Sensitivity is a strength, NOT a weakness!
Refer to this YouTube video that discusses this topic in more detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz0scGVi_Tg
As a highly sensitive person myself, and primarily working with highly-sensitive children, at times this level of heightened sensitivity can be perceived as a weakness or trait that doesn’t serve us in a complex environment.
I would like to reframe how we view highly-sensitive children and people, as I believe this to be a strength when learned to be managed appropriately. It does take some work to learn how to manage heightened sensitivity! We will discuss this in this blog.
What is our role as adults??
Creating an emotionally-secure environment for children to feel safe expressing all their feelings.
Manage our own emotions and emotional-environment. *Co-regulation is everything (more on this to come).
Give them tools to manage their environment & emotional state. Refer to our feelings page for identifying emotions and coping skills page for how to respond to them!
Believe in them: the more we focus on strengths & hold the perspective that we believe they can overcome anything - that is one of the most powerful ways of supporting them!!
What we can do for these children:
Teach them how to manage their emotions.
Give them tools to manage their environment & emotional state.
Body-based activities and exercises to help them feel connected & grounded in their body.
Feeling workbook coming soon!
Let them feel that all their feelings are ok. The more we reshape how we feel big feelings, the easier it is to work through them.
Help them as this is a skill to be managed. Heightened sensitivity helps us to understand experiences beyond what the physical senses can perceive (*that is highly-beneficial).
The goal isn’t to lessen their sensitivity, it is to give them tools to independently manage it!
Look out for more content & resources for children & parents on this topic!!