Bonbon Break & Buckets - Helping my Highly Sensitive Children Carry Their Emotion

In March, Bonbon Break asked for submissions relating to the theme of "Fill your Bucket"in association with Our Pact. Anyone that has been following the "highly sensitive" aspect of my blogging will know that I LOVE buckets so I happily obliged.

I was delighted when my piece 'Helping my Highly Sensitive Children Carry Their Emotions' was chosen to be published.

I am even more delighted that it has been shared 1.5k times to date - and if you feel the urge to contribute to that total then be my guest.

"I see his little head bobbing in a sea of infants; his teacher spots me and shakes his small hand, giving him unspoken permission to go to me. I watch my son’s face and can instantly tell he is fighting tears. I know by the look on his face that his morning in school has been too much for him." 

Go to Bonbon Break to read on.

Expat Life and The Lost Art of Comparison

I have been living in the Netherlands so long now that I can no longer accurately compare life here with life in Britain. I have been walloped with that realisation a few times over the last few months.

Most vividly recently was during an interview for the LiHSK (the Dutch national organisation for Highly Sensitive Children). I was asked about schooling in Britain and the only personal experience I can refer to is my own schooling. And believe me, that was a long time ago. A long, long time ago.

I had it a lot during my three pregnancies too when people asked about the maternity system in the UK. I cannot talk about that from personal experience either. All three of my sons have been born in the Netherlands. I can tell you everything you'd care to know about the Dutch maternity system but ask me about the English one and I will falter.

When I first landed on Dutch soil I spent more time than I care to think about now comparing my new life here to the one I had left behind.

"You wouldn't see that in England," I would mutter time and time again. "THAT would never happen in England," I'd say to the Dutchies in my life.

And then, although I'm not sure when exactly, it stopped. It's not something I consciously did. I came out the other end of culture shock and it just stopped. I started living in the now. I adapted to how things are done here in the Netherlands. I stopped thinking about how it would be done in Britain. I stopped seeing things as 'wrong' here and 'right' there. I just started doing things like they are done here. Except birthday parties - there are always limits.

And now I realise that my life in Britain is so far behind me I couldn't compare it to my life here and now even if I wanted to. I have no idea about the nitty gritty of life in Britain to be honest. I watch the  BBC news regularly (so yes I know there is a general election coming up, that the live TV debates set up was a fiasco and that Nigel Farage is a dick) but the details of real life are lost to me. I can no longer compare the Dutch way to the British way.

Well, except in the realm of health and safety. When it comes to health and safety I can still often be uttering that a (life threatening or at the very least mildly dangerous like this) situation I come across here in the Netherlands would never happen in Britain. But now I don't mean it in quite such a positive way as I did fifteen years ago.......

Do you still compare your passport country to the country you now call home? Is it in a positive or negative way?

Is my Child Introvert or Highly Sensitive?

Understanding whenever your child is highly sensitive or an introvert can help parents get a better grip on the emotions of a child and how to get the best out of them whilst allowing them to remain true to who they are.

It's a fine line though between introverted and highly sensitive. it can be hard to see the wood from the trees.

I was asked to write a guest post on this topic for The Piri Piri Lexicon and what with it being a topic close to my heart I was delighted to oblige.

Head over to the Piri Piri Lexicon to read about the differences between introvert children and highly sensitive children. And then head back here.....

Is your highly sensitive child introvert or extrovert? Is your introvert highly sensitive? In what ways do you see it?

The Highly Sensitive Child Book Review by Craftie Mum

*My Happy Sensitive Kids blog is the place to find all new highly sensitive related posts* 

If you are parenting a highly sensitive child then Elaine Aron's book called "The Highly Sensitive Child" is undoubtedly a must read. Catarina Queiroz of the blog Craftie Mum (http://craftiemum.com/) has just finished reading the book and kindly volunteered to share her thoughts on Aron's book.

  Reviewed by Catarina Queiroz

"Are you being encouraged to think there is a problem with your child for things like seeming shy and withdrawn, worrying excessively for her age, eating problems, frequent emotional outbursts and nightmares?

