Understanding Your Highly Sensitive Child and What’s Really Going On
A clear guide to making sense of what’s been happening and understanding the child behind the struggles.
This guide is designed for parenting children up to 11-years-old, but you will still get value from it if they’re slightly outside of this age range.
Parenting wasn’t supposed to feel this way.
If you have a highly sensitive or deep-feeling child in your life you’re absolutely in the right place. I do what I do for families just like yours.
You love your child more than anything, but sometimes can’t help wondering why parenting feels so much harder than you expected.
You may also wonder why your child seems so different at times.
You might feel alone or stuck, wondering if you’re doing something wrong, or if it will ever get easier.
Maybe you've already read about the ‘Highly Sensitive Person’ trait but don’t know exactly what to do with that information.
Or perhaps you've simply known for a long time that your child experiences things differently, but nobody has quite been able to explain why.
Your child may:
Feel things deeply.
React with intensity.
Erupt in anger.
Withdraw and push you away.
Notice things other children don’t.
Become easily overwhelmed or upset by things such as noise, crowds, textures, smells, or change.
Worry, overthink or get stuck on things.
React very strongly to losing, disappointment, criticism or what seems like a tiny problem.
Avoid things more than you’d like them to.
And sometimes you may find yourself thinking:
Why is this so hard for them?
Why does something that seems so small become such a big deal?
Why can't they just let it go?
Why do they pull back from things that other children seem able to handle?
Will it always be this way?
And what can I do to help?
What if I told you that understanding your child’s high sensitivity could be one of the most powerful things you can do to help them?
Because approximately 15-20% of humans are born with high sensitivity, also known as sensory processing sensitivity, and genuinely experience the world in a more ‘dialled up’ way.
And this is not just an abstract idea. It is a scientifically recognised trait that has been the subject of growing scientific research.
Neuroimaging research has found differences in brain activity associated with high sensitivity, particularly in areas involved in attention, awareness, sensory integration and responding to emotional information.
So this is a real, innate trait. Not your child simply choosing to react this way, or a reflection of what they are actually capable of.
In other words:
Your child may genuinely be experiencing the world differently and more deeply than you realise.
And when you understand that, you can start to see your child, and everything you’ve been struggling with, through a completely different lens.
This guide will start to explore what really might be going on for your child, and you may find that suddenly, so much of what you’ve been seeing starts to make sense.
And I just want to say this before we go any further
Parenting a highly sensitive, deep-feeling child can be really hard.
So I’m sending love and solidarity to you. You’re not alone in this.
And as you’ll find out, there’s actually much to feel excited about.
Just imagine their brain as a supercomputer
Taking in an enormous amount of information, noticing so much more and processing it very deeply.
The noise in the background.
The change in someone's expression.
The fact that dinner tastes slightly different.
The tension between two people.
The possibility that something might go wrong.
The unfairness of what just happened.
The feeling in their own body.
The awareness of being apart from you.
The newness of a place never experienced before.
The emotion genuinely felt with more intensity.
The thought that has suddenly popped into their head.
And then another thought about that thought.
And another….
What looks to somebody else like “one little thing” may actually be the final drop into an already very full cup. This is one reason highly sensitive children can sometimes appear to go from completely fine to completely overwhelmed.
You need to know that the reaction you see isn't necessarily the whole story and there may be a huge amount happening underneath it.
Four things to understand about high sensitivity
1. They process deeply
Highly sensitive children take things in very deeply, thinking about them, feeling them and continuing to process them long after the moment itself has passed
E.g. the frustration of losing a boardgame may linger in their body far longer than feels warranted. Or a comment that another child forgets five minutes later may still be turning over in their mind later that evening.
They can’t switch this depth of processing and feeling off. But with the right understanding, they can learn to move through big emotions more swiftly.
And it’s not all bad. This capacity to process deeply can be remarkable. It can give your child a real capacity for reflection, insight and understanding, qualities that can serve them incredibly well throughout life.
2. They can become overstimulated more easily
When you're taking in more information, there is more to process: thoughts, ideas, observations, noise, people, busy environments, changes in plans, social interaction, tiredness, hunger, new experiences and so much more.
Sometimes your child simply becomes overloaded and when that happens, the child who was thoughtful, capable, funny, affectionate and incredibly perceptive can suddenly become tearful, irritable, angry, withdrawn or completely shut down.
That doesn't mean the earlier child disappeared, or that they won’t ever be able to cope.
It may mean they've reached their capacity. But that with the right understanding, solutions can be found to make life easier for them (and for you).
3. They feel deeply
For a highly sensitive child, emotions can be powerful experiences, even the good ones! Excitement and joy can be enormous, but so can disappointment, embarrassment, frustration, fear and sadness.
This is why telling them “It's not a big deal” doesn't necessarily make it feel less big, because the feeling is already real.
And why trying to distract or avoid an emotion doesn’t make it easier for them, because it can leave them feeling left alone with it.
So what they need is not necessarily for someone to make the feeling disappear, they need someone who can understand what is happening and help them through it.
4. They notice subtleties that others miss
Your child may pick up on things you didn't even realise they had noticed:
E.g. a tiny change in your tone or mood, a different route to school, someone looking upset, an expectation that wasn't explained, something being slightly unfair, a look from another child, a change in the atmosphere of a room, a scratchy label in a t-shirt…
Those “little things” may not be little to them. Their sensitivity is giving them information that other people simply aren't taking in, and they can’t switch this off.
But here's the part that matters most
High sensitivity and deep-feeling are not automatically a problem. In the right conditions, the same sensitivity that can make a child vulnerable to overwhelm can also become a source of enormous strength.
