Understanding the Sensitive Child
Sensitive kids are everywhere. Their numbers are estimated to be between 15 to 20% of children in a North American context, but they are often…
Portfolio Categories: Sensitivity
The Gifts of Sensitivity
Sensitive kids are known for being more intense and stirred up by their environment. Sensory overload is common with some sounds being too loud, smells…
What Sensitive Kids Would like You to Know About Them
“She is so dramatic and everything seems like a big deal,” said a baffled father of a 6-year old girl named Samantha. The mother tells…
The One Thing Every Kid Needs in their School Backpack
A friend told me her son couldn’t understand why a young child he knew had such a hard time being away from his mother while…
Why Attachment Can Be Challenging With Sensitive Kids
In the Hans Christian Anderson’s fable, The Princess and the Pea, the sleeping princess is so sensitive that “she felt the pea through the twenty…
The Trouble with Time-outs
The Trouble with Time-Outs Time outs have become a popular disciplinary practice, aimed at replacing spanking and broadly supported by health and parenting professionals. Like…
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” – The Role of Tears in Cultivating Resiliency
There seems to be a lack of cultural wisdom as to the significance of tears in bringing a child to rest from the things they…
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Leading a Sensitive Child into Vulnerable Territory
One of the key challenges faced by parents raising a sensitive child is leading them into vulnerable territory. They may try to avert attention away…
Info graphic: When Saying Goodnight is Hard – 20 Ways to Bridge the Nighttime Distance
Saying goodnight is hard for many kids because it usually represents the biggest separation from their adults. One of the strategies for helping with bedtime…
Hardened or Hardy? Holding Onto Kid’s Hearts
Psychologist Gordon Neufeld states there is a difference between a hardened heart, which does not feel vulnerable emotion, and one that is hardy and feels…
The human being is built to care deeply and an absence of caring is indicative of an emotional problem. Research on empathy in youth by Sara Konrath found a 48% decline today in comparison to 30 years ago, as well as a 30% decline in their capacity to consider other people’s perspectives.(2) There are increasing signs our childrens caring and empathy is going missing, along with their tears. Statements such as - “I don’t care,” or “It doesn’t matter,” or “whatever” pervade youth culture and have become too common. As guardians of our children’s hearts we need to take a step back and ask why? Where are their vulnerable feelings going and how can we keep their hearts soft?
The Neuroscience Behind Soft Hearts
Neuroscience is now paving the way to support what Freud once postulated – the emotional system is capable of defending the human heart from too much distress (3). When the emotional system is overloaded it will spontaneously evoke defenses to numb out, tune out and detach from the things that evoke vulnerable feelings. In other words, whatever we don’t see or feel can’t hurt us. This is not a sign of a brain performing poorly but a strategic move that allows someone to function and survive wounding environments. The problem is it takes all emotional expression with it – including love.
The capacity to feel is what fuels growth and makes us fully human and humane. The problem is that when vulnerable feelings go missing, the resulting behaviour will often lack caring and consideration. A child may seem to lack fear or isn’t moved to caution when they should be. They seem less conscientious, more easily frustrated, distracted and restless. There is usually an absence of tears indicating sadness and a lack of remorse or shame. When the human heart is defended against feelings, we often miss what has gone missing and become preoccupied with uncaring behaviour.
The clearest sign our children are under emotional distress is when their vulnerable feelings are no longer palpable. It means their brain is equipping them to deal with a world that is too wounding or too much for their heart to bear. A child who cries and tells you they are sad, afraid or even worried isn’t in trouble emotionally despite the troubles they face. Their upset is a sign their emotional system is working hard to find an answer to the distress they are under.
It was never our job as parents to calm kids down but to restore emotional balance and to transform their feelings when needed. The kids who lack upset, who appear to be the most ‘calm’ or quiet may actually be the ones who are the most defended against their vulnerable emotions. I don’t long for calm in my children but the emotional storms that are part of life so that I can help their heart understand it can survive distress. Our children will face adversity – they just weren’t meant to face it alone and if there were one secret to keeping their hearts soft it would be this.
How Can We Keep our Children’s Hearts Soft?
While the brain is able to erect emotional defences to preserve the heart, there is a stronger force that can keep it safe. The answer lies in human attachment. It is human relationships that have the power to heal and preserve the heart. The challenge is we cannot take care of a child’s heart if they have not given it to us.
The path to a child’s heart is through extending an invitation for connection that is generous, warm, and unwavering despite conduct and performance. While we may need to be firm on a child’s behaviour, we are soft on the relationship and seek to preserve this most of all. There are many ways to preserve our children’s soft heart but the following five are some of the most effective ways of doing so.