It may be that you are the parent of a child that is simply highly sensitive, an inherited trait that is shared by 15 to 20% of the world’s population, irrespective of gender. In her book, The Highly Sensitive Child, Elaine N. Aron explains what it means to be highly sensitive: in very broad terms, from birth you are wired to notice more in your environment than most people and deeply reflect before taking action.

Being highly sensitive is not a disorder nor a disadvantage since in terms of human evolution it is wise to have a large minority that reflects before acting, noticing potential danger and devising good strategies to avoid it, in contrast with the bold and outgoing majority.

Aron's book invites parents of Highly Sensitive Children (HSC) to take a fresh look at their child and start noticing the advantages of this innate temperament: like being intelligent, intuitive, creative, cautious and conscientious.

The motto the author proposes to these parents is: “To have an exceptional child you must be willing to have an exceptional child”. This means embracing your child’s wonderful sensitivity and exploring ways of helping your child thrive it in a world that belongs to the outgoing majority and promotes all forms of overstimulation. In this context, it’s important to keep in mind that enough down time and quiet is essential for a child that is highly sensitive to all stimuli from the outer world. If this need for quiet is respected, the HSC will thrive and not appear distressed at all.

From birth to young adulthood, Elaine N. Aron gives lots of useful strategies for parenting a HSC. There are 20 tips for teachers provided at the end, as well as some great resources in case the reader wants to investigate further.

Catarina advises you to sit, relax and read this book
Photo Credit: Tamlyn Rhodes

The Highly Sensitive Child is like a sigh of relief for parents that are constantly bombarded by society to conform and force their child to be like most outgoing children. The truth is that it’s ok to be sensitive and this trait is actually needed to create a balance in our busy, noisy and boisterous world. If you feel you may have a HSC at home, I recommend that you relax and read this book."


If you are parenting a highly sensitive child and want more information visit the Highly Sensitive Children page of this blog, or join the Happy Sensitive Kids closed Facebook group to talk to other parents of HSC.

New Article: Forget Labels, Think Instruction Manuals

My latest article for Amsterdam Mamas is on the topic of labelling our children. I wrote it after a conversation I had with a mother of a highly sensitive child who was reluctant to discuss her child's character traits with her new school. It got me thinking about our own journey with my son and his schooling and I realised the effects of sticking a 'highly sensitive child' label on his head and how differently we approached it when we changed schools. It proved to be a successful formula.

"A mother of a highly sensitive child (HSC) who had just started primary school told of how her child was struggling in the classroom, resulting in tantrums and tears at home. The teacher was being less than understanding about her daughter’s need for quiet time to recharge, and failed to grasp just how overwhelming the school environment is for her daughter." 

You can read more over on Amsterdam Mamas. I would love to hear your thoughts over on Amsterdam Mamas.

8 Things My Highly Sensitive Child Has Taught Me

Six years ago I had never heard of the term highly sensitive person (HSP). I had heard of shy, introvert and difficult - all labels that have been put on me at some point or another in my life. When I became a mother I was suddenly cast into a world of the highly sensitive child (HSC) and it was a real eye opener indeed. I got to know myself better and more importantly I started accepting me for who I am, instead of thinking I had to change to fit in with a society that favours extroverts. Here are eight things I have learnt from my incredible little HSC.

1. I'm a HSP. 

I can take or leave busy, crowded places
Photo Credit: Michal Zacharzewski

For many years I was well aware that I am an introvert. I don't need to be in crowds, am unsure about going to new places, meeting new people and making small talk. I'm a real homebody and am more than content to stay at home rather than be out socialising every evening (even before motherhood!). Since becoming a parent and it being pointed out that my eldest is a HSC I am able to give how I feel a place and a name. I'm a highly sensitive person.

2. It's ok to be me

My vision board and goal setting for years had involved things like "be more extrovert" "go to networking events" "go out more regularly with friends" "meet new people". Whilst I will always strive to be a better me, I have recently learnt to accept myself and my limitations. I will never be more extrovert. I will never be comfortable being centre of attention in a large group. And that's okay.

