How to support highly sensitive children!
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Supporting highly sensitive children – Part 1
In this post, you'll learn why comparisons harm your highly sensitive child, why highly sensitive children are compared more often than average children, and how you can support your highly sensitive child more helpfully instead.
Especially with children, comparisons can lay a formative negative foundation for their self-image, which shapes them their whole lives. Likewise, we adults make our lives difficult when we compare ourselves. Even though the post is about dealing with highly sensitive children, you'll get many impulses for yourself. Because this topic is ultimately not a question of age.
Comparison is the end of happiness and the beginning of dissatisfaction.
(Søren Kierkegaard Danish philosopher, theologian, and writer)
Comparison is often laid in the cradle
Especially in infancy and toddlerhood, we tend to compare our children to others. For many, this stems from the concern that their child is not developing age-appropriately. Another child from the playgroup has been sitting for two months, while their own child shows no signs of it yet. This can lead to frequently sitting the child up to practice sitting. Babies sit up on their own when their skeleton and muscles are developed enough. Sitting before this point is an overload. Sitting too early and too often can lead to later postural damage. For this reason, lying in a baby bouncer, baby jumper, or sitting too early in a high chair (even if the child is supported with cushions) is not recommended.
Grass doesn't grow faster if you pull on it
This is a physical example, but it can be equally applied to the psychological development of the child.
How can I helpfully support a highly sensitive child?
Before a baby can sit, it must be able to hold its head securely and roll over. It also needs to master rocking. For this, the baby needs space and the ability to move freely.
The baby is motivated when even small successes are celebrated when we visibly rejoice in the many attempts. Also, or perhaps especially, when they don't succeed. The journey is the destination. The baby learns: Hey, it's okay to try, and if it doesn't work out, that's okay too. It learns at its own pace, without the pressure of having to meet others' expectations. This way, it develops a good sense of how to use its strengths appropriately.
Our self-image shapes our lives
Already at this early age, the child begins to develop its self-image. It senses what is desired in its world and what is not. It learns self-efficacy and that it takes many attempts to accomplish something. Every time we sat our child up to „help“ them, the chance for the learning experience of having done it themselves is lost. If this happens often enough, the child develops a self-image with the conviction: „I am not capable of doing it myself!“
Direct verbal comparison leaves a deep impression
Especially in infancy, there are many opportunities for comparison. The first step, talking, the first little teeth. Some babies are constantly compared. Sometimes even directly addressed.
Does comparing really make sense?
Imagine 10 random friends, acquaintances, or colleagues. When could they sit? At what age did they take their first steps? Who among them slept through the night first, and who was potty trained first? You don't know? Could it be that in the end, it's not that important who could do what and when. Ultimately, everyone developed and grew up at their own pace. No one cares about the old comparisons anymore.
Every highly sensitive child is different
And please understand me correctly. Of course, it's important to keep an eye on a child's development. There are tables for guidance and many professionals, such as doctors during check-ups, trained educators who keep an eye on your child if they really need support in a certain area. However, comparing them with other children is not helpful for this. Children are so different. My daughter wasn't even two and expressed herself in extensive complex sentences, but she only started walking at one year and 8 months. Every child has their own strengths. I experience in my work that comparing with others puts a lot of pressure on many parents. And this pressure reaches the children in various ways.
Direct comparisons create shame and guilt
I took my two-year-old daughter to children's gymnastics. Like most highly sensitive children, she could express herself in a very differentiated way from a very early age.
Another mother said to her child of the same age: "She can already speak so well, and why aren't you saying anything?" “The child looked down at the ground in shame. My heart ached, and I stammered: “N a, but it can do other things really well. “
Comparison as a generational cycle
Some time later, we visited this family because our children wanted to play. The mother told me that she herself had just recovered from burnout. She couldn't meet her own standards, which felt very high to me. She was extremely hard on herself. She described how she could never please her parents and still suffers greatly from it today because she feels she can never be enough. While she was telling me all this, there were three instances where she harshly judged her child. Twice directly and once in a conversation that her child overheard. To me, this shows a tragic cycle. This will hardly resolve itself without outside help.
What can help you out of your own cycle?
If you recognize yourself in this description, you might be comparing yourself to other parents again, accompanied by feelings of shame and guilt. This is very understandable given your history, but it doesn't help anyone. Neither your child nor you. You both need someone who lovingly supports you, with goodwill, especially when things aren't going so well. For example, someone who practices Marte Meo (= from your own strength) could support you in focusing on your strengths, consolidating a positive self-image, and lovingly accompanying you in the process of change.
Highly sensitive children are often compared more
In my observation, comparisons decrease in elementary school age because the speed of obvious development slows down during this time. And the children's abilities have become more aligned.
