My four-year-old was very hesitant when I signed her up for gymnastics class. After a few sessions, she started to join in and now she LOVES it. I can’t get her out of there when class is over. But every week, when it’s time to go back, she fights tooth and nail, insisting she doesn’t want to go. It’s like Groundhog’s Day. I just don’t get it.

This phenomenon is one that many parents I work with find confounding and frustrating, understandably. Where is the learning curve? ⁠
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As I help parents do the detective work to figure out the root cause of why their kids react this way, in most cases the challenge is making the transition, not their feelings about the activity. Once the child is engaged in the experience, they love it—whether it is school, dance class, jujitsu, art, or going to the playground. As one mom reported just earlier today: “This weekend we told Bodie (5) that we were going to the playground to meet some friends. He melted down, screaming that he wasn’t going; that he hates the playground, and he hates the children we were meeting there. We held firm and got him there, which was really, really hard and uncomfortable. But within minutes he was having the best time playing with the child he had claimed to detest just minutes earlier."

Why are transitions so hard?⁠

One of the greatest gifts we give our children is self-awareness, a key component of emotional intelligence. Helping them understand what makes them tick—to tune into and understand how their thoughts and feelings affect their behavior—is critical for their ability to develop effective, healthy ways to express their full range of emotions as they grow. That is the definition of good mental health.

Self-awareness is especially important for highly sensitive children (HSC) because of how deeply they register their emotional and sensory experiences in the world. They get overwhelmed more easily because their systems are registering more than they can effectively process. This leads to big reactions that they need to learn to manage—no small feat—but that is so critical to their healthy development.

Some HSCs are very open and eager to talk about their feelings after the meltdown or difficult incident has ended and they are calm. They often share profound and poignant insights, like the six-year-old who explained: “I remember them (the calming tools) before, and I remember them after. I just don’t remember them in the middle.” Or, the five-year-old who said, “It’s like the spirit leaves my body” after he’s had an epic meltdown. Or, the four-year-old who was able to tell her mom that the reason she fights going to school every morning is because she is afraid mommy will disappear. (Her parents had recently gone through a separation.)

As hard as it may be to hear our children share painful feelings, it is such a powerful positive for them for them to have this insight and feel safe to share it with you. It makes working through these difficult experiences possible.

But many parents I work with express concern about their children being resistant to talking about feelings. They refuse to engage in reflective discussions to process and learn from difficult incidents. They cover their ears, tell parents to go away, immediately change the subject, or just shout that they don't want to talk about it.

I believe this reaction is rooted in the discomfort of revisiting an emotionally charged experience, especially when the child feels shame about it. The last thing they want is a face-to-face discussion that can feel very overwhelming, so they shut it down.

You can't, nor should you, try to force your kids to have these conversations. Pressuring them often results in their digging in their heels more fiercely and redoubling their defenses. Further, they develop a knee-jerk, negative reaction every time you try to initiate a reflective discussion, making it less likely they will feel safe to reflect and open up in the future.

Strategies that can reduce defensiveness and open kids up

“Demand avoidance”—a knee-jerk, defiant reaction to any direction to cooperate with a task or to make a transition— is a phenomenon that I see frequently in my work with families of highly sensitive children(HSC)/big reactors.

This pattern of behavior has been officially termed "Pathological Demand Avoidance" (PDA), but many experts, myself included, prefer "Pervasive Demand Avoidance." 

The first and most important thing to know about PDA is that it is a reaction that is based in the nervous system and is not purposeful "opposition" or "defiance."  The nervous system interprets the demand as a threat to the child's autonomy and triggers a stress response that prepares the body to fight or flee.

While PDA is associated with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), I work with hundreds families each year and see many kids who are not on the Autism spectrum but are prone to demand avoidance. Most of these children are HSCs who often feel overwhelmed on the inside because of how deeply they process their experiences in the world. To cope—to make life more manageable—they seek to control as much as they can on the outside. This frequently translates into refusal to follow a direction, given the fact that directions are designed to control a child's behavior—to get them to do something you want them to do. These kids are totally clued into this and resisting the demand is a way to feel in control. 