3. The importance of me time

Highly sensitive people (including children) need down time, and lots of it. Peace, calm, silence, relaxation: these are not luxuries for sensitive souls. These are essentials. When my first son was born and I was alone at home with him I became agitated if he wouldn't sleep at nap time, if he cried incessantly during the day and I couldn't get a minute to myself I was a big ball of knotted stress by the time my husband came home. I thought I was a terrible mother. By the time my second son was born I realised that I needed a recharge moment in the day in order to cope with the noise and chaos that can ensue with a house filled with very small people. When my children slept I made sure I used those precious minutes to create quiet to clear my head, to reset myself to zero. Sometimes I read, sometimes I wrote. Sometimes I just sat and closed my eyes. No music, no TV, no vacuum cleaners or clattering of pans or dishes. More than three years on, with three little boys in the house, I still insist on quiet time in the middle of the day. My youngest sleeps but the eldest two play in their rooms, or together, and do something quiet like drawing, or puzzles or they create masterpieces with Lego. It does us all good. Without it our afternoons and evenings can be tense!

4. I'm a sponge

Photo Credit: Keith Syvinski 

Not in a Sponge Bob kind of way but in a "soak up the emotions around me" sort of way. When my son was in the peuterspeelzaal (nursery school) we heard from his teachers that if others in the class were crying there would be tears in his eyes. If someone hurt themselves he would be upset. If someone was sad, he would be too. It's a common trait of being a HSC. It's a part of being highly sensitive and I guess until a few years back I never really got why others wouldn't be effected to the same extent as me by other people's misfortune or sadness, by horror events reported on the news. I am often upset, on the brink of tears even, about things that are really not my problem to deal with. Worse still, when I hear about someone else's dilemmas I try desperately to think of how I could directly help them and I take their problem on as my own. Like I don't have enough to worry about with three children.... so I end up feeling frazzled as I carry the weight of everyone's problems on my shoulders. My son has made me realise that I have to set boundaries. I have been busy helping him to learn what he can filter out from his school day, what he should let go of and it helps me in turn.  I have learnt to think more objectively when someone is sharing an issue with me - a listening ear is often enough and people are not expecting me to sort our their personal dramas!

5. I'm a lie detector

My son picks up pretty quickly on people saying one thing but actually meaning something else. He knows when he hears half truths, an incomplete story or just plain old nonsense. He watches faces, he reads eyes. When the sentiment there doesn't match the words he hears he knows it in a flash. It's related to number 4 in a big way and it's hard to fob highly sensitive people off with "I'm fine" whilst there are signs in their eyes that tell a different story. And when I saw how tuned in my son is to the unspoken truth the penny dropped about myself. Some people make me feel very uncomfortable and I am very quick to cast judgement on whether I trust someone or not. My son helped me realise why that is.

6. I'm creative

Creative outlets are essential in our house
Photo credit: Amanda van Mulligen (c)

My son needs an outlet to release his emotions and experiences during any given day. He loves making things, using his imagination, painting, drawing, making things with play dough, story telling and building his own little worlds with his Lego. That means Pinterest is my best friend and I have found that I really enjoy seeking out great projects to make with him (and his brothers). It provides me with a creative outlet too, on top of writing that is, and I realise how much I need that. There has to be a place for all the energy to go that is swirling around my head. I can channel creative energy into making things with my children, because right now there isn't the time for me to do release those creative juices in other ways.

7. Be true to ourselves

My eldest has a particular affinity to nature and things that are growing. One day he came home from school very upset because his friends were trying to kill a worm they had found. He thought it was horrible that they could act in such a way.

As he's got older he has struggled with the behaviour of his peers, trying to be the same as them whilst holding on to how he feels when he sees living things being killed. I see him start to bend to fit in, even though it doesn't feel right to him. Later, when he is lying in bed talking about his day he is able to be open and honest about how something made him feel. He's able to admit that something he or a friend did upset him. I hear him more and more talk about how good he was because he didn't cry, even though he felt like he might. He's already being conditioned to fit in better in a world not designed for highly sensitive people.

