Tips for parenting a highly sensitive 4 year old

[sensitivesoulchild]

Looking for tips on how to parent my Highly Sensitive 4 year old please. They're bright and brilliant, hitting all milestones, but are A Lot of Work. Caps intentional.

Once they get an idea in their mind, they are stubbornly set on it. A specific outfit, activity, food item, or rules to a game - they want it to be exactly the way they've dreamed it up. We pre-warn about transitions / expectations as much as possible, but the meltdowns are epic when things don't go their way. It's not malicious bad behaviour, they literally vibrate with disappointment and can't handle it. The meltdowns can last up to an hour or more.

We've tried co-regulation, distraction, time-outs if it's particularly bad behaviour (limited as negative consequences makes it 100 times worse). We keep responses simple and to the point "we're not having ice-cream for dinner. I hear you're disappointed, and I'm here". But the only thing that really works is throwing them up in the air or spinning around for 5-10 minutes to reset their nervous system. They're a very athletic, physical child and respond well to movement.

Screentime and sugar are limited to weekends, they can't cope with it during the week.

They're quite shy, and take a while to warm up in social settings. For sports classes, we get there a few min early to let them get used to the surroundings first. They did get bullied by another child in nursery this year, which we and nursery took seriously, but I worry this will happen again until they get better with social skills.

We have other children with far different temperaments, so the contrast is very notable. They get on extremely well with siblings, mostly because they're the eldest I think, and get their way the most. All children have regular dedicated 1:1 time too.

My questions - did your highly sensitive DC outgrow it? Is there anything that helps grow resilience or regulation we can try? How can I stay patient through it? Increasingly frustrated with the behaviour, when it feels like we've tried everything, even when I know it's not their fault.

I have one of those, who is 10 now, and if I had my time again, I’d do a little less validation of All the Feelings, and a bit more brisk jolly hockey sticks and firmness

Sorry, just wanted to add that the bit you said about it not being malicious bad behaviour for your DS really resonated with me as this is the same with DD. She knows right from wrong, she’s bright and self-aware but has these moments of complete overwhelm and it’s like a switch has flipped in seconds.

It’s worth thinking about if there are any sensory triggers for your DS (is he okay with clothes, teeth brushing, hair washing, nail
cutting etc? Is he sensitive to loud sounds, crowded places, smells or touch?). How is he after school/nursery, are there any differences at weekends/school holidays etc.

@Ponche it's so hard to define at this age when they're hitting milestones isn't it! Mine has older cousins with autism / ADHD and their symptoms are a lot more clear cut. I've definetely wondered a few times over the years, but keep coming back to temperament as my DS doesn't have other indicators besides big emotions.

For mine, the depth of emotion seems to impact initial social interactions. New surroundings & new people & expectation of interactions in those situations freeze him for a little bit. Once he's given time to warm up he's talkative, inquisitive and interactive, it just takes him a while. I've found putting less pressure on it helps - instead of making him say hi (he freezes and hides behind me) I ask does he want to wave or high-five them. I also role played social interactions a lot, with his toy cars, and that's seemed to help.

To be honest I can handle disregulation, I'm pretty patient, even if it does get grating. Reflecting on this thread has made me realize it's the worry over socialisation that I want to help with. I think one poster described sensitive kids as 'wet lettuces' and that's exactly my fear of how he may be perceived for being sensitive / shy. That fears gone into over drive since he got picked on in nursery. While the cause was the other child's issues, I did worry that mine was the target because he's a gentle soul. Instead of hitting back, he said he ran and his because he didn't want to be mean too. 🥺

For sensory triggers, he's ok with all mentioned and most of the time he is the loud noise! Tiredness is a big trigger, so after nursery is the worst time. He was much better when I was on maternity leave, because he only did a few hours in the morning.

@Rainallnight good to hear different perspectives! I feel comfortable continuing with the validation, but I think a watch-out I've taken from this thread is to make sure I'm not waxing lyrical about it. Acknowledge the feeling, say I'm there, and then nonchalantly move on instead of revisiting every few minutes.