Sensitive and deep-feeling children can be deeply empathetic, they can notice what others miss, think creatively, make connections and join the dots in unique and innovative ways.
Many of the world’s greatest inventers, scientists, artists, change-makers and creators were highly sensitive.
These individuals can have remarkable insight, care deeply about people, ideas and fairness, make the best leaders and become thoughtful, perceptive and emotionally intelligent adults.
But they do need more careful nurturing. And this is sometimes described through the orchid and dandelion metaphor:
Some children are relatively unaffected by their environment (like a dandelion) and others require more specific care and nurturing in order to flourish (like an orchid).
A highly sensitive child can be more affected when their environment isn't meeting their needs, but that same responsiveness can also mean they benefit particularly strongly when their environment supports them well.
An orchid can't help being an orchid.
The question isn't how to make the orchid less sensitive.
It's how to understand what it needs and what helps it thrive.
So why can parenting a highly sensitive child become so hard?
Because the world doesn't always understand what it is seeing….
A child who is overwhelmed and erupting may be called difficult.
A child who needs longer to process may be called slow.
A child who needs to pause and suss out their environment first may be labelled as shy or anxious.
A child who is presenting with distress may be overprotected.
A child who becomes upset by something that seems trivial may be called over-sensitive.
A child who withdraws and shuts down may be thought not to care.
A child who reacts strongly may be labelled dramatic or manipulative.
And a child who needs more time and help to feel ready may be pushed to “just be brave”.
The thing is, when we misunderstand what’s happening, we can inadvertently create problems that didn’t need to be there in the first place.
None of this means that we are doing anything wrong, most of us were simply never taught to look underneath the reaction, so we only see what is happening on the outside.
But there may be a very different experience happening on the inside.
And sometimes our understandable instinct to want their struggle to go away, can make it harder to fully see this. Even for the most loving and supportive of parents.
And this is where understanding what’s really going on can change things…
The child who was labelled shy or anxious for hanging back in a new environment may actually step forward with confidence.
The child who was called oversensitive for becoming upset by something that seemed trivial may have moved through that emotion much more quickly.
The child whose behaviour was labelled manipulative may not have escalated in the same way.
The child who had been overprotected in response to their distress may actually have been capable of moving through it.
Sometimes, what looks like a behaviour problem or a coping problem can begin to look very different when you understand what is happening underneath. And with responses aligned with how they experience the world, things can begin to change in ways that may surprise you.
Look beneath the reaction
A meltdown may be them saying: “This is too much and I really need your help.”
Anger may be covering fear, overwhelm or feeling misunderstood.
Withdrawal may be a child trying to protect themselves when they have no capacity left to talk.
Avoidance may be a child needing a different way through, rather than evidence that they can’t cope.
Perfectionism may be an attempt to avoid the enormous discomfort of getting something wrong.
A child who says “I don't want to” may actually be saying “I don't know if I can but I’d really like to with your help”
And sometimes the child themselves doesn't know what is happening, they just know that something feels too much.
This is where understanding becomes so powerful. Because when you understand what is happening underneath the behaviour, your response can change.
And you don't have to choose between being understanding and having boundaries, you can hold the feeling and the boundary.
And you don't have to choose between being understanding and helping them grow their comfort zone, either.
You can hold the struggle whilst also challenging them.
And gradually, your child can begin to learn something incredibly important:
“My feelings make sense.”
“I can be understood.”
“There isn't something wrong with me”.
“I can move past this”.
And your response matters more than you might realise
One of the most important things I discovered through my own experience as a parent and through years of working with children and families, is how much difference understanding can make.
I can’t emphasise that enough.
I’ve also witnessed the devastating impact that not having high sensitivity and big emotions understood as a child can still have in the adult years.
When we don't understand a child's behaviour, it is very easy to react to what we can see:
We become frustrated.
We become anxious.
We try harder to stop the behaviour.
We explain.
We reason.
We persuade.
We distract.
We become stricter.
Or, because we hate seeing our child struggle emotionally, we go in the opposite direction and try to prevent every difficult feeling.
But neither extreme is what your child needs. They need a parent who can recognise:
“Something is happening here. What is my child experiencing?”
That question can change everything.
What your child learns from being misunderstood
This is bigger than getting through today's meltdown, wobble or upset, this is about how the way a child repeatedly experiences their emotions can influence the way they begin to understand themselves.
If they repeatedly get the message:
“You're overreacting.”
“It's not a big deal.”
“You’re fine, don’t be silly”…
Or: “You should pull back and avoid this…”
They may eventually start to believe:
“My feelings are too much.”
“I am too sensitive.”
“Something is wrong with me.”
“I need to shut this down”.
But when their experience is met with the right understanding, something very different can begin to develop.
I've created Safe Space to Land to take this understanding much further.
And to help you overcome whatever you are currently facing.
Because knowing that your child is highly sensitive is only the beginning.
The next step is understanding what this all means for them.
How it affects their emotions, reactions, self-worth, capacity, resilience, relationships and ability to navigate the world.
And, crucially, what you need to do to help family life feel calmer, happier and less stressful…
Without giving up boundaries, expectations, your own needs, and without them staying trapped in an ever-narrowing comfort zone.
This is where things start to feel grounded, and clear.
And where you gain the most wonderful peace of mind, because parenting no longer feels like guesswork.
Ready to understand your child on a deeper level?
Safe Space to Land takes everything you've started to understand here and helps you apply it to your own child, so you can make sense of their reactions, understand what they need, and feel more confident about how to respond.
You can finally be clear on what to do and what not to do to when you face the biggest challenges.
Life can become so much harder when a child moves further away from who they are and what they need.
Safe Space to Land helps you understand your child now, as well as build the foundations they need for life.