So what's a parent to do when many of these tasks HAVE TO BE DONE to keep their children healthy and safe, and to run an effective household, especially a busy one with multiple kids? Teeth need to be brushed; kids need to be at school, doctor appointments, and activities on time; baths/showers have to be taken; kids need to stay safely in their rooms at night to get the sleep they need (if you are choosing to have your children sleep independently.) 

This exclamation was made by a highly sensitive child (HSC), when, after a wonderful day with hours of fun and joy, her dad said "no" to going back downstairs (once she was already in bed with lights out). She insisted she needed to check on a Magnatile structure she had been working on earlier that day.

I can't tell you how many times a week I hear stories like this from parents. Their HSC has a great day with lots of good stuff; and then one, often seemingly minor, event/disappointment happens and everything is ruined. 
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After decades of working with families of HSCs, and parenting my own, I understand that this is often part of the deal with these deeply feeling kids: they live life at the extremes. They are ecstatic or enraged. They tend to process their experiences in this all or nothing, black and white way. It's all good or all bad. They have a harder time living in the gray.
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The temptation, naturally, is to try to get them to see that there was so much good in their day, to talk them out of this all-encompassing, negative state, which seems so unfortunate and sad—for them to see the world this way. But that usually results in the HSC, in reaction to being told how to feel, doubling-down to prove to you that in fact, everything is indeed ruined. ⁠

⁠⁠Keep in mind that this doesn't mean the good stuff isn't getting through or having a positive impact on them. This awareness may also help you avoid the temptation to try to get them to acknowledge it or feel it in that moment. ⁠

"You have to put all my blocks back exactly the way I had them! You are not allowed to touch my blocks!" 

"Stop talking to mommy! I have a question and she needs to listen to me right now!"(Shouting at dad who is in a conversation with mom.) ⁠

While kids of all temperaments have been known to act like dictators at times, parents who have HSCs (highly sensitive children) report that their children make these kinds of seemingly outrageous demands on a regular basis. If the demand is not met, their kids can be very angsty and unpleasant. There may be a lot of whining or a full-blown tantrum. Many parents have said they feel like they are "negotiating with terrorists" during these encounters.

⁠These moments are so maddening because:⁠
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1) The tone the child takes is mortifying and "obnoxious" and totally unacceptable.⁠
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2) What triggers the child seems so minor and irrational, and makes parents feel like their they are raising spoiled brats that they need to "toughen up."⁠

This makes it very challenging for parents who are working so hard to be the empathetic, calm, connected moms and dads they want to be. ⁠

A common knee-jerk reaction is to admonish or correct: "You can't talk to us that way! It is disrespectful." This tends to amp kids up further. They are quick to shame in the face of being corrected—which they experience as criticism— propelling them into further dysregulation. When their brains are flooded with overwhelming feelings, they are unable to process or learn any lesson you are trying to teach them.⁠ (Here's more on how to teach lessons to kids who can't tolerate being corrected.) 

What Your Child Needs

This is Part 2 of my blog on being your child’s emotional support parent (ESP), not a “helicopter parent.” In that piece, I describe the complex dynamic that often evolves when you have a very committed, loving, sensitive parent with a child who is not wired to be as adaptable as other kids; who gets triggered easily by the unexpected, and by sensations that are registered at a higher decibel and cause discomfort; and, whose big feelings are hard to manage, especially at such an early age. These parents are acting out of necessity, really survival. They are doing their best and working to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion to provide comfort to their children who are hard to comfort, and to preserve some semblance of family peace and harmony—no small feat—when you’ve got a big reactor in your home. 

Part 2 provides guidance, based on my own parenting journey and my collaboration with hundreds of parents of highly sensitive children, on how to support versus enable your HSC; in other words, how to nurture that special closeness you have with your child while also setting the important limits that are essential for children’s individuation, growing sense of competence, and healthy, independent functioning.

This blog may be the nearest and dearest to me. It speaks to a parenting phenomenon that I have personally struggled with, and continue to work on 30+ years into my parenting journey.

It all crystallized for me when, a few months ago, a mom of a very sensitive, reactive child who gets triggered into discomfort easily, and is thus prone to frequent and intense meltdowns, described herself as her child’s “emotional support animal” and it took my breath away. This so perfectly captured my experience and that of so many of the parents (most often a mom) I work with who have an HSC (highly sensitive child).

