Whylife today is harder sensitive for children like Yasmin
THE other week my six-year-old daughter Yasmin came home from school in a terrible mood. When I asked how her day was, she glared at me, snapped, ‘Nothing! Leave me alone!’ and stormed off to her room.
It took hours for her to admit, through tears, that a couple of boys had been mean to her in a playground chase — a boisterous game I’m sure neither boy intended maliciously. The reason she took it so personally is because she is a sensitive child, and her feelings are easily hurt.
It’s a scenario I can identify with because when I was her age I was the same. I remember coming home from school in tears when friends made fun of my strawberry blonde hair.
But whereas I give Yasmin lots of sympathy and spend time encouraging her to explore and express her feelings, my well-meaning mum would tell me to brush off any upset and move on.
We’re all familiar with the word ‘sensitive’ as a slightly pejorative term for touchy people who bristle at criticism and can’t handle harsh truths. But experts now believe that between 15 to 20 per cent of us are born more sensitive than others.
What is more, having given up my career as a secondary school teacher to retrain as a therapist, I have come to the conclusion that modern life — including the way we parent — is exacerbating this character trait and making it harder for those affected. Highly sensitive people have a hyper- sensitive nervous system — the mechanism inside the body that controls our emotional and physical reactions.
They are acutely aware of the emotions of others, as well as their own, and are unusually attuned to distress. Because young people have yet to learn how to moderate their moods in the way most adults can, sensitive children are more likely to throw tantrums when overwhelmed and cry at the slightest provocation.
They are more thoughtful, less likely to take risks and often highly intelligent. Their sensitivity doesn’t just manifest itself in their moods but their reactions to bright lights, loud sounds, and changes in temperatures, all of which can prove deeply upsetting. Even the texture of certain foods can send some into meltdown.
ANdyet it’s a character trait which is all too often misunderstood by doctors, who may mistakenly diagnose such children as suffering from anxiety or AdHd. By labelling them with an illness they don’t have, they stigmatise what is instead a surprisingly common, albeit little understood, personality type.
children are increasingly exposed to the stimuli of smartphones and ipads, and spend less time relaxing outdoors, which has been proved to be particularly therapeutic for those with a sensitive character — last month the Office of National statistics revealed the average child spends just 16 minutes a day in parks and open spaces.
social media means our children rarely switch off, while many aspects of their lives — from the high definition televisions they watch to the supersize packets of sweets they consume — are bigger, brighter and brasher. Little wonder they’re overwhelmed.
And then there’s the thorny subject of the way we choose to bring them up. These days, few of us favour the ‘dry your eyes and get on with it’ approach that was typical of our parents’ generation, who believed the only way to toughen their offspring up for the hard knocks of life was to sweep any fears and sadness under the metaphorical carpet.
Instead, in an age of childcentric parenting in which our youngsters are the focal point of the family, we press them to reveal their emotions, and to tell mummy or daddy if they feel happy, sad or afraid.
We protect them from the outside world as much as we can — I never let Yasmin watch the news for fear of exposing her to unnecessary brutality, for example. And whereas our parents generally had a ‘laissez faire’ attitude towards our own childhoods, we meticulously plan their every activity, from their piano lessons to elaborate parties, each one designed to fulfil an emotional need.
Our attention to their moods is echoed outside the family. changes to the school curriculum mean emotions are now discussed in- depth in psHE (personal, social and Health Education) classes, while emotive films such as the 2015 animation Inside Out — which depicts a girl’s emotions as little people living inside her head — are hugely popular.
Forensically examining children’s feelings in this way has inevitably made them more attuned to their emotions. do I think this is a bad thing? Not at all. There are as many advantages as disadvantages to being a sensitive child. But it might explain why there seem to be so many more sensitive children around these days.
I wasn’t aware of the term ‘sensitive child’ when Yasmin was born, but quickly realised she was different from other babies. Instead of exploring, she sat surveying her surroundings with quiet curiosity. As a toddler, she was clingy. At parties she’d gravitate away from the noisy children, and it would take mammoth reassurances on my part to convince her to leave my side. I confided in a friend whose own introverted child displayed similar traits, and she told me about the work of an American clinical psychologist, dr Elaine Aron, who has discovered that the part of the brain that deals with empathy and sensory information is different in sensitive people.
High sensitivity isn’t an illness, so there is no diagnosis, but on her website dr Aron has a list of 23 traits common to sensitive children — from their tendency to complain about scratchy clothing to a use of ‘big words’ for their age and a concern at the prospect of climbing heights.
Yasmin — who has barely ever so much as scraped her knee in the playground because she is so cautious and was a walking dictionary by the age of four — shares 20 of these traits.
Reading dr Aron’s book was a revelation. I realised I wasn’t neurotic or a bad mother, and Yasmin wasn’t shy or destined to be a loner. My daughter was simply sensitive — and instead of seeking to suppress this sensitivity, I have encouraged Yasmin to embrace it as part of her personality.
I have always asked her to explain how she’s feeling at the end of her day. At first, I familiarised her with terms such as ‘happy,’ ‘sad,’ and ‘angry.’ Now she’s six she’s getting to grips with ‘disappointment’ and ‘jealousy.’
Of course, there are those who claim mollycoddling our children will prevent them from learning vital lessons. One friend says that by describing my daughter as sensitive, I have effectively given her a license to throw strops.
DIscIpLININgsensitive children is tricky. If I put Yasmin on the naughty step she’ll cry uncontrollably and refuse to speak to me for hours. It is as if I have physically hurt her — in fact, she will often complain of a headache as a result. so instead, I crouch down to her level, and try and explain what she’s done wrong. I’ll deny her a treat until she understands.
Managing Yasmin’s lifestyle is also key to controlling her sensitivity. I make sure she is in bed by 8pm — tiredness makes her moods more irrational. so too does excess sugar.
While sensitive children can be challenging, their sensitivity is ultimately an asset, and if handled well, their empathy could make the world a better place.