Tips To Empower Your Deeply Feeling Child

How To Understand Your Deeply Feeling Child

I was a deeply feeling child who was told my feelings were wrong. All of them. That made me think I had a fatal flaw. It didn’t go away with age. I became deeply feeling adult, and now I’m a deeply feeling senior. Throughout my life many people have told me how to feel, or not to feel, or I’m wrong to feel. I never liked people trying to manage my emotions, and it never helped.

Are you highly attuned to everything going on around you? Can commercials, romantic comedies, and mean people make you cry? How do you react when a loved one says you’re crazy? Do you go ballistic? I’m all of that and more. My strong emotions still run away with me sometimes, but now I have the tools I need to calm myself and get out of it. That’s what deeply feeling children need to learn. Sadly, I didn’t know that as a mom.

Let’s get one thing straight. Being unusually sensitive is not a personality disorder or character flaw although it can be inconvenient for others. Let’s unpack.

What Is A Deeply Feeling Child

Deeply feeling children experience the world more intensely than other children. They have big emotions and often big behaviors. They’re the drama queens of our lives, hurtling through life with a million and one raging feelings both good and bad. They can be challenging to live with and need some special care to learn self regulation.

A deeply feeling child may seem like an out-of-control-two-year-old who has a hair trigger reaction to absolutely anything. What they (we) are is highly sensitive in every way. We have strong feelings about many things including sights, sounds, smells, texture, but also people’s tone of voice, moods, behavior. A change in schedule, a surprise, a criticism. Anything can set us off. We can go from zero to a thousand in a nano second. There’s nothing wrong with having feelings. Children and adults shouldn’t be shamed for their reactions. They should be empowered to manage themselves. Learning self regulation is the key. Here are a few empowering tips that work for the whole family.

Tools For Cultivating Self Control

Kindness, thoughtfulness, positive social behavior, and empathy practiced by the whole family.
Establishing a routine that includes healthy diet and lots of sleep. Stick to it.
Avoid last minute changes and surprises whenever possible.
Use positive reinforcement that show you recognize efforts are being made.
Set limits and boundaries in everyday life, a routine of healthy communication and actions.
Stay calm during meltdowns. Create a quiet time and then talk to label the emotion that caused it.

Dos And Don’ts For Deeply Feeling People

Do create a toolkit for healthy responses.
Do work together to find coping strategies when overwhelmed by feelings.
Do journal to process emotions.
Do encourage everyone to work hard and persevere.
Don’t say: There’s nothing to be afraid of. Your feelings are wrong. Don’t be a baby. Don’t cry.
Don’t try to fix a failure. Allow them to learn from failure.
Don’t give in to negotiating meltdowns. This goes for adults too.
Never tell someone to calm down and relax.

Caring for a deeply feeling child can feel like an emotional rollercoaster, with high highs and low lows. However, there are a number of simple tactics parents and caregivers can employ to help these kids manage their intense feelings, simultaneously empowering them to confidently take control of their emotions. Care.com

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