BTW, I'm intentionally skipping the commiserating in this post. Trust me, I feel your pain. I have felt more stress, anxiety, and frustration in the past few years than I have ever felt in my entire life. But for my daughter's sake, I'm going to focus on the constructive side of this discussion. What I will say is (if you are in a rough patch), it's gets better. When I step back and reflect on where we are now vs. where we were 2 years ago, even 1 year ago - wow, it's amazingly better! So don't give up.
Back to the constructive part -- I have learned there are three key things that need to be in place to give your highly sensitive child the best chance at managing stimulation and emotions successfully -
1. SLEEP - There is no underestimating the importance of sleep in a HSC. Of course, all young children need lots of sleep. But some kids can still function successfully even if they miss a nap or stay up late. For HSCs, their brains get so much stimulation, they really, really need adequate rest for their brains to recover. For example, our daughter (almost 5) needs at least 12 hours of sleep a day. Our son who is not an HSC (barely 2 years old) also needs 12 hours of sleep a day. If our son doesn't get enough sleep, he gets silly and delirious. If our daughter doesn't get enough sleep, she melts down and usually can't recover. If our son misses a nap, we put him to bed a little early and the next day he's back to normal. If our daughter misses a nap, it will take 2 days of early bed time and longer naps to catch up and get back on track.
So even though all of your friends are telling you their child quit napping at 3 or 4...if you have a HSC, your child will likely need naps much longer. It's okay. Don't give up on napping just because everyone is doing it or because your child doesn't want to nap. What kid wants to nap?
2. ROUTINE - Again, routine is important to all children, but it's critical for HSCs. Why is that? Well, HSCs take in so much information with everything they do. And if they do something new and out of routine, then their brains really go into overdrive taking in all of the new information. For example, it takes my daughter a good 1-2 minutes to get in her seat in the car every time, because she has to assess the books in the car, the state of her booster seat, where her cup is, if there is anything new in the car. Oh, it goes on and on:). But she needs this to feel comfortable.
Another is example is a restaurant. An HSC walks into a restaurant and is overwhelmed by the new smells, the decorations, the lights, the sounds, the food, etc. If they are used to the restaurant, this experience is less overwhelming to them. Therefore, limiting the number of new and different things they do each day reduces the HSC's overall anxiety. Thus, it reduces the chance of having a melt down/rage.
There may appear to be exceptions. For example, our daughter is a total extrovert. She loves parties, bounce houses, amusement parks, etc. But I still have to remind myself that even though she loved that experience, that experience probably heightened all of her senses a great deal and made her very susceptible to a melt down when the experience is over. It's still frustrating when the melt down occurs, but I can at least anticipate it and hopefully not lose my cool.
3. SUGAR - We all love sugar. Our brains get tingly and excited when we have it, right? Well, for HSCs, their brains REALLY get tingly and excited. We have resorted to using sugar as a reward (and occasionally still do), but we realized we were only hurting ourselves. The less sugar our daughter has, the better she behaves. Her brain is just more stable and more able to deal with instruction, sadness, disappointment, just normal everyday issues.
BTW, if you are like we were, we felt like sugar was sometimes the only motivating tool we had. Weaning our daughter off sugar seemed impossible, but I can say we actually reduced her sugar intake significantly and it was pretty painless. Check out my post about the sugar point system. It has worked amazingly well!
I think it goes without saying that HSCs should not have caffeine. I can't even imagine how old my daughter will need to be to handle coffee!
Putting these three things in place won't fix everything - it definitely won't. But it's like building the foundation. If you are struggling with your child's behavior, make sure these things are in place first. Then, you will be able to better identify the other issues that need to be addressed.
Another is example is a restaurant. An HSC walks into a restaurant and is overwhelmed by the new smells, the decorations, the lights, the sounds, the food, etc. If they are used to the restaurant, this experience is less overwhelming to them. Therefore, limiting the number of new and different things they do each day reduces the HSC's overall anxiety. Thus, it reduces the chance of having a melt down/rage.
There may appear to be exceptions. For example, our daughter is a total extrovert. She loves parties, bounce houses, amusement parks, etc. But I still have to remind myself that even though she loved that experience, that experience probably heightened all of her senses a great deal and made her very susceptible to a melt down when the experience is over. It's still frustrating when the melt down occurs, but I can at least anticipate it and hopefully not lose my cool.
3. SUGAR - We all love sugar. Our brains get tingly and excited when we have it, right? Well, for HSCs, their brains REALLY get tingly and excited. We have resorted to using sugar as a reward (and occasionally still do), but we realized we were only hurting ourselves. The less sugar our daughter has, the better she behaves. Her brain is just more stable and more able to deal with instruction, sadness, disappointment, just normal everyday issues.
BTW, if you are like we were, we felt like sugar was sometimes the only motivating tool we had. Weaning our daughter off sugar seemed impossible, but I can say we actually reduced her sugar intake significantly and it was pretty painless. Check out my post about the sugar point system. It has worked amazingly well!
I think it goes without saying that HSCs should not have caffeine. I can't even imagine how old my daughter will need to be to handle coffee!
Putting these three things in place won't fix everything - it definitely won't. But it's like building the foundation. If you are struggling with your child's behavior, make sure these things are in place first. Then, you will be able to better identify the other issues that need to be addressed.
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