I used the term wet lettuce. It’s a playground insult, but to be fair it’s exactly the kind of thing some kids are called and then shunned by other children. I do think part of our job as parents is to toughen our kids up a bit and not let them be the child who sticks out. Other children don’t like kids who can’t cope with robust playground games (I don’t just mean physically robust of course). No one likes a sore loser or someone who can’t just get on and have fun.

Now, I don’t at all mean that shy and sensitive children should have to be forced into some identikit mould to be accepted. My son is also shy in new environments and a sensitive and thoughtful little person. I’m talking specifically about certain behaviours that, if left unchecked, make for absolutely tiresome children who are just miserable to be around: tantrums, whining, always wanting their own way, unable to play by the rules, suddenly crying over truly pathetic things, glass half full attitudes.

PP has it right with the brisk jolly hockey sticks approach. Quite honestly, if my just turned 5 year old starts with anything close to the behaviour I’ve listed I tell him outright he’s being a misery and I don’t hang around with miserable people. Then I crack on with what I want to do on my own. As you say, it’s hard to know what’s parenting and what isn’t at times… but he catches himself and is very good at just getting on with things. He sees that misery is unpleasant for others, and I can see the cogs going in his brain when he watches friends of his crying and moaning about the most ridiculous things while their parents witter on at them trying to placate.

Listen, I’m only one person, and mine is only one experience, but my daughter was exactly like this at 4 and it took until she hit high school before I finally realised there was something extra going on. Incoming autism diagnosis…..😝

What I wish I had done was have a look at coping/parenting strategies for autistic children and used them. Even if she wasn’t autistic, they certainly would have helped.

This is very bad advice. My child “stuck out” because she was physically disabled. What was I supposed to do to stop that?

There are lots of children who don’t do “robust playground games” and there is a place in the world for them too.

That is clearly different to what I’m talking about. I already said earlier in the thread that OP might consider ASD. I am not talking about children with disabilities.

I wholeheartedly agree with a lot of what you've said. Kids are more elastic at this age so if I can support his development in a way that'll help him 'stick out' less as a target, I absolutely want to do it.

It's just the way of doing it I differ on a little. The overtly brisk approach categorically doesn't work for my eldest, or for a lot of sensitive children. Toughening it out isn't suitable for all temperaments, but I do see that there's a line to tread carefully to avoid overcompensating too.

In other ways, he's a very tough little cookie. I've seen him get split with a bloody nose in sport, hop back up and keep going. We've had better luck encouraging resilience in those areas, so that's definitely something I'm going to continue too.

As a general comment, I do think a lot of parents of sensitive / shy kids get told to get firmer parenting them like they're not sensitive or shy, as if that will solve it. Personally, I believe in meeting kids where they are, and supporting them in that.

Irregardless of if I agree with all advise on this thread, it's been really good for me to reflect on my motivations by reading through the different viewpoints. Ultimately I want my DC's life to be as easy as possible, and that means teaching resilience + regulation - and also how to fit in or be confident standing out.

It does keep coming up on this thread, so something I'm going to keep an eye on for sure!! I'm pretty confident right now he's neurotypical, but I'm obviously not a child psychiatrist either. Can I ask what was the tipping point that made you consider assessment please?

I think the thing is that every child is different and responds differently, and so the more brisk "tough love" might work for some, but I know it is really counterproductive for my son and feeling valued and reassured regardless of if he is being a bit whiny/hard work has done wonders in actually improving his behaviour and making him less sensitive. I don't find the validating emotions while they are happening particularly helpful because it just adds the the general overwhelm he is feeling, but talking about situations and how they made him feel afterwards is really helpful - not labouring the point but just saying, "this morning when your sister wouldn't play with you, you felt pretty cross didn't you?". But none of this would apply to every sensitive child and I think as well as my son getting older things have improved as I have been able to use a bit of trial and error to see what works best for him.

