Welcome to episode 101, where we are talking about one of my favourite topics, highly sensitive children, and I am joined for the second time by a special guest, Sarah Moore, who shares my passion for supporting parents of highly sensitive children. Welcome back to the podcast, Sarah.
Thank you. There's something that feels special about being number 101.
I'm glad you feel that way. I'm excited too, about getting to my next hundred episodes and glad that you're one on one. So a few years ago, as I mentioned, Sarah joined me on season one of my podcast and we had a wonderful conversation about sustainable, healthy sleep habits for kids. And that's episode number 72.
If any of you want to go back and listen to that. And now that I relaunched my podcast, I thought it'd be really wonderful to have Sarah back to talk about another parenting topic. And when I reached out to Sarah and said, Oh, I'd love to have you come back and talk about anything that you're passionate about.
She's like, well, I noticed we're both passionate about this topic of highly sensitive children and their parents. So, um, She said, let's talk about that. And I said, yes, one of the topics I've really wanted to be touching on specifically is the positive aspects of high sensitivity in children and how we can nurture those traits.
So I am going to start off with talking about my own personal experience with this topic, and then invite you to do the same, Sarah. I myself am a highly sensitive person. And not something I necessarily was aware of when I was growing up as a child. I just felt things really deeply and intensely. And honestly, growing up, I kind of felt like those feelings were scary too much.
I picked up, they were maybe too much for people around me. And I kind of stuffed those feelings and created a lot of ways in which I could kind of numb out those feelings and not react to those feelings, which. was a survival perhaps, method or coping strategy, but I came to find out as I grew up, did not ultimately serve me.
So as a young adult I have worked really hard to kind of regain access to all my emotions and my feelings and not see them as scary, but something to be able to. understand myself better understanding my world better and also come to appreciate my high sensitivity. It's part of why I feel called to work with people and support people because of my high sensitivity.
I'm also Really sensitive to other people's emotions and experiences. Well, I also came to be the parent of some highly sensitive children. Two of my kids definitely easily fit into that category of highly sensitive are kind of 20 percent of the population. So I also have the experience of raising highly sensitive children as a highly sensitive person.
And when I became a certified parent coach, Initially, I did not define myself as a coach who specialized in working with highly sensitive children, but I kept on fighting. That's who was finding me and reaching out to me and Several years ago, I hired a wonderful business coach to help me in the business side of my parent coach practice, Jennifer McCallum.
Hi, Jennifer, if you're listening. And she encouraged me to actually define my niche because she said, Ooh, I make it harder for people to find you and receive your support as someone who specializes in supporting parents of highly sensitive children and those who have kind of related complexities. So this is my world.
These are my people. And I love talking about this topic. So I would love to hear you share now, Sarah, your connection and experience with highly sensitive children and or their parents.
Yes. Well, I love hearing your story and I just want to say to little you who is still in this conversation right now.
You always made sense and I am so glad that you now embrace this part of yourself and support other parents because a lot of us self included really needed Messages like yours out in the world. So that being said I too have some first hand experience With this I was raised primarily by a single mom who was clearly a highly sensitive parent.
I myself am a highly sensitive person and I am raising a highly sensitive child as well. So I know this intimately. I work in classrooms. I am like you, a certified parent coach, and I see how prevalent This high sensitivity is and how little understood it still is. So along with you, I am passionate about changing the narrative around high sensitivity to empower parents and children and future generations to see it as the gift and the superpower that it is so that we can thrive in this world where we are often surrounded by people who are not highly sensitive.
Absolutely. Thanks so much for sharing that Sarah. It's I love all the overlap in terms of our experience and why I think we're both really passionate about this topic because there is so many misconceptions and there is a lack of understanding around this population. This population full of gifts. But let's start off first discussing why people tend to have a negative view of high sensitivity or the behaviors that we commonly see in highly sensitive children.
Brilliant question. And what it often comes down to is that they are lumping all sensitivity into one big bucket. That's false. There are two types of sensitivity, and I will spell them out right now. One is the highly sensitive person or the highly sensitive child. The other is the hypersensitive person or hypersensitive child.
There is a difference. On the first side, the highly sensitive child, that is a temperament trait that the child is born with. It's not something they can change any more than they can change their natural inclination to be outgoing or more introverted or anything else that falls in the temperament bucket.
It is measurable on fMRI scans. It is something that is simply part of who the child is. Hypersensitive may or may not be aligned with a highly sensitive child. A child who grows into an adult who is hypersensitive essentially is the child who learned nobody responds to me. Nobody shows up for me unless I exhibit really big behavior.
My tears need to be at level 500 before anybody even notices that I'm crying. Acting out needs to be similarly weighted before people even pay attention. Or perhaps they notice every little misstep that I take and they're hypercritical of me. These are the kids who don't have that emotional support that children need to thrive.
Where they become so afraid of their own emotions. Or so afraid of other people's responses to their emotions that they essentially do become the people who are incapable of functioning in an optimal way in society. That's not what we want. But that is very separate from highly sensitive, because that is something that when we talk about nature versus nurture, that is nurture based, or should I say lack thereof, where these are the kids who learn, I'm not safe unless I am reactive.
