The Highly Sensitive Child

di11on

Anyone heard of this book:

http://www.hsperson.com/pages/child.htm

What do people think of:

A) The book
The issue of the highly sensitive child.

We think our DD may qualify and I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience and how they've changed their parenting regime as a result?!?

littlebug

I hadn't heard of that book before but my daughter would certainly qualify!

A lot of things have become easier as she gets bigger (e.g dealing with noise) but there are still a lot of issues and I guess we just deal with them as they arise lol.

What age is your child Dillon? What kinds of things are you talking about in terms of parenting regimes?

di11on

One of the major things we struggle with, I suppose, is how to encourage our 5 year old to persevere with things. It always seems that if she can't do something the first time, she just gets upset and gives up.

She's so competent and smart though - she has no problems in school and excels at everything.

She's the kind of child that definitely responds better to gentle encouragement rather than anything harsh. We have to do very little by way of discipline - she's such a good conscientious child... she even gives out to me sometimes when I even suggest bending one of mummies rules :-)

I just don't know the best way to get her to be more persevering... I feel any efforts on my part probably have the potential to do more harm than good!

Any thoughts?

littlebug

di11on wrote: »

One of the major things we struggle with, I suppose, is how to encourage our 5 year old to persevere with things. It always seems that if she can't do something the first time, she just gets upset and gives up.

She's so competent and smart though - she has no problems in school and excels at everything.

She's the kind of child that definitely responds better to gentle encouragement rather than anything harsh. We have to do very little by way of discipline - she's such a good conscientious child... she even gives out to me sometimes when I even suggest bending one of mummies rules :-)

I just don't know the best way to get her to be more persevering... I feel any efforts on my part probably have the potential to do more harm than good!

Any thoughts?

That's so funny... it really could be my daughter you're talking about.

She is also so sensitive that tends to give up on things because she thinks she's no good e.g not even bothering to go in a race because "I never win":(. I guess what we have done is praise her the things she knows she is good at. Easing her gently into things seems to work better too... she is too nervous to even try in case it doesn't work. She started music lessons and seems to have a natural talent for it so she gets lots of praise for that. Daddy is a musician though so it means special daddy time when they practice their music together. It is lovely to hear her say "I'm really good at this"! This is a new development.. she's almost 6. To be honest if she really doesn't want to do something I don't push the issue... sometimes my 3 year old son will actually try something first and then she'll try and surprise herself and say "Oh look I CAN do it".

What kinds of things are you talking about Dillon? How is she socially? That's one area where my little one struggles:( and it is heartbreaking.

di11on

Hmmm...

I've been thinking about this and really, there's nothing I can think of that she couldn't actually do eventually. In retrospect, I think it's just when we're looking at her and subconsciously putting pressure on her to do something, she just wouldn't. When our eyes were off her, she'd do it fine. So it's probably us and not her.

So when it comes to the high sensitivity aspect, I think it's more her dramatisation of things that concerns my wife... more than me I must say, because she has to deal with it more. Our DD has this tendency to over dramatise things. For instance, my wife told her to turn off the cold tap once because she was wasting water. Then when I was helping her brush her teeth one evening, she told me to turn off the tap, the water would be gone and she was almost in tears with worry that all the water would be gone.

She can get very emotional and upset about the most trivial things. For instance, she was in tears once because we were out of crackers, not because she desperately wanted one, but just because we were out of them. Another example my wife gives is that she was asking if it was nearly summer and my OH says it was. She was almost happy about this, but then she thought, "but then the bees will come" and she got emotional and teary again.

I'm not that concerned, but my OH seems to be and has bought a number of books on the subject. I'm just wondering if we're not looking for a problem where there is none. Does this sound concerning? Unusual? Or is it normal?

I'm trying to articulate as best I can the concern my wife has... I suppose it's that our DD is always looking for reasons to get upset and emotional about things. It's almost as if she's just whining about life... a kind of meta whine for want of a better word!

Generally speaking though, she is a happy child... I know it seems contradictory I hope I'm making some sort of sense!

Any thoughts?

luckat

Mmm, just one tip - praise hard work, not intelligence.

If you praise her for her hard work, there's no shame in failing. And when she succeeds, emphasise that her hard work made her succeed.

Dizzyblonde

I raised two daughters, and I think some little girls (and big girls) are just drama queens . At the tender age of 5 your daughter might just be having trouble controlling her emotions a bit.
I believe that, while some parenting books can be useful, it doesn't do much good to get carried away with them - you don't want to pigeonhole your daughter.
Maybe she likes the attention she gets when she overreacts like that? If so, ignore it for a while or shrug it off.
Really though, she's still a baby and if she's happy and doing well in school then I wouldn't worry.
With regard to not finishing things, some people are just like that until they want something badly enough to persist at it.