Speaker 1she just feels everything so deeply he cried at a cartoon for 20 minutes she came home from the party and completely fell apart and she'd loved it he can't cope with loud places scratchy clothes surprises if this is your child you have probably been told or wondered yourself whether something might not be quite right whether you should get them assessed or whether you've somehow made them this sensitive today i'm going to help you work out whether your child is highly sensitive anxious neurodivergent or some combination of all three and what to do with that understanding this is the how not to screw up your kids podcast i'm your host dr mary hann so pour yourself a cuppa find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation today's episode is about highly sensitive children what that actually means how it overlaps with anxiety and neurodivergence and what it looks like in practice to support a child who feels everything deeply now pulling this this episode together on highly on high sensitivity has been a combination of a bit of a challenge and a bit of soul searching because i have seen the prevalence with which we label children for certain aspects of their behavior that i think are quite often aspects of just simply who they are their personality trait and by labeling them sometimes that process can end up making something pathologizing it really making it a disorder or an issue and it's a very difficult thing to do and it's a very difficult issue that i wonder sometimes whether that becomes limiting so you're going to have to bear with me with this particular episode because it's an episode that i felt is really important to record because i know that there are lots of parents out there who are finding this their children's responses to particular situations sits very much within this area and i want it to be something that is really useful and not something that you then as a parent are going to have to deal with and i want it to be something that you then as a parent are going to have to deal with that is yet some other issue that you feel that your child might have when high sensitivity came out in terms of the research evidence it was very much presented and seen as this personality trait and i'm i guess i'd like us to view it in that way not because i'm trying to diminish anything from from it and from the experience and for those who have this high sensitivity i just feel that it's a much more empowering phrase to use and it's a much more empowering phrase to use and it's a of it because it then helps us feel that we that there are things that we can do about it rather than it feeling that this is just an absolute and there's nothing that we can do so bear with me in this episode you might find that i'm sort of slightly oscillating backwards and forwards but i'll explain as we go so i think let's start with the thing that often gets missed and it's that high sensitivity is not a diagnosis it is not a disorder and it's not something that went wrong in your parenting or in your child's development yeah high sensitivity sometimes called sensory processing sensitivity is a trait it's a way the nervous system is wired and research by the psychologist elaine aaron who really kind of coined and positioned this um this aspect of high sensitivity suggests that around sort of 15 to 20 percent of people are born with a nervous system which processes information more deeply and more thoroughly than average yeah so we've got 15 to 20 percent that process it really deeply and then we've got between 80 and 85 percent that process it in a sort of a standard way so that means that this 15 to 20 percent tend to pick up on more more subtlety in their environment maybe more nuance in other people's emotional states more sensory input more emotional texture in their day-to-day ordinary everyday experiences and i really want to kind of we talk about high sensitivity because it's helpful it's a helpful wording to help us be able to identify it but it's important that we recognize it is not a flaw and in many contexts it's a genuine advantage highly sensitive people are often extraordinarily empathetic they have a deep creativity and a rich inner life and an ability to connect with others that is truly remarkable and awe-inspiring for those who find it more difficult and yet it does come with a cost because the world can feel a lot and that a lot often needs to be managed so the term i would encourage you to hold on to is this that is the depth of processing so highly sensitive children don't just experience something and move on they process it deeply thoroughly and often physically now the film that made your child cry for longer than than seemed reasonable the social situation that they replayed for hours afterwards the piece of music that moved them in a way which really surprised you it's not a dysfunction it's not a flaw it's not a disorder it's just the depth of the processing that they do doing exactly what it does so let's start with how we might be able to spot whether our child is highly sensitive and then what we can then do is then start to consider where it might come from and where anxiety and neurodivergence might fit in around that and then we can move in to you know me i'll be giving you five tools so let's just start initially by you know how might we be able to spot this and i guess that the differentiator between how do you know if you're looking at genuine high sensitivity and a nervous system that processes at depth rather than it being anxiety or a neurodevelopmental difference or maybe just a child who's having a bit of a hard time so here are the patterns that i would typically look for and there are five of them the first one is they feel that they're not they feel other people's emotions as if they were their own so highly sensitive children have unusually strong emotional empathy so they pick up on what's happening in the room even when adults haven't said a thing they know when you're stressed before you've told them they come home from school carrying the weight maybe of a friend's really bad day and they are often described by their teachers as unusually strong emotional empathy so they pick up on what's happening in the room unusually kind unusually attuned the child who notices when someone else is left out and this is