I sometimes question whether my son is ND as well. I had a stage of really thinking he must be at about 4/5 but as he has got older and copes better with life I am less sure. Although very recently a friend with ND kids said to me, if he seems to be displaying more typical behaviour now for his age but you are still having to put 10x more effort into thinking about how to parent him then maybe don't write off ND just yet. Sometimes we underestimate how much we are doing to help our kids regulate and actually things would be looking very different if we weren't doing that.

I found some of the "Good Inside" podcasts about Deeply Feelings Kids (she quite often shortens to DFKs if you are trying to search) really resonated so maybe give them a listen?

I’ve not caught up with your thread but have just seen your post about ND cropping up.

One thing you could do is to look up the Social & Emotional Ages & Stages for his age. The one for 48 months is here.

To be honest I don't have a lot of tips that you don't already have, but I can say that it's exhausting, ours is 6.5 now and I can honestly say that 3-6 were the hardest stages, when (pre)school routines are ramping up and the overwhelm after a whole day is just mounting up.
Basically if they are sensitive then their brain just works in that way, and you can support them to have more experiences so they can get used to it, but they will always be sensitive.
You have to go for a balance of getting them to internalise it (keep it inside and just get on with it) and externalise it (stay at home, lie on the floor/do what they want etc)
In our case until 6 it was literally all I could do to hold things together during the week, basically school plus getting home, eating, toilet and changing into pyjamas, and then getting dressed and eating breakfast were all we could aim for. No baths during the week, no time for playing really, and good luck getting to sleep and staying asleep. Even the above essential stuff had an average success of 50%, dinner and toilet were often a no, it's just one transition after another.

My only suggestion would be it's not you or your parenting, keep plugging away, and keep an open mind for any support offered by school. In our case he was picked up for autism but he's actually always been borderline fine at school, but the school are supportive and know about the pressure cooker effect.

It all sounds good. I abhor the “what are you whining about, stop crying, get on with it” type of thing I have heard from other parents. There’s a difference between being firm but fair, not accepting and coddling precious behaviour, and just being downright cold and cruel. I’m all about breezing through certain behaviours in kids and not feeding it, but some take that too far and it’s horrible to hear anyone tell a child to shut up crying. There’s definitely a balance to be had. I do err on the firmer side, but never cruel or dismissive.

@johnd2 thank you for the reply, and your little one sounds very lucky to have you. What you mentioned about internalising Vs externalising did spark a thought in me, that we might not be enabling enough down time.

We have full time nursery at the moment, and he's out of the house from 08:20 until around 16:50. I have an incredibly generous annual leave package so lots of holidays off together throughout the year, but day to day it's nursery or spending a day out with extended family. We're really lucky that we have large and involved families living close by, but that means at least 1-2 evenings a week we're visiting after work. Once a week is swimming after pick-up, and weekends are sports, family coffee dates, spending time with friends as a family, or going on days out. I'm definitely more extroverted, and it just struck me I've set the entire family to my pace. 😅

Even the mornings, which we do get a large chunk of time together as early risers, feel a bit rushed as we break up the getting ready tasks to avoid one drawn out battle. So every ten minutes we're brushing teeth or sticking socks on, and he doesn't get uninterrupted time. Going to have a think on how we can rejig things to allow more battery recharging time.

Oh wow OP I’ve just seen this. You really need to rejig things to give him more downtime for sure. That’s a killer routine. Work is unavoidable and I know we are very very fortunate in this regard, but my child only does 3 days at nursery 9-3:30. We have a lot of downtime.

I’m not at all extroverted and like plenty of time to be slow and relaxed every single day so there’s never any need to rush in our lives. My kid would really struggle with the routine you have where the week and the weekends are jam packed with so much rushing about, and I’m sure it would negatively impact his behaviour.

