon't know if they're highly
(42:30):
sensitive.
Because their sensoryprocessing, information, their
empathy you know their deepempathy, their slow processing
that's another thing that highlysensitive people can have.
They can process things sodeeply that it takes them longer
to process them.
They're not slower or dumber oranything like that.
Lower IQ In fact, highlysensitive people tend to have
(42:50):
higher IQ, as far as what I'vebeen able to find, the research
on that, although there's not alot of good research on highly
sensitive people and secondarilyto that, there are highly
sensitive people but basically,anecdotally, everybody in my
life who is highly sensitive arethe people with high IQs my
wife, much higher than mine, I'msure.
So like that.
All of that understand.
It's not that they're dumb oranything, but they might be
(43:12):
slower to process.
Why?
Because they really care.
They can tend to beperfectionists.
That's kind of another you knowdrawback I don't want to have a
perfectionist kid.
Okay, that's fine.
But do you understand that manypeople who produce excellence
it's because they care about thedetails.
And highly sensitive peopleSometimes they're the only ones
who can see the details.
(43:32):
I can't tell you what anightmare it was to paint a
house with me as my wife whenshe was just like I don't.
I don't understand how you cannot tell the difference between
like four different colors.
They're so different to me andI was like the amount of yellow
paint in this one over the otherone was like literally less
than one drop before they shookthis whole bucket up and that
(43:54):
was the only difference.
She's like, but I can see it,and I'm like, but I can't.
It's going to prevent presentadditional challenges, but it
comes with the additionalpositives.
Again a feature, not a failureof amazing, amazing ability to
go deep, to go into places thatyou've never experienced.
So that's what I have.
(44:14):
On highly sensitive kids.
If you've liked this episode, ifyou think you might have a
highly sensitive child, pleasemake sure to subscribe to the
podcast, get email updates.
Again, that's in the show notesIf you're not following me on
all the social medias.
Please go ahead and do that.
I have had some real tough timegetting my social posts to have
any sort of traction, so youwant to help me out with that.
I'd appreciate it, but that'sjust a side note Until next time
(44:38):
.
This has been the whole parentpodcast.
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