Parenting a Highly Sensitive Child

Parenting a highly sensitive child can be a challenge:

• Trying to figure out how much activity is enough and how much is too much;
• Ensuring the child gets enough sleep, but not too much sleep; 
• Gradually moving bedtime earlier in order to accommodate sleep needs and then having to help the falling asleep process because said child is a night owl; 
• Providing food (not too much, not too little) at regular intervals and ensuring that it's eaten slowly enough to give a stomach time to process and still fast enough to get on with life post-meal;
• Balancing event participation with allowing a child to bow out in favour of a quiet hour at home;
• Anticipating things that will cause anxiety and learning ways in which to help the child manage those anxieties; 
• Allowing enough time to really listen and help the child express fears and worries without offering solutions; 
• Thereafter being creative enough to help generate solutions to the problems;
• Being ok with the fact that child is just a little different than, perhaps, the norm, and not pushing for conformity or inclusion.  Acceptance is key here. 
• Maintaining a tight and non-judgmental attachment with the child so that the child feels safe enough to continue to express anxieties (rather than allowing worries to consume their insides);
• Worrying far more about relationship than about behaviours and manifestations of anxieties/sensitivities;  
• Being adaptable enough as a parent to give up on using things like consequences as a discipline technique because not only do they not work, but they unintentionally promote shame and internalization in highly sensitive children.
• Etc etc.  

Everything about parenting a highly sensitive child is about maintaining some form of balance; it requires pretty much constant parental involvement and juggling, as well as intense listening and observational skills.  I'm sure others can relate.

I think of Matthew as a finely tuned instrument.  Whether tightening the strings too much, or leaving them slack...well, let's just say that neither option is a good one.

He's actually changed quite a lot already over the years.  Until he was about five years old, he couldn't handle bright sunshine, noises that were too loud, touch that was somehow 'off' for him, clothing labels that chaffed, sock seams on his toes.  Even his insides were highly sensitive - if he ate a bit too much, or a bit too quickly, or not enough, or not an adequate balance of food, he'd throw up.  He threw up quite a lot before the age of five while we figured things out.  It happened again as recently as last week, when he ate a bit too much at one dinner time and threw up during the night...sigh.  Sometimes, particularly in the early days, I felt like rolling my eyes (but didn't!) over the things that he was sensitive to...surely that didn't cause discomfort, I'd think over some new thing that he found intolerable.

Thankfully, in those early years, as we tried hard to accommodate his needs (buying sunglasses, tinting car windows, buying giant size ear protectors, ensuring he had quiet time to balance out social times, cutting off labels, managing his food carefully, etc etc), the needs themselves lessened.  Life for him was just a little easier for a couple of years.

Then, Seth and Lizzie came into our home and family and Matthew's entire being was thrown into chaos.  For two years...and counting.

Suddenly he had to share his bedroom (his quiet haven), had no more quiet (have you heard the volume of Lizzie's voice?), our routine became more structured, and on and on.  He lost the one-on-one attention and focus from me that he'd enjoyed for over seven years.  There was no gradual acceptance of an infant sibling that at least looked cute while invading space.  No, his new siblings were older, traumatized, opinionated, loud, and manifested huge needs themselves as they struggled mightily to make their adjustment to a new family and home.  We all struggled.  It was a monumental shock to Matthew's entire system and for a very long time it felt like we'd lost Matthew's presence, so huge was the impact on him.  In some ways we were expecting the impossible of him.

For almost the first two years after Seth and Lizzie arrived home in Canada, much of Geoff's and my parenting skills acquisitions revolved around securing their attachment and helping them work their way through trauma, etc etc.  That's not to say that Matthew was ignored in the process - anything but.  I feel that I know Matthew extremely well and we have gone to huge efforts to help him through the adjustments he's had to make.  I think we've done, are doing, everything we can to help him adjust.

Recently, though, over the past four or five months, as Seth and Lizzie have clearly been doing well, we've begun again to zero in on Matthew as far as our acquiring new parenting skills go.  Our regular sessions with a Neufeld consultant have been huge for us with all three kids, most recently with Matthew.

