The Highly Sensitive Child: Helping our children thrive when the world overwhelms them

Teachers may suggest that an HSC has ADD because there is usually money for treating ADD, so the student who is thus diagnosed will receive special help—as discussed, high sensitivity is a less familiar explanation for unusual behavior. (There is also considerable controversy among those who study temperament about whether much of ADD is simply normal temperament variation that is, like sensitivity, misunderstood. For an interesting cultural discussion of ADD, with much to say to highly sensitive people as well, take a look at Ritalin Nation by Richard DeGrandpre.)

Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome

Usually, when a child has a serious problem, such as autism or Asperger’s disorder, the parents or pediatrician have spotted it early on. Autistic infants do not smile, imitate facial expressions, follow a pointing finger with their eyes, or mouth the syllables of language. At two or three they have little interest in others or responses to others’ needs and feelings. They apparently do not wish to communicate and do not engage in imaginary play, as far as we know. This is all very different from the behavior of an HSC, who is eager to communicate except when very overstimulated. High sensitivity is found in about 20 percent of the population; autism affects two to four children in ten thousand, and three quarters of them are boys. One is a normal variation, the other is a true disorder.

Asperger’s syndrome affects about one in five hundred children and is five times more common in boys. Such children often exhibit motor problems, such as strange postures, gestures not matching their speed, awkwardness, poor rhythm, and unreadable handwriting. An HSC during the stress of an examination might show poor coordination but not the other symptoms. Children with Asperger’s do seem to wish to communicate, but do so very poorly because they apparently lack an intuitive understanding of how to listen and when to talk. They cannot take hints, understand irony, keep secrets, or decipher facial expressions. They often talk monotonously on a subject no one else is interested in. None of this is true of a normal HSC.

The reason there is sometimes confusion here is that children with autism or Asperger’s are usually very highly sensitive to sensory input. But again, they are not sensitive to social input, or at least not in an adaptive way, which makes them very, very different from HSCs. I do not believe that HSCs are on some normal end of an “autistic spectrum,” although that argument has been made. A better description of children on the more normal end of the autistic spectrum would be those who are socially “odd”—eccentric, pedantic, or emotionally remote.

Again, normal children, HSCs included, are born ready and eager to relate; they are programmed for it. As we will see in Chapter 6, they are probably already emotionally responsive to their mother even in the womb; children with these other disorders are not.

What to Do If You Are Not Sure

If in doubt, have a team of professionals evaluate your child. Start by getting the name of a highly respected professional who takes a team approach, then get the names of the other professionals with whom he or she works. This may be costly, but problems caught early can usually be changed and with far less expense. You need a team because a pediatrician alone may emphasize physical symptoms or solutions. A psychiatrist will be looking for mental disorders that might be helped with medication. A psychologist will want to teach new behaviors but may miss a physical problem. Occupational therapists will emphasize sensorimotor problems and solutions; speech therapists will attend to verbal skills; a social worker will examine the family, school, and community environment. Together, they are great. Indeed, there may be some problem in each area that needs attention. (In my opinion, medication alone is never a sufficient treatment for a behavioral problem in a child, who should be learning how to cope with whatever problem she has.)

A thorough evaluation will take weeks, not hours. Those involved should want reports from you, your child’s teachers or child-care providers, and any professionals who have already seen your child. They should ask for your family’s medical records and history, and someone should observe your child and possibly you and your child together. Above all, they should talk about temperament as part of the total picture and sound knowledgeable on the subject. Unfortunately, many professionals are not, and they can make serious mistakes with an HSC. (See Resources at the end of the book for names of temperament counselors.)

Finally, during and after this evaluation, these professionals should be giving you support and encouragement. You need to be able to trust and respect these people; they are going to have a tremendous effect on your child’s life. If you have doubts about an opinion, get a second one. Those who provide the first opinion should encourage that. Do not be rushed into any treatment unless there is a good reason for speed.

Remember, HSCs are normal kids who most of the time are relaxed and outgoing with those they know well. They listen and express themselves easily. When under stress, they are temporarily out of commission, perhaps very upset. But you will also have seen them feeling good, friendly, curious, and proud of themselves.

Should you look for a “cure” for your child’s sensitivity? No. Temperament traits can be worked with so that the child learns how to cope and fit into a given culture, and parents can learn how to help with that. Trying to cure, remove, or hide a trait, however, is likely to lead to more trouble. Sensitive older boys and men in our society often feel they have to hide their sensitivity, and they do so usually at great personal cost. Variety in temperament is the “spice of life”—and perhaps the best hope of a species’ survival.