Time to maybe start thinking more like an introvert and slowing life down to see if that helps. My kid is definitely at his best just pottering about, which thankfully is mostly what we do.

I guess I never really saw it as a problem as the DC adore their grandparents, and I felt it was so good for them to pop in to them during the week. We live within a 5min radius, so it always felt like a lovely little stroll up.

Sat is typically sport from 9-10, local coffee together, and then pop to the playground where we usually meet friends. Home for lunch or picnic, then afternoon at home.

Sun is swim from 10-11, local market for coffees, then activity or family visit, potentially lunch out, then home for the afternoon.

Once or twice a month is an adventure day, and we go on staycations every 3 months or so.

I get ten weeks AL a year on a full time contract, so they're home for the likes of Easter / a good chunk of summer / Halloween / Christmas.

Not sure if this is a lot by most people's standards, but I'll for sure adapt to see if it's a lot by my little ones! I do feel a little guilty as I could drop to part time easily, but I would give up most of my AL entitlement with that, so it seemed counter productive.

It depends. For me those are actually lovely weekends, but my child isn’t in nursery as often or for as long as yours is so that wouldn’t be too much balanced by other days with plenty of time at home. He so clearly relishes just being at home and in his own garden.

You mentioned the lack of uninterrupted time and I think that’s key. My son gets really deep into play and I swear it’s the kid version of meditation or something! If we are out too much he’s then lacking in that time to just potter about and get deep into his pretend play, building legos, pottering in the garden with his wheelbarrow just busying himself happy in his own space and time.

Yeah definitely going to pull it back for the next two weeks to see if that helps! Ironically he loves a day out as much as I do, but I see the value in what @johnd2 pointed out for having time to externalise at home. We'll try pottering a bit more, and hopefully that will help. 🤞🏼

Overall he's a very happy little boy, but I think a little course correction on emotional regulation now, will keep him happy as he grows.

Yes to be fair we were the same, we used to not work Fridays so we booked tumble tots on Friday morning, Saturday was taking him to park run to watch one of us and Sunday was swimming, then we tried to fit more things in because we thought that was normal and what everyone would do. Then after a while we stopped the park run and switched to leisurely library trip on Sunday as it didn't seem fair rushing him around just so we can feel like we made the most of the weekend.
Now would you believe that he started junior park run on a Sunday and after a year or so of going about once every couple of months, he suddenly goes every week without anyone asking him. So surprisingly he is managing to decide what he enjoys.
But it's still hard work the holidays are the tricky bit because holiday clubs are free designed to be exciting rather than calming.

He isn’t sensitive, he is defiant. He isn’t upset when you say no, he’s angry. Gove the tantrums zero air time. Scream until you’re hoarse love, but I won’t listen until you use your words.

@Floppyearedlab that's great, please tell me how much more you know about my child than me.

Oooffff actually his nursery has a summer enrichment programme for want of a better word, to make it fun for the DC in over summer. Lots of excitement the last few weeks - but it does explain why he's coming home a little more wound up.

not something I've discounted off hand; they're great with group settings once they warm up, back and forth conversation and showing interest / empathy in others, they don't hyper fixate on one particular interest though they do have preferred hobbies and sports, have met all milestones at developmentally normal times, they don't stim though they love being physical - more of an adrenaline junky, great with eye contact, highly creative and imaginative, etc.,

That autistic people don’t have empathy is a common misconception…many have too much empathy rather than too little.
Just to add that my autistic DC didn’t have particular special interests at age 4, he didn’t stim and never had issues with eye contact. Imaginative play was never an issue either, highly creative.

There are unfortunately a lot of stereotypes that people sometimes use to dismiss the notion that their child may be autistic…I know I fell into this trap at least.

Neurodivergence gets more obvious as they grow older so you will see it in time anyway if it is there.
I’m not saying it is of course, but best to be aware. Many autism parenting strategies are useful for NT children too in any case, especially more sensitive children I should think. So have a look perhaps.