This mom is her child’s primary and most desired (demanded) source of comfort. She is the person who is highly tuned in to her child, keenly focused on anticipating anything that might cause him stress, and tirelessly working to head it off. 

We are often called “Helicopter Parents” which has become the catch-all nomer (slur) for any parent who is perceived to be overprotecting their child. It is shaming and judgmental. It is damaging, and not helpful. And it does not capture or take into consideration the more complex and nuanced dynamic that evolves when you have a very committed, loving, sensitive parent with a child who is not wired to be as adaptable as other kids; who gets triggered easily by the unexpected, and by sensations that are registered at a higher decibel and cause discomfort; and, whose big feelings are hard to manage, especially at such an early age. These parents are acting out of necessity, really survival. They are doing their best and working to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion to provide comfort to their children who are hard to comfort, and to preserve some semblance of family peace and harmony—no small feat—when you’ve got a big reactor in your home. 

Just telling parents to stop hovering, to stop “overprotecting” and rescuing, to set limits and not give in to tantrums, is too simplistic and doesn’t acknowledge the very complex systems that evolve in families with big reactors just to cope day to day. 

This blog offers insights from my own parenting experience and my work with hundreds of kindred ESPs (“emotional support parents”) that I hope will be validating, and will also help you find that important, but often hard-to-find, sweet spot of supporting versus enabling your child. In other words, how to nurture that special closeness you have with your child while also setting the important limits that are essential for children’s individuation and healthy, independent functioning far into the future. 

Caleb, 5, is at the playground trying to enter a game of tag with some of the neighborhood kids. He is randomly tagging people, not following the rules. The kids are getting annoyed. They keep telling him to stop. Caleb ignores their pleas and gets sillier. He starts to make fun of their names, calling Isaac, "Pisak" and Max, "Sax." At this point, the kids tell him to go away. Caleb runs to his mom, Mira, who has been sitting on a bench observing. He is angry and crying because the kids are being mean to him and not letting him play. 

Mira: "What do you expect, Caleb? Why would they want to play with you when you're not playing by the rules and are making fun of their names? And you don't stop when they ask you to. They don't like it so they don't want to play with you." 

Caleb: "They're mean. You don't understand! You never listen to me! You are always on their side." He demands to go home, which they do.

Mira feels awful. It is so clear to her that the way Caleb is acting with his peers is resulting in rejection, which is having a very negative affect on him and is painful for Mira to witness. She feels so sad for Caleb. At the same time, she is frustrated and at a loss as to how to help him see how his behavior is causing the problem, and that the solution is in his hands; that if he played more appropriately, he would have more positive social interactions and feel better about himself. But the second she tries to talk to him about it, he gets defensive. He acts like he is the victim and projects all the blame onto the other kids. She is despairing about how to help him.

This is a very common story, and conundrum, that many families I work with face with their children. It is so distressing for them to see their kids behave in ways that they know will not bode well for them.

The deep love we have for our children, and the concomitant fear that comes with this territory, propels us into reactive-mode, which often takes the form of schooling them (as Mira did), hoping that this will convince them to change their ways: “Why would your friends want to play if you won't share?" "We just can't do playdates if you are going to boss your friends around. They don't like it." We think that if we can just get our important (brilliant! insightful!) points across, they will change their behavior and all will be right with the world.

While you mean to be helpful, these kinds of responses are experienced as criticism, and thus shaming, by children, and launches them into defensive, self-protection, closed-brain mode. This prevents any possibility for reflection and behavior change—the ultimate goal. 

What To Do

Jacob (6) loves swimming and joins a swim team that he is really enjoying. Then he has a series of illnesses that keep him out of this activity for over a month, after which he starts refusing to go to practices. When his parents ask why, he says he doesn't like swimming anymore—that it is "stupid”—which is perplexing and worrying to them. They know how fortifying this activity is for Jacob and that giving it up would be a real loss.

Accordingly, they respond: "But you love swimming, and are great at it! Why would you stop going?" They also start cheerleading—encouraging him and offering rewards if he agrees to return. Jacob only digs in his heels further. He refutes all of their talking points and doubles down on his position that he is quitting swimming.