beautiful really genuinely beautiful but it can also be incredibly exhausting and it means that because of the energy that's expended in this depth of processing that they need more recovery time after such social situations than other children because they've been absorbing more they've been processing it at a deeper level and as a result of that they need that switch off so that would be the first one is that they feel other people's emotions as if they were their own number two is this idea about sensory sensitivity but not always in the ways that you'd expect so scratchy labels loud environments bright lights maybe the smell of someone's perfume maybe the texture of certain foods highly sensitive children often have very strong physical reactions to sensory input not because they're being difficult but because their nervous system is genuinely registering more intensity than a less sensitive child's would so we've talked about this depth of processing they're processing that texture that noise that light that smell in a very different way and it's important that this isn't the same as a sensory processing disorder which is a distinct profile which is more commonly associated with autism autism and adhd highly sensitive children can find sensory input overwhelming without meeting what we would call the diagnostic criteria that the list of things that they would need to demonstrate for them to be identified as a you know having a neurodevelopmental condition the difference is typically so if you're thinking well i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't get it mary hann my child has that is is it neurodivergence is it not the difference is typically in how pervasive and impairing the difficulties are so how present is it across all of their daily activities and how much does it impact their ability to do ordinary things in a typical way we will come back to this one so i have not forgotten do not worry the third one is in terms of spotting is that they they have big emotional responses to things that seem on the surface very small. So maybe it's a tone of voice, yeah, a mild criticism, not being invited to something, maybe a change in plans. For a highly sensitive child, these don't land as minor inconveniences. Instead, they land fully, processed in full, felt completely. The reaction that we see them going through looks disproportionate from the outside. And yet from their inside, it's entirely proportionate to the emotional reality that they're experiencing. Because don't forget, they're processing at that level of depth that is not, you know, the other 80 to 85% of the population are experiencing it. So Maya was eight when her mum brought her to see me. And the presenting issues, as her mum described it, was that Mia couldn't cope with being told off. You know, a gentle correction in class could result in Mia crying in the toilets for 20 minutes. A mild comment from her dad would stay with her for the rest of the evening. And her mum was worried that she was fragile and that she couldn't handle and was worried about her being able to handle normal life. And what I saw was a child with an exceptionally deep processing system who needed some specific skills to help her work with her sensitivity, not against it. So that's number three. Number four is they need more time to transition and adjust. So new situations take longer to adjust to. Changes in plan, as we said earlier, land harder. So the first day at a new school, the first week of term, the first week of the school holidays, all these are bigger experiences for a highly sensitive child. And they need more preparation. They need more warning, more time to process what's coming. And this is often misread as anxiety or inflexibility or difficulty with change. Sometimes it can be all of those things, but often underneath it is simply a nervous system that processes the transition more deeply and just needs more of a runway in that build up to it. So that's number four. And number five. Number five is overstimulation and the need for downtime. So after a busy or intense experience, a party, a school trip, a full day out, a full day in with siblings and arguments, highly sensitive children often crash. They need quiet. They need to not be talked to or given any instructions or any demands. They need to decompress. Now this isn't ingratitude and it isn't a problem. It's the natural consequence of having processed everything more deeply than everyone else in the room. We talk often about this difference between introversion and extroversions and introversions just, you know, being around people in that social scenario, that social situation drains their battery. Now we're not saying that highly sensitive children are introverts, but they still expend a battery that then needs that decompression when they've had too much go on and too much processing. It's almost like they, if you've got a mobile phone that you, that you've been charging in all of this heat and every now and again, the charging says that it can't charge anymore because it's overheated. That's exactly the same thing. Just needs that decompression. So that's how we might be able to spot it. How I would typically, but where does it come from and where do anxiety and neurodivergence fit in with it? Because it, you may well be, as there's a lot of overlap here, Mary, I don't really quite understand the distinction between them. So this is part of what I want to be clear about because it's where the confusion often lives. So the first thing that I think is really important to sort of state is that high sensitivity is innate. We talked about it being a personality trait, but it's shaped by the environment. So high sensitivity appears to be largely genetic and it has been identified across many species. So it's not necessarily a personality trait, but it's shaped by the environment. So this is not just humans, it's other species too, which suggests it's a stable trait, which has evolved for a reason. We evolve these things for adaptive senses, for our survival and highly sensitive individuals are certainly at the nervous system level, more responsive to their environment, both in the negative way, but also in a positive way. So this means that they are more responsive to their environment. So we see them in environments which are