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Hi there, and welcome to the Parenting Without Power Struggles. Podcast. I'm your host, Susan Stiffelman, a marriage and family therapist educator, and the author of Parenting Without Power Struggles and Parenting With Presence. In this podcast, we dive into real parenting struggles, real solutions, all rooted in attachment theory and neuroscience, mindfulness, and decades of clinical experience. You're gonna find conversations here with experts like Dan Siegel and Janet Lansbury, Mona Delahooke, Tina Bryson, Ned Hallowell, plus Q and A episodes where I tackle your biggest parenting challenges, and we know that they exist. All of us have our challenges from time to time.

If you wanna go deeper and get more help, visit susanstiffelman.com. I have a free newsletter and lots of master classes on everything from meltdowns and anxiety to chores and sibling rivalry. Now let's get started.

So highly sensitive kids or people are these beautifully perceptive, deeply feeling kids. They experience the world with more intensity than some of. Some of their counterparts, and I'm talking about children, but this is also true for adults. It's just that adults have more, more resources, more ability to mitigate and moderate and organize their lives in a way that work for them.

Whereas kids are sort of thrown into whatever the pace and tempo and environment that they land in. You might have noticed that you have a child who's. Easily overwhelmed by things like noises or lights or changes in routine, crowds of people they may seem especially, uh, or acutely attuned to your mood.

They pick up on tension or stress, even though nothing's been said. These are signs of high sensitivity. This is the work of Dr. Elaine Aaron, and actually I did a class with Dr. Aaron. It's on my website in the masterclass section. It was a wonderful class, and I've done some subsequent things on this topic.

I'm a highly sensitive person, so it appealed to me when I first discovered the work many, many years ago in her book, the Highly Sensitive Person, roughly 15 to 20%. Of children or the population are what we would call highly sensitive. It's a term she popularized. Now, these kids are not fragile, but they experience the world a little differently.

A sensitive child might become more overstimulated in crowded or noisy spaces. They might struggle more with surprises or transitions. They might react more strongly to textures, fabric sounds, foods. They may show a lot of empathy for others, but but in a way that kind of overwhelms their system and they may need more time to warm up to new experiences and environments.

I really wanna emphasize that this is not a problem to fix. It is a trait. It's an important trait. The world needs our sensitive humans, but we need to understand and support it so you get to set the tone. One of the most helpful things that we can offer our highly sensitive child is our anchored calm presence.

I call it being the captain of the ship. If you're familiar with my work, as I've mentioned it in my book, then it's, it's really kind of the, the cornerstone of what I teach is how can we help parents? Do the work they need to do to show up as the calm captain, no matter what. But with a sensitive child, it's so helpful because our kids are often looking to us, am I okay?

Is this okay? Is the world okay? And when we can respond with that calm, steady reassurance and it's genuine, then we give them a safe harbor. Now that doesn't mean you might not be dysregulated, worried, anxious about. Situations in your world, in your environment, both distant and immediate. But this is where we each need to do our work, to find a place of, of calm and steadiness, regardless of what's happening outside.

So this might sound like to your child who's, who's really feeling kind of the burden or the overwhelm of a situation, it looks like this feels like a lot right now. I'm right here. We'll get through this. It's less about fixing, it's more about loaning your regulated state co-regulating and helping their nervous system settle down.

Now, it might be tempting to protect your sensitive kids from every possible discomfort, but we don't want to send the message that they can't handle life's inevitable bumps in the road. I mean, life. Is messy sometimes, and we wanna help them cultivate the ability to cope, not just shelter them so much that they never have to.

So let's say your child's anxious about a birthday party, but it's something that you feel the family needs to go to, you might say, I. Would it help if we walked in together? Would you like me to stay by the door for a little bit? Especially if you're gonna be going into another part of the house or, or you're leaving, not pushing them, but you're also just not avoiding the situation completely.

What this, what that would do is, is send this message probably that you don't wanna send, that I don't have faith in your capacity to cope with anything that we can't control. Not a good message. So we wanna create conditions for success, but one little step at a time. So let your kids know what to expect.

Predictability that can help, transitions can be hard. Give them time to shift gears. Let them decompress. A lot of sensitive kids, if you're in a crowded situation, take 'em outside for a few minutes, give them time to calm down after they've been in school without a lot of interrogation. Sensory tools, you know, weighted blankets, things to manipulate soft clothing, quieting music can settle those.

Nervous systems and saying things, and this again, if you follow my work, you know, I'm really interested in the internal family systems model developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, which talks about the parts of us. We have different parts that, that get engaged and protect us and, and participate in our lives.

So it seems like a part of you is feeling kind of overwhelmed right now to understand that this. That it isn't who they are, but it is a part of them and that they're not defined by that part. And finally, I do wanna acknowledge that it can be exhausting to parent a very sensitive child. It's also very rewarding.

But you know, you might sometimes feel impatient or stretched thin by their intensity, or being judged by people who don't understand why they're so, you know, discombobulated when there's a crowd, you're not alone. You're not doing it wrong. Make sure that you're getting the support that you need, the rest, the time to recharge.

When we tend to our own nervous systems, then we can show up for our kids with the presence that they need. So. Just a little bit about this topic. Of course, I've done a lot of classes on it, and there's a much more in depth material, but I, I think it's still not really known in the culture at large. And so a lot of parents and children are judged.

You know, what's wrong with your child? Why can't they, why do they have their hands over their ears? Why are they so picky about what socks they're wearing? So we wanna make sure that you have support. If you want more of my support, visit susanstiffelman.com. We have a masterclass on the topic, but also a membership where I meet twice a month and parents ask questions about real situations like this.

There's also a co-parenting with a narcissist group if you are in that situation. And lots and lots of other masterclasses where I go in depth with great people like Dr. Dan Siegel, Dr. Gabor Mate, Byron Katie, Maggie Dent. So many people, you can go there and visit. Just each and every one is really a gem.

So that's it for today. As always, if you have enjoyed this, please leave a comment, share it with a friend or your community. A review is wonderful. All of that helps us get this material out to a wider audience. It's my privilege, honor, and joy to share what I've learned. I've been a family therapist for over 40 years, a teacher.

Written a couple of parenting books. We have a large community online, and for many years I was the weekly advice columnist for the Huffington Post in their parent department. So I have engaged with thousands of parents and it's really such a, such a great thing that I get to use this technology to share some of it with those of you who are interested.

So please share if you'd like. And until next time, remember, no matter how busy life gets. Look for those moments of sweetness and joy. Stay well, take care, and I'll see you next time.