This is just one example of how HS boys don't live up to society's expectation of how males should behave. Many boys therefore suppress their natural instinct and feelings. Ted Zeff's book "The Strong, Sensitive Boy" is a great resource to delve further into this topic.

I've learnt how important it is to help my son be true to himself and in turn be true to myself. Sometimes it is much harder to follow your own heart and be true to your feelings than to go with the crowd. It's a hard lesson for a child, particularly one that is so sensitive. It's so important to find the balance between honouring how we feel but not constantly sticking our neck on the line. My son doesn't want to stand out from all of his friends, he doesn't want to be different, and I understand that so it's all about finding the right balance.

8. Embrace nature

Nature blows away the cobwebs, refreshes and revitalises
Photo Credit: Amanda van Mulligen (c)

As I said, my son has an affinity to nature. In fact all three boys love being out in nature. They love going for walks in the dunes, collecting leaves, twigs and acorns in the woods and spotting animals and birds when we're outside. My HSC relaxes in nature. He is given a new lease of life being outdoors running amongst the trees and racing carefree along sandy beaches. He's at his happiest embracing all that nature has to offer. He's taught me that nature is a powerful healer; nature refreshes me, gives me energy and allows me to see things through renewed eyes. It blows away the cobwebs and with life so busy with day to day things it's good to take time out and walk in the woods, sit on the beach, paddle in a lake.

What have I missed out? If you are parenting a HSC what important lessons are you learning along the way?

*I have created a Facebook group called "Happy Sensitive Kids" for anyone who is involved in raising HSCs. My goal is to create a supportive, safe place to share tips, experiences, challenges and the joys of bringing up HSCs. It's a closed group so you need to request membership but it also means that the posts can only be seen my members.*

Parenting A Highly Sensitive Child

Amsterdam Mamas has published an article that I wrote on the topic of highly sensitive children. It's my personal story of parenting a highly sensitive child and the journey we have been on over the last few years and in particular the challenges we have faced with his schooling. It's been a bumpy road but I hope my story helps somebody somewhere understand highly sensitive children just a little bit more.

"My eldest son is a highly sensitive child (HSC), and together we’ve been on an 18 month journey of discovery.
After a traumatic entry to the world, my first-born cried a lot – every evening for hours at a time for the first three months of his life. At six months, nobody could hold him except his father or me. Later, he would cower behind our legs if a stranger came near him. If we tried to leave him with someone, he screamed hysterically."  To read more head over to Amsterdam Mamas.

*If this is a topic that resonates with you I have created a Facebook group called "Happy Sensitive Kids" for anyone who is involved in raising HSCs. My goal is to create a supportive, safe place to share tips, experiences, challenges and the joys of bringing up HSCs. It's a closed group so you need to request membership but it also means that the posts can only be seen my members.*

Understanding Highly Sensitive Children

Our parenting theme of 2013 so far surely has to be 'authentic', being true to who we are and letting our children be who they are. We refuse to mould them into the right shaped peg to fit the holes that others create because it is easier.

HSCs are often creative and artistic
Photo: Robin Hindle

We have been in a long battle dialogue with my eldest son's primary school about highly sensitive children and their needs in the classroom. My six year old is a highly sensitive child (HSC) which is an amazing character trait to have. HSCs grow up to be the artists, the musicians, the peacemakers amongst us. They have an affinity to the natural world, to animals and living, growing things. They are conscientious (there is a reduced chance that I will spend time nagging my son to do his homework in later years) and have an innate sense of justice and right and wrong. They are creative. They are emotionally tuned into the world around them. They are intuitive. They are incredibly affectionate, caring and loving as well as wise for their years. But it also means their heads fill up quickly, especially in busy or new environments.