Turning our microscope onto how we parent Matthew is starting to pay off.  He's turned a bunch of corners in the past few months.  Between changing quite radically how we do school, working (even) harder on helping him manage his anxieties, understanding his triggers, learning to slow down even more and just be with him, figuring out ways in which to provide him with a little more space and quiet, learning different ways to help him manage and express his frustrations (eg. encouraging him to wale on a log or heavy cardboard box with a soft baseball bat), discovering things that he can do independently of his siblings, spending more time 'match-making' him with his siblings, continuing to find ways to spend time with him on a one-to-one basis, etc etc etc, we've seen some significant changes.  He's happier, a bit more relaxed, not as prone to take his frustrations out on his siblings, is less anxious, and he's shown signs of mixed feelings coming back (which were in place before S&L came home but which got lost in the transition).  I'm most excited about seeing the mixed feelings coming back, because that's what allows a child to say in his mind something like:  "I'm so mad at xyz right now, but I'm not going to hit/yell/push because I don't want to hurt xyz."  It means that I can relax just a wee bit.

I'm learning more and more about how to manage Matthew's evolving needs around schedule/food/sleep/space/etc in ways that maximize his abilities to cope.  In planning for fall's activities, for example, he and I have had long conversations about my/our decision not to let him participate in everything that he would like to.  So, while I have registered Seth for indoor soccer (something Matthew is also interested in doing), I have told Matthew that he will not be participating.  The only required events, from Geoff's and my perspective, are piano and swimming lessons.   He may also participate in a few other activities (gym class, maybe art class, etc), but his schedule is going to be lighter than it was this past year.  Surprisingly, though initially resistant and unhappy about these decisions, Matthew eventually sighed audibly and said that this was ok with him because he was tired of feeling tired from too many activities.  Huh.  We've talked through how it's going to feel to take Seth to activities while Matthew (and Lizzie and I) sit on the sidelines and we've processed together how we'll handle remaining activities that suddenly get to be too much.

Another small example of finding balance happened during the kids' attendance at Basketball camp two weeks ago (remember my 'mom's break' posts??).  Matthew wasn't enjoying it as much as during the previous two summers, and when I took them for their fourth morning, Matthew pulled me aside during the warm-up period before the morning started and told me that he simply didn't think he could be there.  I wasn't surprised...I'd seen his anxiety building over the previous few days.  My only regret is in not dealing with it overtly sooner - I was so eager to have my five mommy mornings to myself that I allowed myself to basically ignore what I was seeing in him.

But that morning at the start of camp, I could see that he was fighting despair quite earnestly, though obviously not wanting to break down in the nearby presence of his coaches and other kids.  I pulled him out of the gym to talk for about five minutes and in the end, even though I'm wanting to teach the kids the importance of sticking with our commitments, this was a moment that clearly required me to balance that value with what was in Matthew's best interests.  I took him home with me.

The moment we walked in the door, Matthew sighed loudly and said "ahhh, it's so quiet here...this is exactly what I needed."  We spent most of that morning cuddled up in bed, talking and reading and just resting together.  He kept telling me how much he loved me and thanked me repeatedly for taking him home with me.  He was visibly relieved.  He decided at the end of the morning with no pressure or questions from me that, even though it wasn't his favourite activity, he'd like to go back to basketball camp the next day, to finish up the week...he was able able to build up some genuine resilience because he'd been allowed opportunity and time to deal with his sadness and the anxiety that was plaguing him.

This is just one of many examples that happened during that week.  I wish I could adequately explain what just one day looks like at times.

And sometimes life gets a little crazy and those are hard weeks with/for Matthew.  The excitement of my brother's recent wedding, a bunch of family birthdays that have all wanted celebrating, the impact on my patience level as I've executed the past couple of hectic weeks...all of these things took a toll on Matthew and we saw behaviours returning that had been diminishing.  Mixed feelings all but disappeared again, tempers flared easily, listening to one's parents seemed an impossible task, and things were generally harder to manage on a moment-by-moment basis.  This week won't help restore balance as Matthew participates in a tennis camp with his cousin this week (already the anxieties were up significantly last night and this morning as we got ready for the first morning of camp), and as we have that same cousin stay with us for a few days at the end of camp.

The good news is that I'm not as worried any more - a little stressed and tired, yes, but not as worried.  I will make a distinct effort in the coming weeks to reduce activity for a while, resume more balance in all areas of life, and we'll all get through it.  I am getting better and better at focusing on keeping our relationship strong rather than worrying about behaviours that get out of line.

Matthew's always going to be sensitive, but my hope is that by meeting his needs now and by helping him learn to manage himself over time, that the needs themselves will lesson, as they did when he was about five.

Raising a highly sensitive child is a challenge, without a doubt, but it's just who Matthew is and I love with everything in me who he is.  All of our kids are unique and he is no exception; God created this kid with some very unique qualities - qualities that won't always be easy for him in life, but qualities that make him quite something!