supportive and attuned and they tend to struggle in environments where they're more harsh, where there's more unpredictability or where they're in environments that are emotionally chaotic ones. So they're not fragile, they're responsive. And obviously when they're in an environment that is harsh and unpredictable, we see most of the negative traits of it. And when we see one that is responsive and supportive, we see it as a negative trait. So we see it as a negative trait. So we see it as a positive trait. So we see the positive traits of that high sensitivity. So if you are a highly sensitive person yourself, and you can be as an adult, this is a, you know, the 15 to 20% is a population wide, isn't just specifically to children, then, you know, if you are highly sensitive yourself, and many parents of highly sensitive children are themselves highly sensitive, you may recognize much of this in your own experience, because high sensitivity does tend to run in families. So that's the first thing. Is it is innate, but it's shaped by the environment. So you may not be picking up a highly sensitive child, because the environment in which your child is in, not just at home, but in terms of all of their environment in school and other things, is just not necessarily amplifying the challenging bits. The second point I want to make is that high sensitivity and anxiety are not the same thing, but they frequently travel together. So this is the one that I get asked about most and the distinction matters. So high sensitivity is a trait. It's a way the nervous system is built. Anxiety is an emotional response. It's a state of threat based arousal that has become persistent or disproportionate to the actual threat or the actual perceived threat. Highly sensitive children are more prone to anxiety, because their nervous system picks up more potential. Threat signals and processes them more intensely. But not all highly sensitive children are anxious and not all anxious children are highly sensitive. So the practical question is, is your child's sensitivity causing them to avoid things, to become increasingly fearful or to shrink from their world? If so, anxiety may be sitting on top of the sensitivity and that part can be worked on with the right support. The sensitivity itself doesn't go away, but the anxiety that builds around it can be reduced. So we're minimising the anxiety, we're reducing that with tools, but the sensitivity that sits underneath it is a trait. It's part of the nervous system, how it presents itself, and so that will always sit there. Number three, how does this differ from neurodivergence? And this is the other question parents bring me most often. Is it autism? Is it ADHD? Is it both? Now, autistic children often have sensory sensitivities, emotional intensity, and a strong need for predictability, which can look very similar to high sensitivity. ADHD brings its own emotional intensity, the low frustration tolerance, the difficulty regulating between states, the overwhelm in stimulating environments. The overlap is real, and some children are both highly sensitive and neurodivergent, but there are distinguishing features. There are ways that we can tell them apart. Autism, for example, involves differences in social communication and interaction that go beyond emotional sensitivity. The pragmatics of social exchange, the interpretation of social cues, the experience of relationships. ADHD involves executive function and attention regulation difficulties that sit alongside the emotional intensity, not just within it. If you are genuinely unsure and the difficulties are significantly impacting your child's daily life, their education, or their relationship, it's definitely worth seeking a formal assessment. Not because a label changes who your child is, but because understanding the profile means that you can advocate for the right support and your child's future. So, if you are genuinely unsure and the can begin to understand themselves. So, hopefully that's given you some clarity about what high sensitivity is and how that sits alongside anxiety, neurodivergence in terms of ADHD and ASD in terms of autism. What are the things that we can do? So, I want to give you some practical tools wherever your child might be at and where you recognize them to be, how we can help and support them. So, tool number one, as you would expect from me, is name it. Actually, I'm not going to give you a name. So, I'm going to give you a name. So, I'm going to language for what they're experiencing what they're going through otherwise they feel like they're going through it alone not the you're too sensitive which reads as a criticism of who they are not the you shouldn't feel like that which closes down the conversation but something that names the reality accurately and without alarm so your nervous system picks up on a lot more than most people that's not a problem it just means you need some tools to help you manage it you feel things really deeply that's part of who you are and it's actually one of the things i love about you it can also feel really overwhelming sometimes let's talk about it children who understand their own sensitivity who can name it rather than just experience it as evidence that something is wrong with them are far better equipped to work with it you're giving them a framework and that framework is then protective so number one is name it accurately and without alarm number two honor their need for decompression and be mindful where you can obviously i'm not beating you up it's not about having to do this all of the time but just be mindful of those intense and overstimulating experiences so that you can then provide opportunities for them to decompress so after an intense or a stimulating experience and particularly if you are listening to this podcast i'm going to give you a little bit of a podcast episode over the school summer holidays or an extended period of time that you're off that quite often because there is no structure to our holidays and our time away and there's the added dynamics of being around all of the time the lack of routine and other things just become a little bit heightened to that so highly sensitive children need to decompress after these intense and stimulating experiences so build that in as a non-negotiable rather