This is a very common response from kids when parents try to convince them to keep at something they are anxious about. While you intend/hope it will be motivating, it can backfire, especially for highly sensitive kids who are very tuned into the underlying motives of their parents. They are already coping with difficult feelings about the situation. When they sense that you are disappointed or unhappy with their non-participation—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—it adds to their stress and makes it less likely they will feel confident to persevere through the challenge.

When we meet, Jacob's parents are feeling very distressed that their son is giving up something that was so important and healthy for him, and feel helpless to get him to change his mind. They are particularly concerned because this is a pattern for Jacob. He tends to give up easily and avoid things that are hard or that he isn't perfect at. His parents worry that he is missing out on important experiences that could potentially bring him a lot of pleasure. 

All parents want to teach their kids to learn to take responsibility for their actions. ⁠
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For parents of kids who are big reactors, this can feel like an impossible goal because their kids react so negatively, and sometimes explosively, to being corrected. They get angry and defensive, cover their ears, run away, or completely shut down when faced with an adult who is trying to inculcate them in some way.

So many parents have shared stories in recent consults about this vexing phenomenon, which tells me that there are probably many of you out there who are struggling with this, too. So, this blog provides insight and guidance on how to teach kids important lessons when they can't tolerate being corrected.

Why kids have a hard time being corrected

⁠Highly sensitive children (HSC) tend to be quick to shame. Seemingly benign corrections or suggestions—how to hold scissors correctly, how to aim the ball to get it in the basket, how to solve a problem with a peer—are experienced as criticisms or personal indictments, not as helpful guidance you are intending to offer. 

They also interpret and process your input as a threat to their sense of self and autonomy; that you are trying to control them and change their behavior, which results in a defensive reaction. They engage in all sorts of evasion (often blaming you or other external forces, for their actions) as a way to ward off feelings they are having a hard time understanding and managing.  

When they experience your anger, annoyance, or disappointment at their behavior, it only increases their stress, which results in deeper dysregulation.

Further, you may find that when you want to reflect on these difficult incidents once they are over, to help your child process the experience and learn from it, your child refuses to revisit the uncomfortable feelings and events. This leaves many parents despairing about how they will ever be able to teach their children important lessons about the impact of their actions on others. ⁠

What you can do

Teaching lessons may look very different with a big reactor.It turns out that, often, the most effective way to do this is counterintuitive for most parents; the opposite of what your logical, adult mind dictates, as illustrated by the examples below.

Seven-year-old sore at losing
Max, 7, is playing in a basketball game. His dad, Peter, is in the stands and sees that Max is getting increasingly frustrated that no one is passing the ball to him. Just as Peter fears—because Max has a history of sore-losing and blaming it on unfair tactics—Max ultimately storms off the court to where Peter is sitting. Max pretends that the reason he left the game is because there is something in his eye; he doesn't want anyone to think he is crying. Then he blurts out to Peter that it's not fair—no one is passing the ball to him so he can't make any baskets.

With the best of intentions, Peter launches right into encouragement/cheerleading/problem-solving: "That happens in games. You can't always get the ball or a basket. What do you think your teammates and coach will think about you walking off? You have to get back out there, Buddy."

Max's response: "Stop talking to me right now!! You are so annoying!" as he starts to push angrily into Peter. Peter admonishes Max for getting aggressive. This ultimately leads to Max running out of the gym and Peter feeling totally distraught about how this behavior will affect the way Max’s peers will see him and how in the world he is ever going to be able to teach Max how to be more resilient. 

After we process this incident in a consult, Peter is able to see why his response may have backfired; that his intended encouragement was not experienced as motivating, but as added stress. Max is very sensitive and tuned in to the fact that Peter was disappointed in his reaction; that he wanted Max to be able to buck up and bounce back, which Max was not ready/able to do. This left Max feeling pressured, and alone and misunderstood, making it less likely he would feel confident to get back out there and learn to cope with the challenges of a competitive sport.

With this insight, the next time a similar incident happens, here is how Peter responds: 

He starts with empathy: "I hear you Bud, playing team sports can be challenging and frustrating."