A FINAL WORD: HSCS ARE ON THE WAY TO SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS

Do you have any lingering concern that your child may find it difficult to be truly happy or successful? If so, stop worrying. Many highly sensitive people have told me that they believe they feel far more joy and contentment far more deeply than others. And a host of them are prominent professors, judges, doctors, research scientists, widely published authors, famous artists, and renowned musicians.

Yes, your child will be more aware of the problems and the pain in the world. But perhaps the best definition of happiness came from Aristotle: We are happiest when doing what, by nature, we were born to do best. The born dancer is happiest dancing, not quite as happy when baking pies. The born gardener is happiest gardening, not quite so happy trying to write poetry. But one thing all humans were born to do, by nature, is simply to be aware, fully aware. In that sense HSCs are superb humans. Being superb at what they do best by nature provides them with this highest form of happiness, even when, in their case, it may also bring a greater awareness of suffering and loss, even death. You will be part of their working through the consequences of this awareness, which means your life, too, will be deepened.

As we will discuss in the next chapter, parenting an HSC is one of life’s greatest and happiest challenges. You make more of a difference with such a child, and so the rewards are greater, as are the issues to be addressed. If being a parent makes you happy, then using Aristotle’s argument, a child who asks more of you as a parent should be a source of greater joy.

APPLYING WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED

Appreciating Your Own Child

Now that you are familiar with the trait of sensitivity, its flavors, the other temperament traits, and are rid of some misunderstandings about HSCs, you are in a very good position to take a fresh look at your child. Fill out the following assessment. You might want to do it alone, with your child’s other parent, or with your child’s teacher or regular caregiver (or you can each do it and compare).

I. Types of sensitivity (check off each kind that applies):

__ Physical, low threshold—for example:

Sensitive to fabrics, rough socks, tags in clothes.

Notices low sounds, subtle scents.

__ Physical, intensity—for example:

Reacts more to pain than other children.

Bothered by loud noise.

__ Physical, complexity—for example:

Does not like crowds or bustling places.

Does not like foods mixed or complex seasonings.

__ Emotional, low threshold—for example:

Picks up on the moods of others.

Good with animals, babies, bodies, plants (beings that cannot talk).

__ Emotional complexity—for example:

Has interesting insights about what is going on with people.

Has complex, vivid dreams.

__ Emotional, intensity—for example:

Cries easily.

Deeply upset by another’s suffering.

__ Novelty, low threshold—for example:

Notices small changes in room or your clothing.

Prefers little or only gradual changes.

__ Novelty, complexity—for example:

Does not need or like many new things happening.

Dreads a major change such as moving to a new town.

__ Novelty, intensity—for example:

Does not like surprises, being startled, sudden changes.

Hesitant in all new environments.

__ Social novelty, low threshold—for example:

Slow to warm up again with someone she has not seen for a while.

Notices small changes in people after not seeing them for a while.

_ Social novelty, complexity—for example:

The more unusual or unknown the person, the more hesitant.

Does not like to be in large groups when some are strangers.

__ Social novelty, intensity—for example:

Does not like to be the center of attention among strangers.

Does not like meeting a lot of new people at once.

Does not like to be questioned by a stranger.

Next, rate your child on the seven traits from Thomas and Chess (leaving out “sensory threshold” because it is the same as sensitivity and you have already measured that in a better way, and leaving out “predominate mood” for the reasons given earlier in the chapter). You can look back at pages 22–24 if you have forgotten to what these traits refer.

1 Activity or energy level: Low Medium High

2 Intensity of emotional response: Low Medium High

3 Rhythmicity: Low Medium High

4 Adaptability: Low Medium High

5 Initial reaction: Approaches Variable Draws back

6 Persistence (attention span): Low Medium High

7 Distractibility (easily shifts attention to a new stimuli): Low Medium High

Now, check off what you regard as your child’s other strengths:

Artistic ability

Scientific ability

Skill at mental games

Athletic ability

Patience

Empathy

Conscientiousness

Great sense of humor

Spiritual interests

Intelligence

Kindness

Concern for social justice

Others _______________________________________________________

Your child’s problem areas (in your opinion). Some examples might be:

Trouble with coordination or playing sports

Shyness, often afraid of being rejected

Negative mood or behavior

Stubbornness

Rudeness, selfishness, lack of consideration

“Too good”

Not able to make “small talk”

Spends too much time at computer or ____________

Anger

Too noisy, boisterous

Rejected by others for being aggressive

Rejected by others for being too passive

Slow learner

Learning disability

Attention deficit disorder

Others _______________________________________________________

Would the above problem areas be a problem for any parent, or are they things that particularly bother you? (Could you imagine this problem being “no problem” in another family?)

