Clinical psychologist Jacqui Maguire first spoke Nine to Noon about highly sensitive children back in March.
In part two of the conversation, she tells Kathryn Ryan these children are more prone to feeling guilt and shame - and parents should keep this in mind.
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Up to 20 percent of children may be highly sensitive people (HSPs) whose reactions to certain happenings can seem oversized, Maguire says.
“That may be kids that only like certain food or have extreme reactions to certain tastes. There are [HSP] kids that may hate certain textures of clothing, and children that don’t like large or loud or unexpected noises.
“They’re children that process information very thoroughly so they’re deep thinkers, they’re largely often creative, they have a strong intuition from a young age, and actually high sensitivity is seen as one of the key characteristics of gifted children.
“They’ve got very large empathy for other people … so they can pick up on people’s emotions around them from a young age, and they’re children that are easily overstimulated.”
Overstimulation may result in a meltdown if there are too many quick transitions between activities or periods of the day, Maguire says.
“Often highly sensitive children may be more prone to sudden tantrums or meltdowns because often they’re overloaded with information or with emotional overload.
“I also think it’s useful to note that with children often they get to the end of the day and they’ve spent so much energy, holding it together at school, or holding it together with friends or friends’ parents, that you kind of get it all when they come back because their capacity to manage has run out.”
It’s crucial that parents give highly sensitive children enough time to process all their sensory information, she says.
When it comes to discipline, they should be aware HSP children feel guilt and shame more deeply than other children.
“The neuroscience of that is when we get flooded with big negative emotion, we can’t think clearly. Now children don’t have well-developed frontal lobes to start with, so we want them to have all the cognitive capacity they’ve got.”
Being positive about your child's traits, promoting rewards rather than punishments and role-modelling how they can regulate and manage their feelings are also helpful tactics, Maguire says.
“What’s the classic dinnertime [example]? ‘You can’t have your dessert unless you eat your dinner’.
“What’s been shown to be more helpful with highly sensitive children is to flip that into a reward - 'If you finish your dinner, you’ve got really yummy dessert waiting for you'.”
Helping a child put words to their feelings enhances their own ability to communicate rather than resort to tantrums, she says.
“Depending on the age of your child, if they’re young children you can use pictures with facial expressions [to help them communicate how they're feeling].
“When appropriate, [you can] say to your child … ‘I can see that you’re really upset, I can see that because I can see those big tears and you’ve got all hot, and you’re wanting a cuddle, your shoulders are drooping, I can see that you’re really sad’. And like my two-and-a-half year old can do, they will often say 'yes, that’s how I’m feeling’.
“And as I say, so often across many platforms, when you name it, you tame it. So it’s not about squashing the feeling, it’s not about ignoring the feeling, it is about helping them regulate that.”
Jacqui Maguire is a Wellington-based clinical psychologist and author of the children's book When the Wind Blew.