He lets Max know he is not alone in his feelings/experience: "It took me a long time to get comfortable with not always getting the ball, or a basket, or a goal. I ended up deciding that I would try to manage the frustration and disappointment that can happen in team sports because I didn't want to give up playing those games with my friends." 

He avoids telling Max what to do (which always leads to a defensive reaction) and, instead, positions himself as a person who will help Max think these trickly situations through: "Looks like your options are to take some deep breaths and go back into the game, or take a break and then figure out how you want to proceed. What do you think is a better choice for you right now?" 

Now that Peter is no longer trying to change Max's behavior, and is giving him the space and opportunity to figure things out for himself, Max is calming more quickly and is sometimes open to engaging in a reflective process to think through these difficult situations. This is what gives Max the best chance of building the resilience Peter knows would be so good for him. It has also solidified a strong bond between Peter and Max, who now feels seen, understood, and respected by his dad. 

Six-year-old whose body often acts before his brain

Roman is a very intense, amazing child who is super empathic, creative, and curious. He can also become explosive when things don't go the way he wants or expects: his sister goes first...for anything; he hits a snag in a project he is working on; his mom, Serena, says “no” to a new Lego set.

For a long time, when Roman would lose it and start hurling toys, which sometimes hit her, Serena, typically and naturally, had a big reaction—shouting at Roman for hurting her and admonishing that he cannot throw objects. It's dangerous. This always led to Roman getting more dysregulated and defensive, with more aggressive behavior and vitriol hurled. The whole situation spiraled further out of control with no lessons learned.

Serena has been working for years on managing her own emotions in the face of these explosions, and trying to figure out the best way to help Roman learn to manage his impulses and take responsibility for his actions. In our most recent consult she shared this major victory and lesson learned...for her:

Roman was frustrated and tossed a toy that grazed Serena on the cheek. She stayed calm and without a word, went to the sink and started to take care of the scrape. Roman immediately approached her with great remorse, hugged her legs, said he was sorry, and asked if she was okay.

⁠No doubt, showing this kind of self-control in the heat-of-the-moment, especially when she had just been the victim of her son’s aggression, was nothing short of super-human. But you can see the payoff. By not going into correction mode, or fueling the flames, Serena created a very powerful opportunity for Roman to take responsibility for his actions. ⁠⁠

I see this dynamic all the time at homes and in preschools. The bigger the reaction from the adult, and the more they try to correct the child and teach them a lesson, the more agitated and aggressive the child becomes. Less is more in these situations.

 4 yo with low frustration tolerance
I was observing 4 yo, Evie, at preschool because her teacher had expressed concern about her giving up very quickly when facing a challenge and how this would effect her moving onto Kindergarten next year. Indeed, after not too long, I saw Evie getting increasingly frustrated that she couldn't cut a piece of paper in the shape she wanted. She kept grunting and repeating, "I can't do it! This is too hard!”

Because I still have a hard time resisting my impulse to rescue kids when they are struggling, without thinking (first major mistake), I sat down next to Evie and started to show her how to more effectively hold the scissors and paper. Her response: she shouted at me to "STOP!" as she crumpled up the paper, threw it on the floor, and walked away.

Of course, in her agitated state, she had experienced my attempt to be helpful and teach her fine motor skills as intrusive and overwhelming—hence her defensive reaction. I knew I wouldn't get another chance anytime soon to have a redo with Evie. But I shared the insight I had gained from the incident with the teacher. My suggestion was that that  when Evie is struggling, not to step in with solutions but to acknowledge her frustration (“I know, learning to cut with scissors can be frustrating and take time and practice to figure out”) and then to say, "I have some ideas about how you might solve this problem. Would you like to hear them?" 

The following month the teacher reported back that this approach was working: Evie was calming more quickly. And, when asked for permission to provide ideas, she was more open to the teacher's suggestions and was⁠ not reacting so quickly with panic when she faced a challenge. All told, Evie’s growing ability to manage her frustration and think through how to solve problems has resulted in her building much stronger executive functioning skills.

Take-home:
It’s all about stopping trying to control your child is one of the hardest pills to swallow for many parents. You clearly see the potential negative outcomes for them when they "act-out"; when they give up easily upon facing a challenge or act in hurtful ways. You do know what would be best and healthiest for your child because you’re a smart, sensitive parent, and you love them so much you want to do everything in your power to make that happen. You want to change the outcome for them and ensure they will do the "right" thing.

