My Highly Sensitive Child Story of the Week

For all of you moms who have highly sensitive children, I have a story to tell you.  It's a story to commiserate with your pain, but it's also a story of hope.

First, I have to preface all of this with a few data points.  My daughter is 5.5.  She has taken dance lessons at her school every week for the past 3 years.  They do ballet, tap, jazz, and hip hop...and she loves it!  She has also taken gymnastics, music lessons, piano lessons, and soccer class at school.  But dance is the one activity she has never complained about or wanted to quit.  She makes up dances for us at home and on the trampoline and at the pool. So I can say I feel very comfortable that she likes dance.  It's not something that is imposed upon her.  A couple of months ago, I began talking to her about taking dance lessons at another place once she started kindergarten.  She will be going to a new school and so she can't keep taking lessons at her old school.  She understood and said she wanted to do that.  I also explained that unlike her current dance class, she won't be able to do ballet, tap, etc. in one class.  Therefore, she needs to choose - tap, ballet or jazz.  She chose tap.

So I pick her up from school last week and I excitedly announce that I signed her up for her new tap class (which btw, I had to pay $130 before she even sets foot in the studio).  I, naively, am expecting her to say, "Yea!  That's awesome!"  Instead, she says, "At my new school?"  I said, "No, it's at a dance studio."  The words are hardly out of my mouth before she angrily yells, "No!  I don't want to! No!  I'm not going.  I'm not talking to you."  Then, she folds her arms and curls into the best fetal position she can muster in her booster seat and refuses to speak to me.  I am, of course...confused, baffled.  Did she want to take ballet?  Is she sad to leave her current teacher?  What just happened?

Now, my initial internal response was, "You ungrateful child. You wanted to take this class.  It's expensive.  And you are a spoiled brat who deserves to not get to take any special classes this fall.  And when you get home, you can go to your room, too, for being so ungrateful!" 2 years ago...maybe even 1 year ago...that's exactly what would have happened at our house.  And that of course, would have been followed by a one hour rage/meltdown.

But by now, I am a relatively experienced parent of a highly sensitive child (HSC), so I told myself to pause and think about it.  Try to think about this as a 5 year old.  What might she be upset about that I'm missing?  And it dawned on me!

So after 15 minutes of pouting, she starts to speak again like a normal, calm child.  So I said, "Let me tell you about how elementary school works.  It's different from your current school.  The activities you want to participate in - like soccer, piano, and dance - are taught at a place that is NOT in your elementary school.  Your friends cannot take dance and soccer at your new elementary school.  They have to go somewhere else to take those classes.  So I asked everyone which dance studio most of the kids from your new school will go, and that's where I signed you up to to take tap."  Instantly, she smiled.  She said, "So my new friends will be in my new tap class?"  "Yes," I said.

And all was well with the world and tap is the greatest thing since...well...donuts (because sliced bread is really not that great to her).  It seemed that as a total extrovert, her worst fear was that her friends would all get to take dance together at school and she would be excluded.  And without understanding how elementary school works, it appeared to her that I had just signed her up for that exact total torture scenario.  Thankfully, she discovered I am, in fact, not the cruelest mother in the world.

Now there's still room for improvement here, of course.  We continue to reiterate that when she feels sad or angry, she has to talk to us about it and not go into a pouting, fetal position.  But there has been radical improvement.  We have learned to not assume the negative reaction is about being a brat.  Usually, her intense negative reaction is because her feelings were hurt or she was scared.  But the source of the hurt feelings or fear isn't always obvious.  I have definitely learned to get in touch with my inner child!  If you are a parent of a young HSC, keep the faith.  Your child will get better.  You will get better.  It will get better.