Major events can shape your child’s life; beside each that applies, write what you think has been the effect:

Move

Divorce

Illness

Death in family

Death of a close friend, including beloved pet

Illness in family, mental or physical

Past abuse, physical or sexual

Persistent poverty

Prejudice

Unusual successes, awards, accomplishments

Public notice

Acquiring a very close friend

A special mentor (including a close grandparent, teacher, etc.)

Trips or other experiences that made a lasting impression

Lessons (musical, athletics, etc.)

Consistent activities—soccer, Scouts, etc.

Unusual living environment (big city, inner city, country, a farm, etc.)

Religious training

Cultural resources (gets to see many plays, is taken to concerts, scientists or writers often visiting family)

Others ___________________________________________________________

Now, write a page or two about your child, based on the above—a kind of summary, as if you were explaining him to someone.

 Begin with his sensitivity, then the other temperament traits he has.

 List all of your child’s strengths.

 Then mention the problems, in your opinion.

 How are these problems affected by your view of them (would someone else find them “no problem”)?

 Write something about how these strengths and weaknesses have been increased or decreased by your child’s history.

 Finally, looking back at your child’s sensitivity, how has it contributed to your child’s strengths?

 How has it contributed to the problems?

 How has it contributed to your child overcoming her problem areas?

 How has your child’s sensitivity been interwoven with her major life experiences? Did it increase their impact in some cases? Decrease it in some cases?

 Go back and underline what you have learned that you did not know before. How do you think this will change how you treat your child?

Keep these pages—you may find a time when it would be useful to give them to a teacher, long-term caregiver, doctor, or interested family member.

Chapter Two

Fasten Your Seat Belts

The Challenges of Raising an Exceptional Child

In this chapter you learn why skilled parenting helps HSCs even more than other children, and why the skills are different with HSCs. We discuss the six qualities of HSCs that present the greatest challenges, and you will begin to learn how to respond effectively when they arise. We will also take note of all the joys that come with raising an HSC.

In the last chapter I mentioned Maria, a “typical” HSC who graduated summa cum laude from Harvard. But it did not happen without skilled parenting.

Maria’s parents did not have all the advantages that you might imagine come with the family of a Harvard graduate. Estelle, Maria’s mother, has had a difficult life, starting with her own childhood. She was an HSC in a troubled family that made her the scapegoat because she was different from the rest of them. As she expressed it, “At least I knew what hurts a sensitive child.”

When Maria was born, Estelle and her young husband were living below the poverty line and neither family was helpful. Indeed, Estelle felt she had to protect her new baby from the meddlers and disturbed people in both families. Her intuition was apparently right—one of Maria’s grandfathers was later convicted of child molesting. These were not easy circumstances in which to raise a child, much less an HSC.

As soon as Estelle realized that Maria was as sensitive as she had been (“I knew it at two weeks—she could maintain solid eye contact as I walked around the room”), she decided to stay home and give full attention to her daughter during the formative years. She learned all that she could about parenting, but adapted it to fit the different kind of child she knew she had—one like herself. She automatically cut the labels out of clothing. She had always preferred simple foods, so food was never a problem between them. In raising Maria, Estelle applied the understanding of both parenting and sensitivity that she wished her parents had had.

For example, Estelle rarely pushed Maria into new experiences the way some parenting books urged. But there were important exceptions, when Estelle knew Maria would be all right and was too young to know for herself what she could reasonably do and enjoy. In one instance, as a teenager, Maria was invited by family friends to go to Sweden. Maria did not want to go. Her mother insisted. Ten days into the trip, Maria called from Stockholm to say how grateful she was to her mother for forcing her to go.

Mostly, however, Estelle defended her daughter’s right to say no because of her sensitivity. In elementary school her class was obliged to watch a movie about animals being butchered. Deeply upset, Maria walked out—to her teacher’s consternation. Estelle told her she was right—she did not have to watch anything that distressed her that much. The incident and others like it led Estelle eventually to place Maria in a private school. There she blossomed, became her school’s valedictorian, and was encouraged to apply to Harvard.

Estelle always placed great emphasis on promoting Maria’s self-esteem. In high school Maria grew and grew, to over six feet—yet another characteristic that made her feel different. But although Maria was “shy,” the combination of self-esteem and sensitivity made her a natural leader. Starting even in kindergarten, kids listened to her, copied her ideas. She was cautious with new people but wanted to play with other children and did, with no obvious problems. According to her mother, she just played with fewer children than most kids did. It also seemed to Estelle that there was always a “sensitivity gap” between her daughter and other children. They were not as considerate or as aware as Maria.

