Calming the Emotional Roller Coaster with Highly Sensitive Children & Teens

Many highly sensitive children and teens are known in their families for having “big feelings.”  These may be on display in meltdowns, angry outbursts, aggression, reluctance to engage in new/unfamiliar situations, and other visible behaviors.  Some highly sensitive youth who internalize their big emotions rather than show them to us in a more external manner, may struggle with anxiety, depression, sleep problems or perfectionist tendencies. 

Whether your highly sensitive child/teen shows their emotions outwardly or internalizes them more, it is important to understand that at the root of their “big feelings” is a challenge with regulation.  When a child is dysregulated, they are struggling to effectively cope with and manage their emotions.  Everyone has emotional ups and downs throughout the day, this is normal.  With highly sensitive children and teens however, these ups and downs may feel more intense and powerful, and this means they may be pushed into a full body stress response more easily than youth who are not highly sensitive. 

In psychology there is a concept called the “window of tolerance” which is useful to apply towards our understanding of how highly sensitive people work.  Essentially, the emotional ups and downs that are within our window of tolerance are manageable, and those that are outside of our window of tolerance are dysregulating to our sensitive bodies.  Generally, when highly sensitive youth are struggling emotionally, it is because there is a recurring pattern of feeling as though daily experiences are outside of their window of tolerance.  They often go into an intense stress response similar to “fight, flight or freeze” and find it difficult to come back to a regulated state.

There are a number of ways you may support your child in managing their emotions so that they spend most of their time within their personal window of tolerance.  First, it’s helpful to have conversations with them about emotions when they are in a calm and regulated state, as a way to be proactive and involve them in strategizing how to cope when stress arises.  You may approach such a conversation in this way:

1.      Validate the intensity of their emotions while also talking about the importance of regulation.  It doesn’t feel good to anyone to be in a full body stress response. Say that you want to work with them to try and figure out ways they can cope and feel like their emotions are more manageable on a daily basis.

2.      Do some detective work with your highly sensitive child/teen about what triggers them into intense emotions. 

3.      Take preventative measures when possible.  Once you know some of the triggers, see if there is a way to reduce exposure to them and/or plan around them.  This may mean providing extra downtime after a stimulating activity/event, or having a hand signal they can give you when they need to leave a situation, for a few examples. 

4.      Develop a short list of go-to coping skills that you and your child may practice if emotions are starting to overwhelm them.   These can range from physical techniques such as deep breathing, exercising or punching a pillow, to more meditative/energy based, depending on which types of strategies tend to soothe your child.  Some youth find that focusing on grounding their energy and practicing mindfulness reduces their anxiety, while some kids find that running around their backyard is more helpful in helping them calm down when they’re frustrated or angry. 

Once you have your list of coping skills, your child may need your support in practicing these.  Practicing with your child is helpful, and in some cases when there is an incident of extreme dysregulation, practicing the skills FOR your child is sometimes the best one can do.  Many parents have the experience of trying to coach a child when they’re dysregulated and the child refuses all suggestions!  So, in those moments the parent can say calmly that they understand it’s all too much, and just take some deep breaths or practice the skill as a way of modeling for the child.  I’ll often narrate this process as I’m doing it, for example: “I see you are really upset and it seems like nothing is going to make it better.  I’m going to take some deep breaths so that I can stay calm and be here for you.”  This is helpful because it focuses us on keeping ourselves regulated, which has a naturally calming effect on our child.  I could write endlessly about this process of co-regulation, but will leave that for another blog post!

If you have concerns about your sensitive child’s ability to regulate their emotions, I hope you will try out these strategies and let me know if they are helpful!  If you have any questions or would like me to elaborate please feel free to send me an email.  If you sense you are in a phase during which you need extra support, I would be happy to talk with you about Butterfly Grove services! I also encourage you to check out the other resources on this page as potential strategies to understand and support your highly sensitive youth. You may also check out the HSP resources on Julie Bjelland’s website by clicking below:

Carolina is an active and proud member of the Sensitive Empowerment Community!  Learn more about this wonderful group through Julie Bjelland’s website at https://www.fatfreecartpro.com/ecom/gb.php?cl=342244&c=ib&aff=383793. There are numerous free and paid resources designed to support Highly Sensitive People on this site!