Sensitive children need to be parented and disciplined in a different way and their specific sensitivity must also be taken into account. Read about understanding sensitive children.
Children with a sensitive eye:
- Are sensitive to body language
- If people LOOK angry, they assume it's their fault and goes into stress
- Are distracted by movement
- Is prone to daydreaming
- Do not like to see violence or pain
- Find it hard to say “no” to people, even if the request is irrational.
- Want people to look happy. If not, they’ll try to cheer the person up in some or other way.
- Want people to like them. If one person doesn’t like them, they’ll be fixated on that and rarely focus on the people who do like them.
- Are compassionate towards other people and sincere empathy comes naturally to them.
- When they stress, they feel like the whole world is against them, nobody cares about them, everybody hates them and they may even be scared.
- Need VISUAL recognition
- Show affection with hugs, kisses, notes, special gestures, attending their games/concerts, etc.
- If your child does not get the recognition he/she needs, they will assume that the opposite is true.
- It is vital to understand your child’s sensitivity. Giving the wrong kind of recognition leads to misunderstandings and lots of heartache for both parent and child.
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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 near 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 reward charts. You can draw one up yourself or print one out from the internet and mark the chores and behaviours you need from him/her. You can use the gold star and black dot system where a gold star is received for every positive behaviour and a black dot is for every negative behaviour.
If you're not a fan of the black dots, you can achieve the same goals with rewarding gold stars, but taking stars down for bad behaviour.
Here are two examples of charts: closed and open. For a closed chart only one star/dot is awarded per day for a specific behaviour while on an open chart stars and dots are added when it is applicable.
If you are using the stars only, then the open chart will work best for you.
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Day-to-day 1 week chart |
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Open chart |
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 and family 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).
I hope this helps a few parents out there. Let me know what you think. If you have challenges with your sensitive children you are welcome to comment, I will do my best to assist you.
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