They aren't being difficult, they're being sensitive #parenting #empathy

Tips for parents of highly sensitive children. Number one is believe the disproportionate nature of their reaction, even when it makes no sense. Even let's say they're collapsing on the floor crying because of a tag in their shirt, let's say. Just remember that for these children, everything is turned up all the way to the maximum setting. So, even when it seems totally disproportionate, don't doubt it. Don't be skeptical of it. Accept it. And in fact, normalize it in your own head by imagining to whatever stimulus is setting them off is a thousand times bigger than the stimulus that you see. Because in reality, for them subjectively, it is a thousand times bigger than whatever stimulus that you see. Number two, expect the meltdown to happen with the person they're safest with in the place they feel safest. I know that that can feel really, really frustrating. Your child holds it together all day in school, and then immediately when you pick them up from school, he becomes berserk. That's called decompression. That's called he was masking all day. Pat yourself on the back. That means you're his safe person and you provide his safe space. Number three, be preemptive about overload. In other words, once a child's overstimulated, it's really hard, if not sometimes impossible, to correct the behavior. Anticipate, to the best of your ability, avoiding those scenarios that are going to make your child feel overwhelmed. Fourth thing, teach them that not everything they're feeling belongs to them. That means sensitive people are like antennae. They're picking up on other energy. Sometimes a sensitive little child will be sad, but they're not really sad. They're picking up on someone else's sadness. And if you can identify that and name that for a child, and let them know that that's a thing, sometimes that can help them to get a little objectivity and distance from some of those feelings. Number five, the last one, try to the best of your ability to teach your child that sensitivity is not a weakness. It's not a defect. It doesn't make them better than other people, but it certainly doesn't make them worse. What it makes them is different. And each person was created differently by our creator with different talents and different skills and different potentials. Sensitivity is a potential and that God willing, one day they will learn how to use it and channel it as a skill and as a gift.