But at the end of the day, your kids are the ones out there on the playground, the basketball court, in the classroom. They need to figure out how to handle these situations. And it turns out that the most powerful way to help children, especially big reactors, learn to make good choices is not by telling them what to do.

Related articles

Why Children Laugh, Evade, or Get Angry When Being Corrected (No, your child is not a sociopath)

When your child gives up easily: How to help them become good problem-solvers

Every week I have multiple consults during which parents are in tears and experiencing utter despair over not being able to be the "gentle" parent they want to be. They feel like total failures. All are exhausted and depleted. Some are depressed.

⁠These parents all have "big reactors", aka, kids who go from 0-60 in a nanosecond if you: cut their sandwich the wrong way; take a different route home from school; pay ANY attention to the new baby; don't let them have another TV show; can't get their blankets on exactly the way they want after 20 minutes of trying, and so on. ⁠

These moms and dads, like all parents, want to be "gentle" parents: calm, loving, empathetic, validating and warmly connected to their kids. 

The problem is that, largely from the explosion of social media, they have gotten the message that being a "gentle" parent means: your child is never unhappy; you are always engaged in loving, joyful connection with your child;  you have the power to always calm your child when they are upset; you never feel frustrated, angry, overwhelmed, or want a break from your child, and act out on those feelings. ⁠
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This might be possible if you have a super adaptable, go-with-the-flow child (who makes their parents look soooo good!) These are the kids born with an "easy" temperament, who weather changes and transitions easily and who cope with limits and life's natural disappointments and frustrations without a lot of distress and dysregulation.
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But "sharing your calm" (aka "co-regulation") with a child whose epic meltdowns can be destructive, and venomous (a recent favorite is from a 4 yo who shouted at his father: "I'm taking you back to the daddy store!")⁠. and ⁠include "slaughterhouse screams" and physical aggression—hitting, spitting, kicking, scratching—is a whole different ballgame. ⁠

“Do all 4-year-olds blame their mothers for all of their mistakes or when anything goes wrong?? My daughter drops pizza on the floor, I’m responsible. I get a drip of water from her toothbrush on her shirt and I did it on purpose. She falls off her scooter, I made it happen, and according to her, I should never have bought the scooter (she had begged for!) to begin with! Don’t I know that she HATES scooters?!”

I hear stories like these all the time from parents (and not just of 4 yo’s), and recall this charming phenomenon from my own days in the childrearing trenches.

With 20-20 hindsight, and decades of working with kids since mine were little, I have gained some insight into the roots of these reactions and what children need from us in these moments in order to learn to accept their failures and manage their mistakes—the ultimate goal.

Why Our Kids Blame Us

Working in the trenches everyday with families continues to yield new insights, even after 35 years. One recent, powerful observation is that parents are doing WAY too much when kids are having a having a hard time. As always, this comes from the most loving place: parents don't want to see their children in distress and will do whatever they can to relieve that discomfort.

It also comes from a misinterpretation of messages many of my families have absorbed on social media about the importance of accepting, validating, and being present when kids are distressed. This translates into parents believing they are harming their children—sending them the message that their feelings don't matter and they are alone—if they are not constantly by their side, repeating empathetic phrases to show they understand, or trying to get their child to talk about his feelings. This has become equated in their minds with abandoning their child in his time of need.

Just yesterday I talked to a mom who is very confused about how to best support her 5-year-old who is a very big reactor and has major meltdowns, especially when screen time is over. She calls it “Groundhog’s Day”: despite implementing the same plan day after day—their son chooses a show and they turn it off when it’s over, they don’t cave and stick to the limit—he has a huge tantrum every single time. She is doing everything “right”—she stays calm and validates his feelings—but at some point she needs to tend to her two other children (3 yo and a baby), and worries, based on what she has read, that it is harmful to her son to not be by his side for the entire duration of his meltdown.

Having a child who is slow-to-warm-up and hesitant to try new things can be very challenging for parents. It triggers 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 children (HSC) 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 HSC) 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.⁠ ⁠

5 Steps That Support Kids To Try New Things

“I am so stupid.”

