Sensitive children still need sensitivity to others

Nine-year-old Miri is reading quietly in the family room when seven-year-old Nachi arrives. Nachi opens the Lego cabinet, pulls out his bucket of toys, and starts to build. As he builds, Nachi occasionally makes a little clicking sound with his tongue — a sort of “tsk” noise. Miri cannot cope with the noise. She starts shrieking, “STOP IT! STOP IT!”

Confused, Nachi shouts back “WHAT? I’m not doing anything!”

“Mooooommmmy! Make him STOP!” Miri screams from her chair.

After sizing up the situation, Mom tells Miri that if Nachi’s sounds bother her, she should go read her book elsewhere.

“Nachi isn’t doing anything wrong,” Mom explains. “He’s allowed to make a little sound once in a while. I’m not going to make him feel like he can’t live in his own house. Miri’s bothered by sounds in general — she could complain about someone breathing loudly! This is her issue and she needs to deal with it.”

Too Bothered Too Easily

There are lots of children like Miri. To their parents, they may seem to be bossy, controlling, dramatic, and unreasonable. To their mind, the child is “overreacting” to her environment and needs to learn to calm down. The problem is that highly reactive and easily provoked children are that way for a reason — often a genetically determined reason.

For example, some children are very sensitive to outside stimulation, such as noise, crowds, light, and textures; the sensations can provoke intense irritation and discomfort. Some kids are also very sensitive to emotional stimuli (like hearing bad news, seeing something disturbing, reading a scary story).

Highly sensitive children tend to see, hear, and feel more than other children do, and can often become overwhelmed as a result. The upside of this trait is that such children are often highly intelligent, deep thinkers. When parented with sensitivity (no pun intended), a highly sensitive child can learn to regulate his emotions.

Intense reactivity is a feature of some mental health disorders, as well. For example, those with ADHD are often very reactive to emotional triggers, such as feeling insulted, losing a game, or being bored. In response to a trigger, a child with ADHD may have a meltdown, become aggressive or demanding, and have trouble remaining calm and in control.

Similarly, a child who has anxiety or OCD may become extremely reactive when something triggers an anxious feeling. What looks like “strong will” is sometimes a full-blown panic attack. And those suffering from misophonia (sound sensitivity disorder) are by definition extremely reactive to sounds and noises, which they can experience as unbearable.

Living Comfortably

Parents would be safe to assume that if a child claims that someone’s sound, movement, or behavior bothers him, it genuinely bothers him! Now the parent has to find a way to help the child live comfortably in the world.

A parent can help such a child by openly acknowledging and accepting his experience (“I know the noise bothers you”). The parent can also explain that some people are more bothered by noises (or other things) more than others. The parent needs to teach a highly sensitive child to protect himself from overstimulation as much as possible, to ask for help when needed, and not impose his needs on other people who are behaving normally around him.

In the example above, Mom might very well ask Miri to find a quieter space, but she would do so compassionately and based on past discussions they’ve had about Miri’s needs. “Honey, I know the noise bothers you. Do you remember what we said you should do when something around you is making you feel uncomfortable?”

Solid Strategies

Parental kindness and understanding go a long way toward modeling the interpersonal sensitivity that sensitive children must learn. It is essential for their ability to have successful relationships that they learn that they are not the only people who matter. Other people have the right to behave naturally and be comfortable in their homes. Hypersensitive people need to give them the space to do so.

Siblings need to be taught that there is no one right way to be and that people are all different. Someone who feels cold in a room is not wrong because someone else feels hot in the same place; each is having his or her own experience, and each needs to be respected.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 603)