(If you have missed my previous blog post on sensitive children, HERE it is)
These children need to be restricted by what they see on the television, making sure they don’t see violence, bullying, or people/animals getting hurt. The reason for this is that they experience these much more personally and the images will haunt them and may cause nightmares. Not only for young kids, but also for teenagers, so always keep this in mind.
They also stress immediately when someone looks angry or upset. The first thing their minds jump to is: “What did I do wrong?” and the child may not hear a word you say while looking this way. This means that the child never hears what he/she actually did do wrong, so they probably will do it again.
When your child needs disciplining, make sure that your face and body language is neutral - no frowning, thin mouth line, aggressive or defensive body position, etc.
Understandably this may be impossible for many parents. No need to worry - if you can’t get a hold of your body language, ask the child to close his/her eyes before you explain what they did wrong and how you want them to fix it (apology?).
These kids also do extremely well with visual recognition. Draw up a reward chart (or print one out from the internet!) and mark the chores and behaviours you need from him/her. I suggest using the gold star and black dot system where a gold star is received for every positive behavior and a black dot is for every negative behavior.
You can do this either on a day-by-day chart (1 week at a time) or an open chart where actions receives recognition when done or not done, irrespective of when. What I like about the open chart is that a child can get more than one star (or dot) per day if they deserved it.
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| Day-to-day 1 week chart |
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| Open chart |
What you need to understand about the chart is that sensitive eye children want to see good recognition and fear bad or ugly feedback. If you can give the black dot “the ultimate bad” reputation, the child will fear it going on the chart and rather do good things to make the bad things disappear. You are responsible to give the stars and dots the association the child needs to understand and pursue them.
Put the chart up somewhere where people will see it. It is no use hiding it in the child's closet, because then his/her friends won't accidentally see it. The child must want to to be proud of the chart when friends see it. The kitchen is always a good spot.
Make sure that the child is always present when stars or dots are put up (or taken down).
More examples of charts (click on the image to see a larger version):
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