Careers for highly sensitive people (orchid child)

[Wearegettingthere]

What sort of careers would you suggest for a highly sensitive person?DD likes acting but that is a competitive world. She doesn’t want to do office jobs. I thinking working for herself would suit her best. Something like therapist, acupuncturist, etc. She is very creative, perspective, imaginative but doesn’t cope well in stressful environments.

I’ve heard it all now. How old is your daughter? Is she too highly sensitive to plan her own career?

Surely it's up to her what she does for the rest of her life? Orchid child 😂🫣

Yep. I'd definitely leave it for her to figure out herself. She'll.get there on her own.

How old is she? What is an orchid child?

Tbh the best thing you can do is to build up her resilience. The world won't care about her sensitivities nor change to accommodate her. She needs to learn the skills to succeed.

Do you mean therapist as in emotional counsellor? I wouldn’t categorise listening to people’s problems as stress free- especially if they tell heartbreaking stories of their pain and trauma.

Dealing with the public is stressful. Even if you mean beauty therapist, how would she cope with people complaining about her work and some will!

No idea what orchid child means but what about working outdoors or with animals instead of people?

Is an orchild child one that is hothoused?

@Wearegettingthere why have you made two posts!

might be too late for this but don't encourage a sense that she's set apart from others by her delicacy, or give her a made-up label to encourage that. Everyone has sensitivities and challenges, whether they push them forward all the time or not. Help her to recognise that; to play to her strengths and interests; to rub along with other humans, who are as complex as she is; and to be resilient in the face of life's inevitable disappointments.

You could at least respond on one of them though…or are you also an “orchid” and finding the responses a bit much?

I just googled and apparently an orchid child is in contrast to a basic bitch dandelion child.

Being selfemployed is tough. Unless you have a wealthy partner so you get to waft around all day "running a business", that is

<<grabs popcorn and settles in>>

Apparently an orchid child is highly sensitive, perceptive and 'biologically reactive' (whatever that is) - struggles in stressful environments. The opposite is called a 'dandelion child' - Hardy, resilient, can thrive anywhere they put their mind to. I'm a dandelion and raised dandelions even though we all care about other people we 'just get on with it'.....

PS anything creative is a brutal path to walk, not suited to people who aren't tough. You will get rejected over and iver again, and unlike other lines of work, your professional rejections are intimately tied to your inner essence and ego. In other words, work rejection can feel like a rejection of you as a person unless you have the resilience to compartmentalise and put things into perspective and learn to dust yourself off again and again

I’m a dandelion and have one orchid and one dandelion. The orchid is being exposed to situations that’s gradually making them a bit hardier and at the same time focussing on their strengths and we’re not dwelling on what they can’t do. I get it, I really do, but we are trying to let them find their own way.

Yes, exactly re therapist. My sister is a therapist. She specialises in addiction issues, and has been attacked and threatened. One of my closest friends is a couples therapist who spends a lot of her day triangulating other people’s anger, distress and disappointment. My own therapist used to work with teenage boys who were outside the school system.

The training is very challenging and requires a lot of therapy of your own, self-knowledge and hard work, usually while holding down a day job. The local degree course most local therapists around here took is jokily referred to as the ‘divorce course’ by its students and former students.

It’s not about sitting around in a pastel room with a box of tissues looking sympathetic!

I wouldn't go to a therapist who was more anxious and sensitive than me.

Labelling your child an Orchid is bat shit crazy.

Is she like one of those kids of Z Listers who has ' too much personality' for school so have to be homeschooled by their parents who barely have a GCSE between them?

I'd suggest choosing a career based on a speculative theory for 2 year olds is a bit silly and to let her find her own way.

Can someone explain all these flower analogies?
We’re all just people trying to find a way in life and we’re all made differently. The labels are ridiculous.
I’m sure your daughter will find her own way provided you allow her the freedom to do so….

Florist?

Googled it, I’m a proud dandelion.

Thank goodness my kid is too!

I'm assuming from what I've just read, that it's a hippy term for sensitive autistic kids.

I think that you need to just encourage her to find her own path and what she is interested in. Maybe working with animals? Therapy farm?

OP has started another thread. Probably didn't like our replies.