Today, as a young adult, Maria’s life is not completely easy. She still wishes she was not so sensitive or tall. She is twenty-seven and still not in a “permanent relationship.” According to her mother, “she always finds something wrong with a man.” That sounds like the “sensitivity gap” she felt in childhood, coupled with the ability of highly sensitive people to spot the flaws in a close other, especially one who is not as sensitive. Maria has changed residences several times since she left college, trying to find a quiet enough place to live. But she is successful in her profession and travels to foreign countries without hesitation—that trip to Sweden she resisted was only the first of many. She is healthy and confident about her future. She is an HSC who has grown up wonderfully, thanks to responsive, sensitive parenting.

WITH AN HSC, YOU MAKE A BIGGER DIFFERENCE

Every now and then someone is on the talk-show circuits arguing that genetics determine everything and parenting does not matter. Yes, at one time there was probably too much emphasis on the role of parenting, especially mothering, in shaping a child’s personality. No one even considered the role of inherited temperament. So a balance was certainly needed.

Ironically enough, however, the research is now clear that parenting does matter, and much more, in raising children like HSCs, whose temperaments are at the extreme end of normal. And in studies done with monkeys, “reactive” (sensitive) monkeys randomly assigned at birth to be raised by especially calm mothers (studies we cannot do with humans) turned out to be far more resilient adults, even troop leaders, compared to those raised by nervous mothers. Reactive monkeys who were randomly assigned to be subjected to separations from their mothers, on the other hand, were far more affected in adulthood by this trauma than less reactive monkeys.

Most HSCs do not have to deal with being totally separated from their caregiver, but research finds that they are more likely to be affected by caregivers who are mentally absent—due to stress or depression, perhaps—or who would just as soon not be there, or who may be overly afraid themselves about losing a close other. For example, Megan Gunnar and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota found that highly sensitive nine-month-olds left for a half hour with an attentive baby-sitter “playmate” were far less distressed physiologically during this separation from their mothers than they were when they were left with an inattentive caregiver. An attentive caregiver was almost as good as having mom present, but an inattentive one made the separation more stressful for HSCs than non-HSCs.

In another study, focusing on the general security or insecurity of the bond with the mother, these same researchers found that highly sensitive eighteen-month-olds who were generally insecure with their mothers (I will discuss this more in Chapter 6) had distressed bodily reactions in new situations, while secure HSCs were not affected. Non-HSCs were also not distressed by new situations, of course—whether their relationship with their mother was secure or not. That is, only the insecure HSCs’ were deeply distressed in new situations. Several more studies have found the same general results.

The conclusion? “A history of responsive, sensitive caregiving … provided the securely attached infant with the resources to reduce activation of the [bodily distress] system, even though the child’s temperament might bias him or her to experience novel events as ‘potentially’ threatening.” In other words, when sensitive toddlers are in the stressful situation of being separated from their mothers, they are all right if left with a caring person and not all right if left with an inattentive person. If they are in an unfamiliar situation that is particularly stressful for them, they are more affected by an insecure attachment to their mothers. They are very affected by the sense they will receive help if they need it. Not only do HSCs need to perceive support in such situations because they are more aware of the dangers, but they are also probably more aware of the degree of support and caring of their mothers and other caregivers.

GOODNESS OF FIT—EACH CHILD EXPERIENCES A DIFFERENT FAMILY, A DIFFERENT FIT

Interestingly, researchers find that whatever a family does do to influence a child’s personality, it affects each child differently, as if each is growing up in a completely different family. Some of this is due to the parents being in a different situation when each child is born, and some of it is that each child is different so parents respond differently, or conversely, the same parenting methods may affect two children quite differently, depending on their temperaments. Probably most parents are not “good” or “bad” so much as they are specialists, naturally working well with some temperaments more than others.

The implication is that if you have more than one child, one may thrive in your care, another may not do as well. But research also finds that a little understanding and training can affect that greatly—“goodness of fit” matters more than parent and child having the same temperament. A good fit is a family and school environment that supports and encourages a child’s natural way of behaving. In one family, a quiet artist who does not like sports will be considered ideal. In another, this child will be a huge disappointment. But there is always a good fit when parents accept their children for who they are, then adapt their methods to suit the child. Studies in which parents are trained to understand their child’s temperament consistently find that the children of these parents have far fewer problems.