When your child ignores you, it could be due to a sensory, emotional or relational issue. Click here to learn more!

Is your child melting down more frequently and intensely since school started? Are they having trouble sleeping too? Are they holding it together at school and then falling apart and/or being more defiant once they are home with you? If so, you are not alone!

Understanding this behavior involves looking at your child’s reactions to various sensory and emotional input. At a basic level, crashing into things is an attempt by your child to regulate their body and emotions.

One of the best things about being an “older mom” is that I am seeing the benefits of all the work I have done on myself in my parenting….

Does your child just stare at people when they say hello rather than greeting them? Read this post to find out why and how you may work with them around it!

Kids hide when they are overwhelmed, overstimulated or triggered into intense emotions. Though it can be frustrating for the adults, IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO REGULATE their sensitive nervous system. If you try to get them to come out of hiding, i.e. to stop regulating themselves, you are risking an even bigger emotional reaction.

I believe there is a direct link between playing with our sensitive kids and world peace!

I am honored to have authored two articles for the HSP Journey website! Links are included for 1) Early Childhood Mental Health for HSP Parents and 2) Best Sleep Practices for the Highly Sensitive Teen.

Practices that preach about toxic emotions are especially harmful to HSP’s of all ages for this reason: if emotions are seen as a problem, and we as HSP’s tend to feel emotions more deeply, this easily translates into the message that HSP’s are a problem. We see this all the time when people tell HSP’s we are too sensitive, taking things too hard, over-reacting, etc.

One of our most important tasks as parents and caregivers of young children is to help them learn to understand, regulate and manage their emotions. This blog describes some of the most effective tools parents and other caregivers may employ when helping sensitive children with emotional reactivity.

Following up on my post about highly sensitive people doing hard things, I wanted to share a few more tips for parents to use when your highly sensitive child is navigating a challenge…

We may find things to be hard that non-HSP’s feel are easy, and we feel the stress of going through hard things more intensely….Therefore…we need extra self-care and self-compassion, as well as plenty of tools to face our daily challenges.

Rituals help highly sensitive children feel they are part of something larger than themselves, they help them feel like they belong to their people and community, and they help them find meaning and purpose.

Many of the highly sensitive children I work with are exceptionally vulnerable to the influence of other people. It is almost as though they are porous, to the point that they may even seem to morph into whomever they spend time with.

In my infant mental health training I learned about the concept of a “window of tolerance.” The basic idea is that we all have a range of experiences and sensations we may be able to tolerate in a given day, and that this range may shrink or expand depending on a variety of factors.

When our highly sensitive children express stress reactions we may wonder, “Am I pushing my kid too hard?” or, “Is she just too sensitive to manage this?” As caring, well-meaning parents, we obviously don’t want to cause our children any harm…

Research has shown that natural and green environments support increased concentration and improved motor coordination in young children (Wells, 2000: NY State College of Human Ecology)…

Bigger picture transitions are always influencing a highly sensitive youth’s experience of other transitions which may be less significant. Essentially the more transitions the highly sensitive child or teen is going through at any given time, the smaller their window of tolerance will be for any transition, and the more escalated any problematic symptoms or behaviors may be.

This blog discusses the intense emotions of highly sensitive children and teens, and gives parents suggestions about how to support them with their “big feelings.”

One of the more challenging experiences sensitive parents have is when we are going through a hard time and we know our sensitive, empathic children are reacting to it. You may have noticed that your empathic child acts out more, argues more or just melts down more when you are going through your own stressful time.