For highly sensitive children, however, this phase often lasts longer. Because their need to observe makes them more reserved in new situations and they need more reassurance from their caregivers.
Accompany, don't fight
A major concern for parents, for example, is that their children don't want to pay at the checkout. The motto helps here: accompany, don't fight As soon as you go into battle with your child against their fears, the probability that the fear will grow even more is much greater. It's no different for us adults.
Highly sensitive children need more attention
I still accompanied my daughter to children's gymnastics when all the other children her age were already there on their own. At birthday parties, I was the only mother who stayed longer. It was important to me to support my daughter in situations that overwhelmed her and to give her the experience that she could safely master the unfamiliar situation. My motto was to be available, but to withdraw as much as possible. This made it easy for her to make contact despite my presence. I stayed until she signaled to me that I could leave. Highly sensitive children are often more anxious than average sensitive children because they have an eye for danger early on. If I tried to persuade or push her to do something, it never worked. It only caused her more stress.
You can't talk away fear!
After a dog bite to her face, she had developed a fear of heights. Even escalators, which she had previously loved, she no longer wanted to ride. As soon as we tried to push her behavior, nothing worked anymore. One day, we wanted to climb a church tower. After the initial excitement, her fear caught up with her again and she didn't want to go any further. Any pushing to just try it anyway and similar things increased her tension. As soon as I said, "no problem, you decide if and how high you go, and I am here and will support you," she calmed down immediately. The important thing is to do this without a trace of reproach or annoyance. Step by step, she made it all the way to the top at her own pace. And it is basically always like this. When we step back in tense situations, offer to support her, and let her do things at her own pace, she surpasses herself.
Here, too, the principle is: accompany, don't fight .
Comparisons weaken the highly sensitive child
If I push her in such a situation and compare her with other children who are not afraid, a feeling of shame is added to the fear. Does this support our child in any positive way? Would the comparison really support us?
High sensitivity and competition
There are people who are spurred on by such competition. However, this generally does not apply to HSP, which stands for highly sensitive children. Highly sensitive children generally avoid competitive struggles.
Children "ONLY" need good enough parents
And here too, despite all professional knowledge, there are moments when I totally blow it. We do not have to be perfect. It is enough to be good enough. Every time I succeed in perceiving and taking her seriously and giving her space to develop, it is a plus for my daughter's self-image and self-worth.
However, there is another challenge regarding comparisons
Even though we are getting better at not comparing and giving our child their own space, there are still the other parenting experts and they can be merciless.
When others compare the highly sensitive child
- The grandma who keeps asking whether the child can already do things alone or sleep through the night. The friend who constantly talks about how her child was potty-trained much earlier and that it is finally time for potty training.
- The parents-in-law, who emphasize with a worried, sometimes even disparaging look that you shouldn't jump right away when the baby cries. "You're spoiling it way too much, it's going to walk all over you later!"
- Your own parents, who keep dropping hints that you are not strict enough because the child doesn't "obey". At the same time, they don't respect the limits you set for your child, such as less sweets or no TV.
- And not to forget the other parents. A special species. Parents always know exactly how other children should be raised. Of course, they love to whisper about this with other parents, heaven forbid you say anything out loud!!!
Being compared takes energy
The examples are described very harshly, but they reflect the lived reality of many parents from my seminars. They strive to take their child's perception seriously, to adapt to their developmental stage, to give them room for their own experiences and development, and they experience this situation with others as if in a battle arena. It takes an immense amount of energy from them when they or their partners find it difficult to set boundaries. Sometimes these different parenting concepts also clash within a partnership, and this can put it to a severe test. Not infrequently, the child also ends up caught in the crossfire.
If we then also find it difficult to set our own boundaries, or if we are unsure, such statements can linger in our minds for a long time and put a severe strain on our nerves.
Personal experiences – the "extra effort" is worth it
I assume that some parents also perceived me as overprotective. As a mother who babies her child way too much. And even from family members came one or two doubts about this approach. That she would thus learn that everything revolves only around her. That she would become too soft. But the opposite is true.
She is a very social child who likes to discuss her point of view, but is completely willing to compromise. She is extremely independent and outgoing. At the age of 10, she went alone to a language camp for 10 days and rode all the roller coasters in Hyde Park. Despite all the doomsayers.
She is still very cautious, but can assess her skills very well. And at her own pace, she manages everything she wants. As long as we don't push her.
Conclusion
Nobody knows your child better than you. Give them as little support as possible, but as much as necessary. Remember: accompany, don't fight. It doesn't matter what other children can or cannot do. Every child has their own pace. You also have your own pace. Be kind to yourself when you notice that you are comparing your child. Treat yourself to victory laps. This time you might have messed up, next time it will work out. You don't have to be perfect, it's enough to be good enough.