The first hurdle for many parents of HSCs usually involves overcoming a lack of knowledge, understanding or interest in the idea of highly sensitive people (HSP). Being highly sensitive does not mean there is something wrong. It is not an illness or a disorder, nor is it a behavioural problem.  But most HSCs have a specific instruction manual. And we all know that if you make an expensive technological purchase and try to operate it without the instruction manual you are asking for problems. Either you don't understand half of the functions so are not able to get the best out of your equipment or worst still you may even do damage to your purchase. And so it is with a HSC.

A HSC is in essence one of the 20% of children that intensely experiences the environment around them. The senses of an HSC are easily overloaded: cooking smells can be unpleasant to the keen nose of a HSC; the feel of sand on a HSC's hands can be distinctly uncomfortable; a wet sleeve can lead to a drama; loud noises can be intensely frightening; a scratchy label on a new T-shirt can be highly irritating. A highly sensitive toddler can therefore come across as an extremely fussy child, whereas in reality he genuinely experiences physical discomfort.

And physical sensory overload is just the tip of the iceberg - that sensitivity that we can actually easily see if we care to look close enough. Look below the surface of an HSC and there are pools of emotion of a depth well beyond a child's years. They feel the emotions in a room: they know when a parent is unhappy or a teacher is feeling below par; they read through the words spoken to the meaning behind them and quickly sense when the two don't match. They are good readers of people and are alarmingly capable of taking on the emotions of others around them, taking on the burden of another's problems as if they were their own. It's a lot of responsibility to take on, particularly for those so young.

The majority of HSCs are introverts (30% are not) who are often labelled as shy or fearful. HSCs scan and observe before they participate. They are more cautious about tackling the climbing frame in the playground or jumping from the bench in the gym. They are very unsure of new environments and new people. They are the toddlers clinging to their mothers' legs and refusing to play with the others at the mother and toddler group, the children screaming the new classroom down on the first day of pre-school and the children reluctant to start at primary school. They need to know it is safe before they take action. They need time to warm up to places and people. It's about self preservation and trust.

Perfectionism is also a trait of HSCs. If something they work on is not perfect in their eyes they feel like a failure. They are upset by their perceived lack of ability to complete the task to their high standards. However, to put 110% into everything you do to get it to a 'perfect' state is mentally and physically exhausting.

For a HSC a classroom can be overwhelming
Photo: Elias Minasi

Transfer all of this to the classroom and you hopefully have an idea of how a HSC feels at the end of the school day. Therefore HSCs need a lot of downtime. They are the children you often find spending long periods of time alone in their bedrooms. They need time to clear their head out after a busy day. They need a break during the school day to give everything they have experienced a place. They need quiet time.

20% of the population is highly sensitive. HSCs grow in to highly sensitive adults. It's something I know firsthand - oh did I not mention that high sensitivity is a hereditary trait? It's an inborn character.

The degrees of sensitivity are as varied as children themselves. As children grow older some sensitivities disappear, some are managed better and some sensitivities are unfortunately suppressed because they don't fit with the demands of modern society (the consequences of which are anxiety and depression and a lack of authenticity but that's a whole other blog post in the making).

However sensitivity manifests itself the first step for the parent of a HSC is usually to educate those around them. Hence this blog post. I, hand in hand with my husband, have spent the last eighteen months trying to educate my son's educators about what he needs to thrive in a busy classroom. Our attempts have fallen on deaf ears. Fortunately every other person in my son's world so far does understand. And, more importantly, they accept my son for who he is. They allow him to be authentic, and don't require him to change to fit in with them. Which is lucky, because we have another two sons who have shown signs to a lesser degree of being HSCs. And thank goodness - because the world sure is a better place with HSPs in it!

Do you know a HSC? Are you the parent of a HSC? I would love to hear from others who have had similar experiences as a parent.

If anything is this blog post rings bells for you check out Elaine Aron's website for more information on the is topic, as well as a check list of HSC traits to help you determine if your child(ren) is(are) in fact HSCs.

11 July 2013: As of today I have created a Facebook group called "Happy Sensitive Kids" for anyone who is involved in raising HSCs. My goal is to create a supportive, safe place to share tips, experiences, challenges and the joys of bringing up HSCs. It's a closed group so you need to request membership but it also means that the posts can only be seen my members.