Course Corrections: Key Insights Into Children's Behavior (Nov. 2021)
In the process of helping parents solve their most vexing childrearing challenges, insights emerge that I know could benefit many parents who may never cross my transom. This blog is devoted to sharing some of these “Aha’s.” They will help you see why many parenting strategies that seem to make logical sense backfire, and how to respond in ways that address the root of what your child is struggling with in a supportive and effective way.
Kids who are precocious, cognitively, aren't necessarily advanced emotionally, which can result in more meltdowns and a harder time with emotional regulation. While many kids are advanced in their cognitive skills, it is much less common for children to be advanced in their emotional development. In fact, all of us humans are lucky if we're just on target in our emotional maturity!
These kids, whom I think of as “processors,” have brains that never turn off. They keenly tune in to and analyze everything. It’s like they don’t have an internal filter to protect them from absorbing more than they can handle. Typical descriptions of these kids include: “Henry has the superpower of tuning in to how other people feel before they even know it.” “Sasha picks up on everything. She notices the second the tone changes between me and Mitchell (my husband) and will try to intervene. She gets between us and commands: ‘Stop this right now! No more talking! Daddy you need to kiss mommy.’”
When my son, Sam, was four, I took him and three friends to see The Lion King (big mistake, in retrospect). At the end of the movie, Sam was sobbing while his buddies were totally chill. When I asked him what was wrong, all he could say was “but Simba, mommy, Simba” over and over. When we got home and talked about what was so distressing to him, it turned out that he had fixated on Simba feeling responsible for his father’s death. His deep sense of empathy for Simba was overwhelming for his four-year-old brain which had no way to logically process this complex information. It left him flooded with emotions he could not make sense of. His friends, on the other hand, were oblivious. They simply saw it as an action-adventure movie and were not burdened by the weight of the disturbing content that Sam had so intensely absorbed.
You can see, then, how these kids are triggered into stress-mode more quickly. They are on system-overload when they take in more information than they can make sense of emotionally. This naturally results in more meltdowns. It also results in children developing all sorts of coping mechanisms to try to gain control of a world that feels like too much to manage a lot of the time, which can lead to inflexibility.
Check out these blogs to learn about how to help kids manage their emotions and develop greater flexibility.
Children may not want to reflect on difficult experiences. Most of you have heard that it is important to help kids reflect on their experiences so they can learn from them. This is indeed true, in theory. But for many children, it feels too overwhelming and uncomfortable to think back on these moments. The more you coax them to talk about the difficult experience, the more vehemently they resist, which causes stress, which makes learning from their experiences--the ultimate goal--impossible.
So don't try to force these conversations. It can be enough to say: "That was a tough moment. I am always here for you if you want to talk about it and think it through." Giving your child space, and conveying that you are not going to be judgmental or school him in the error of his ways, is what makes it most likely he will feel safe to come to you to talk when he is ready.
To learn more about how to help children reflect on challenging situations, check out this blog.
Cheerleading to coax children to do something they are anxious about often backfires. Having a child who is slow-to-warm-up and hesitant to try new things may trigger your own anxiety—especially if you are more extroverted by nature and admire kids who are "go-getters." A common reaction is to act as a cheerleader to convince your child he can do it. You know that your child would love soccer but he resists participating, so you regale him with, “But you're great at soccer. You will love the class.” Your child shows hesitation about going to school, so you try to persuade him with: “The teachers in this school are so nice. And the room has so many amazing toys. You are going to have so much fun!”
The problem is that while you have the best of intentions, trying to cajole kids to participate when they are feeling anxious often makes them feel worse. It amplifies the shame they are already experiencing about not doing the activity other kids are enjoying. This is especially true for highly sensitive (HS) kids who tend to be more self-conscious. Having attention focused on them, especially when they feel they are being evaluated or judged, can be uncomfortable and exacerbate their stress.
Also keep in mind that children (especially HS kids) are very tuned into the underlying motives of their parents. They see right through you. They are keenly tuned in to what you want from them—what will make you happy. Looking at it through the lens of logic, you might think that your child would be motivated by wanting to please you and would change his behavior accordingly. Instead, what I find is that the pressure kids experiences when they sense how invested you are in their performance is stifling, not motivating. They have to cope with the risk of disappointing you when they won't jump into the pool to join the class with the other kids, or when they resist joining in the scrum at the birthday party. It becomes a relationship issue that is fraught with tension. This makes it less likely your child will feel confident to take a risk and tackle a new challenge.
To read more about how to build confidence in children to try new things, check out this blog.