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Your son is crying, shocked by the death of a bug he accidentally crushed in the bathroom, and your daughter was teased by her friends, and she comes home in tears and refuses to eat … Perhaps your child belongs to those 15-20% of children who are highly sensitive.
Such children are vulnerable, touchy, upset for a long time. They react emotionally to attitudes and even intonations of other people’s voices. According to the observation of the American clinical psychologist Elaine Eyron, who has been studying the phenomenon of high sensitivity for a quarter of a century, these children are able to notice the slightest novelty of taste and any change in temperature. They startle at loud noises and cry if bright light hits their eyes.
And as they get older, they become more and more emotionally sensitive: they cry quickly when their feelings are hurt, they become more anxious, and they can be so happy that they simply “can’t stand it.”
Think about the reasons
Many of these manifestations cause anxiety or despair in their parents, they would like to see their children more resilient, balanced and adapted to the blows that life can inflict on them. “It is pointless and harmful to fight and re-educate a vulnerable child,” explains developmental psychologist Galina Burmenskaya*. – After all, high sensitivity is an innate property of temperament, a quality that is transmitted genetically and, as a rule, accompanies a person all his life.
But if an adult with hypersensitivity is already able to assess the depth of the wound inflicted on him, he knows that the pain will eventually stop, then the child does not have the necessary experience, and therefore he feels panic because of any disorder. Instead of giving adult arguments (“Yes, there are a lot of these bugs in the forest, after all, people cannot fly through the air to give way to them …”), show sympathy, help him express his feelings with the help of words or tears (“Cry, I I understand that sometimes it hurts a lot when you can’t save the life of even such a small creature”).
A violent reaction to an insignificant reason (like a lost button or a sharp voice from a father) may indicate the existence in the child’s soul of a completely different, deeper suffering associated with problems at school or at home … Maybe this event reminded me of a long-standing experience that I experienced in my childhood. the child was not able to express the time (for example, being a witness to a quarrel between parents).
Express your feelings
In any case, it is important to try to determine the root cause of his reactions and gradually strengthen him from within. What does “strengthen” mean? First of all, pay more attention to his emotions and encourage open expression of feelings through words or tears that help ease the pain. We often forget that tears give us emotional release, liberation.
“The rudeness of a peer, a teacher’s tactless remark, a friend’s cooling down, a child will endure more steadfastly if he has developed close, trusting relationships with his parents, if he is sure that he will be listened to at home without criticism and ridicule,” explains Galina Burmenskaya. – If someone offended, ridiculed, humiliated your child, explain that if not he, but he was treated badly, then moral superiority is on his side and he should not be upset. Of course, this will not completely rid the child of bitter feelings, but will allow them to survive without dangerous accumulation and the formation of the position of the victim.
Empathize with another
And besides, it is important to remember that such children are sensitive not only to themselves, but also to other people, to their emotional state; they are capable of deep empathy, sympathy, they sincerely respond to the joy and pain of their neighbor. These qualities should be valued and strongly supported in your child. If you notice that he is too painful, overreacts to the suffering of others, try to direct his experiences into the mainstream of practical, effective help. Invite him to collect together with you a package of books for the orphanage or write a New Year’s card to an elderly lonely neighbor on the porch.
To parents who are too worried that their mentally fragile child will not be able to achieve significant success in a career that requires pressure, toughness, Galina Burmenskaya reminds: “Success cannot be achieved at the cost of breaking the individual personality warehouse. And without spiritual sensitivity there can be no love, no friendship, no sympathy, so valued by each of us.
“Their body as a whole is better equipped to notice and carefully analyze everything that touches it.”
Highly sensitive people are people who are born with the ability to notice more in their environment and think deeply about everything before acting than those who notice less and act quickly and impulsively. As a result, sensitive people – both children and adults – tend to be empathic, intelligent, intuitive and creative, caring and conscientious (they calculate the consequences of violations and therefore are not inclined to commit them). They are easily disabled by too much information arriving at the same time. They try to avoid it and therefore often come off as shy, shy, or nerdy. When they fail to avoid excessive stimuli, they give the impression of being “too sensitive” or “easily upset.”
Although HSPs notice more, this does not mean that they have better eyes, ears, smell, or taste buds, although some do report at least one sense that they are particularly keen on. It’s just that their brain processes information more thoroughly. However, this is not exclusively a brain process, as highly sensitive people, children or adults, have a higher rate of reflex reaction (the reaction that comes from the spinal cord), are more sensitive to pain, drugs or stimulants, they have a very reactive immune system, more often allergic reactions occur. In a sense, their body as a whole is better equipped to notice and carefully analyze everything that touches it.
Do you have a highly sensitive child?
Questionnaire for parents
Please answer each question as accurately as possible. Answer “true” (B) if it is true or applies to your child in some way or at a certain time in the past. Answer “false” (N) if it is not about your child at all or is not entirely accurate.
- Easily frightened. H H
- Complains about scratchy clothes, seams on socks or tags that come into contact with his skin. H H
- Usually not happy with big surprises. H H
- Better remembers restrained remarks than severe punishment. H H
- Seems to be reading my mind. H H
- Uses difficult words for his age. H H
- He notices the slightest unfamiliar smell. H H
- Has a good sense of humor. H H
- Has good intuition. H H
- Difficulty falling asleep after a stormy day. H H
- Doesn’t handle big changes very well. H H
- Wants to change clothes if they are wet or covered in sand. H H
- Asks a lot of questions. H H
- Perfectionist. In N
- He notices other people’s troubles. H H
- Prefers quiet games. H H
- Asks deep, thought-provoking questions. H H
- Very sensitive to pain. H H
- Worried in noisy places. H H
- He notices nuances (something has been moved, something has changed in the appearance of a person, etc.). H H
- He wonders if it’s safe before climbing high. H H
- Performs better when there are no strangers around. H H
- Feels deeply. H H
If you answered “true” to 13 or more questions, your child is probably highly sensitive. However, no psychological test can be so accurate that you can determine how you should behave with your child based on its results. If just one or two of the signs are true for your child, but appear to an extremely high degree, you can also confidently call your child highly sensitive.
* Galina Burmenskaya, developmental psychologist, associate professor at Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov, co-author (together with O. Karabanova and A. Leaders) of the book “Age-Psychological Approach in Counseling Children and Adolescents” (MPSI, 2007).