“Nobody likes me.”

“You hate me. You don’t want me in this family.”

Children making negative proclamations about themselves is no doubt very distressing and disturbing. It is painful to think about your child feeling badly about himself. Of all the challenges parents face in trying their best to understand and support their children's development, this one causes the most distress and worry, understandably.

It is also a very complex phenomenon that can be hard to fully comprehend, because we can't be in our children's brains and know exactly why they are saying something so alarming—what they are experiencing and trying to communicate.

It is important to keep in mind that in these moments, children rarely mean exactly what they say. They are in a highly-charged state, flooded with big emotions that are difficult to experience and process. What they are actually struggling with may not be readily apparent to us OR to them. But it’s important that we seek to understand the underlying issues at play, and, most importantly, what our child needs in order to work through the distress the proclamations represent.

This requires us to manage our own anxiety in these moments. Big reactions from us can overwhelm children and shut them down. Staying calm, and reminding yourself that your child feeling safe to share his deepest feelings with you is a gift, will enable you to be present for your child in the way he needs you to be. It will also help you tune in to what he is communicating and what need he may be trying to fulfill through these distressing statements, and respond in the most sensitive way to help your child work through these difficult feelings and experiences—the ultimate goal.

WHY CHILDREN ENGAGE IN NEGATIVE SELF-TALK

One of the greatest challenges in parenting is that strategies that make total sense from your adult perspective and that are intended to be helpful to your child are not perceived that way and so backfire. Forcing/demanding children make eye contact when you are talking to them is one of these paradoxes. It feels impolite/rude/disrespectful not to look you in the eye when you are trying to communicate with your child. Or, you fear that not making eye contact means your child is tuning you out and won't take in the information you are trying to communicate to him.

The problem is that often the reason children avoid eye contact is because they are trying to protect themselves from uncomfortable feelings. These are often situations in which you are giving your child a direction or correction which you intend as being helpful but which he experiences as criticism; that he didn't do something right and feels ashamed about it. Looking you in the eye in these moments feels overwhelming. So forcing or demanding he do so only increases his stress and makes it more likely he will get further dysregulated (laugh, become silly, run or turn away), or just shut down. (My most productive conversations with my son were when he was bouncing a basketball. My initial reaction was, "Put that ball down and look at me when I talk am talking to you", but then realized that bouncing the ball was soothing to him and made it more likely he would process what I was trying to communicate.)

If you have a big reactor, manage your expectations. In recent weeks I have been hearing a common theme from parents: they feel they are doing something wrong and failing because they can't seem to prevent their children's epic meltdowns. They are doing all the "right" things that they have read about: validating emotions and offering calming tools like deep-belly breathing and bear hugs. Not only aren't these tools working, in many cases, anything they try seems to escalate, not reduce, their children's distress. These parents feel like total failures. At the same time they are very concerned about what seems to be such outsized reactions from their children.

As the holidays are swiftly upon us, many parents I work with are feeling very anxious, not excited, about getting together with their families. For most of these moms and dads, their trepidation is because they have children who are big reactors and/or are slow-to-warm-up by nature:

• They have trouble with transitions.

• They crave predictability and don’t like change. They want to stay in their comfort-zone and have a hard time adapting in new situations.

• They are especially overwhelmed by large group gatherings.

This trifecta can result in a range of challenging behaviors: children may retreat and resist participating; or, they get revved up and reactive and melt down on a dime. Both of these scenarios are very stressful for parents. They are embarrassed by their children's behavior, especially when there are nieces and nephews around who are outgoing, angels—charming and compliant. The comparisons, even if not voiced aloud, are palpable; for example, when their sister's kid is eagerly recounting for grandma and grandpa all the fun things she's doing at school while your child is under the table, moping. These parents feel judged and misunderstood: that they have a bad kid and are bad parents who don't know how to control their children.

Understandably, parents go into these situations with a heavy dose of anticipatory stress. Their sensitive, big reactors pick up on their tension which begets more of the challenging behaviors. Add to this the radar these kids have for sensing that others in the family are having negative feelings about them, and, in short, it's a sh*t show.

Tips for reducing the stress of family get-togethers