than treating it as a failure to cope after school time quiet time before anything else is asked of them after a party or a social event a low-key re-entry yeah don't debrief immediately don't move straight to the next activity after a difficult day let them lead on what they need so for example you don't need to talk about it yet let's just be quiet for a bit what does your body need right now what would help it settle this isn't a problem it's a problem it's a problem it's a problem it's a problem isn't indulgence it's neuroscience a nervous system that has been on high alert and deeply processing all day needs to come down before it can be receptive to anything else you're not teaching them to avoid you're teaching them to regulate number three prepare don't surprise this is a really big one here because highly sensitive children process better when they know what's coming this doesn't mean eliminating all spontaneity because we want them to be able to manage with that we don't want to remove spontaneity from family life it means giving them a map for things that are predictable so their nervous system isn't spending energy managing unnecessary uncertainty so tomorrow is going to be a busy day you know what here's a rough outline of what it's going to look like the party will probably be quite loud you might need a quiet moment at some point that's completely okay and we can make that happen for environment you know will be overwhelming prepare them for what to expect identify an exit strategy or a quiet space in advance and debrief afterwards rather than during children who feel prepared for intensity cope with it far better than children who are thrown into it and expected to manage tool number four don't rescue the emotion validate then build the skill and there's a particular trap that highly sensitive children's parents can fall into and it cut genuinely i know it comes from love when you see your child is in distress the instinct is to fix it to remove the thing that upset them to soothe the emotion as quickly as possible to prevent the next situation that might cause this reaction the problem is that this teaches your child that their emotional state is the problem and it's a problem that needs to be solved and that the solution comes from outside them rather than from within them and what they actually need to do is learn is to learn that emotions are manageable they and that they are perfectly capable of it that they can feel these emotions and that these emotions do pass and they're okay so things like that sounds really hard i can see you're feeling a lot right now and then when the storm has passed what do you think help you get through that what's one thing we could try next time so it feels a bit less overwhelming you're validating the sensitivity and you're building the skill set to work with it and both matter and tool five celebrate the gifts explicitly and this one matters more than it might seem highly sensitive children by the time many of them reach me in terms of work to help support them have absorbed a narrative and stories that something is wrong with them that the way that they experience the world is broken that they're disordered that they are malfunctioning that they're at fault and to blame that they're too much they're too emotional they're too intense they're too needy they've been told either implicitly or explicitly that the way they're built is a problem and our job is to offer a different story and we need to offer that explicitly and regularly not as empty reassurance but as an accurate observation you've noticed that she was upset before anyone else did that's your sensitivity and it's a gift the reason that film moved you so much is the same reason you understand people the way you do you feel things fully that's a remarkable thing being sensitive isn't weak some of the most extraordinary people in history were highly sensitive artists writers scientists who saw things others missed that's you a highly sensitive child who grows up knowing that their sensitivity is a feature not a flaw who has the language to name it the skills to manage it and the confidence that it's part of what makes them who they are is a child who will do extraordinary things with it and see it for that genuine gift that it is now if you're reading the picture i've described i'm on whether the anxiety sitting on top of the sensitivity needs professional attention or whether a neurodevelopmental assessment is worth pursuing please do seek out support maybe start initially have a conversation with your gp and then go from there you don't need certainty about what it is before you reach out and trust your instinct you know your child now here's what i want you to hold on to if you're not sure what you're doing you're not sure what you're doing if you have a highly sensitive child you haven't got it wrong they haven't got it wrong you are raising a person an adult whose nervous system is built to pick up on more more beauty more pain more nuance more connection that is a truly profound thing it's also genuinely hard i'm not going to pretend otherwise the emotional intensity the overstimulation the way the ordinary things of childhood can feel enormous that asks a lot of you as a parent and also a lot from them but the children i've watched growing up knowing what they are knowing their sensitivity is real it's named it's understood and it's valued they don't grow out of it they grow into it and the adults they become are usually the ones people turn to the ones that you know they become the or that sort of warmth that people are drawn to because they are the ones who truly understand what it is to feel and that's worth the hard work now if this episode has resonated with you i would really love it if you could take a moment to rate or review the podcast it helps other parents find us and right now there are parents sitting with a highly sensitive child wondering what on earth to do who need to hear this and if you know someone who's listening to this podcast and you're not whose child feels everything so deeply send this to them thank you so much for listening and i'll see you on monday until next time sensitivity is not fragility it is depth and depth in the right hands is everything you you
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