And that is what people tend to assume all sensitive kids are when it couldn't be farther from the truth. The highly sensitive kids may have big feelings, and certainly do, but it's not the same as this child who exhibits them in negative ways consistently. So that's a really important distinction. Two flavors, not the same thing.
Absolutely. And so impacted by their environment there, the nurturing they receive and Evan every way from parenting to schooling environments and everything of that nature. Like you've said, this is a temperament. This is a part of almost like the blueprint of this particular human, and we can work against it or we can work with it.
But first understanding what we're dealing with is really helpful. And again, seeing all those behaviors that we associate with like, negative, thinking of it almost like a behavior problem versus recognizing that, okay, let's all remember behavior is communication. The more a child is having these big, explosive, intense reactions to their environment, to their conditions, the more we're aware that this child is struggling and we've got to figure out why.
And it might have to do with their temperament and perhaps the way in which we're reacting to it.
Exactly. Yes. And that being said, for those of us who are highly sensitive, we have to keep in mind that we know more about high sensitivity than anybody knew a generation ago. So, many of us were blamed or shamed or sometimes made to feel like we were too much, as you did when you were little, in that if we learned that our behavior wasn't okay or our emotions weren't okay, unwittingly, our parents or caregivers may have edged us closer to being hyper sensitive along with our natural temperament for being highly sensitive.
But that being said, there's absolutely more information out there than there used to be. For example, we're talking about it right now. People are going to learn about it and there are ways to empower parents and children to respond in ways that are going to really optimize what the kids are capable of and have a much healthier narrative going forward.
That's great. Thanks for creating that like distinction there for us, Sarah. Before we talk more specifically about the positive aspects of sensitivity. I want to talk a little bit more kind of on this idea of kind of, not really understanding it. The needs, the unique needs of a highly sensitive child and maybe some of the mistakes, common mistakes that parents make when they have a highly sensitive child.
Really good question. So starting with the first part of that, what are some of the traits of highly sensitive children? Well, essentially we can look at the emotional bucket first, if you will. So when are highly sensitive children feel their feelings when they feel their emotions? The easy ones, the happier ones, are going to feel more intense.
So their level of joy might be more joyful. Their level of connection and happiness and all of the things that we often label as the good feelings, which by the way they're not, all feelings are simply information, but the ones that we tend to think of as being the easier feelings, they are going to feel those feelings even more intensely.
But the opposite is true, too. Those trickier, harder feelings, again, they're not bad feelings, they are all helpers because they're information for us. But the anger, the grief, the whatever else might be in that category, they might feel those things more intensely, too. That being said, What we need to do as parents, before I go back into more of the ways high sensitivity manifests in childhood, but the more accepting we are of our children's emotions as being information about what they are experiencing on the inside, without imposing our belief about how they quote unquote should be feeling, and the more we can simply validate this is real for them.
This feeling is that intense, be it an easier feeling or a harder feeling, and simply validate and accept it as their reality. The more emotional safety the child will have with those feelings. These are the children who will not have to mask their behaviors, to stifle their behaviors, to push them down, or pretend they don't have them.
These are the kids who are going to grow up saying, All feelings are information. I can handle this because I have the tools and resources and support to help me with whatever it is. Now that being said, Some of the things that we will see that we will observe in our children who are highly sensitive oftentimes encompass things like incredible capacity for empathy.
Now, we know that empathy typically tends to show itself more in children's behavior by the time they're approximately six or seven years old. So, That's certainly not the be all end all. Some kids are earlier, some kids are later. That being said, it has been observed even in hospital settings where you got all the babies, brand new babies, in a room together.
If one baby starts crying, other babies will start crying. That's essentially empathy starting to take root. However, regardless of when your personal child starts to exhibit that empathy, and understanding other people's pain or joy or whatever is being real and having an impact on them. These highly sensitive children are likely to notice this at a more aware as well as a more intense level.
Personal illustrations, I remember with my own child, I remember being at a Big store Costco or a target or something like that with her when she was teeny tiny. She was probably two and a half years old or so and far across the room over many many aisles. We could see the photo lab. And in one of the giant photographs that they were using as their display above the photo lab, there was a family that was looking really joyful.
You know, it's all the things that you expect to see when they're trying to sell, how great their pictures turn out. And I remember from across the room, my daughter absolutely being fixated on that image. And pointing and asking me, what are they feeling right now?
Interesting. Yeah.
Yeah. So that was one of my first clues, although I certainly had a million other clues earlier on, but this was one of my first clues that my child was very emotionally in tune with the world around her.
That is the type of thing that you might see. See if you have a highly sensitive child now, if you're saying my kid didn't do that. That's okay There are lots of ways that sensitivity can manifest. I'm gonna very quickly talk about what it's not High sensitivity is also known as Sensory Processing Sensitivity or SPS People don't usually know that term because it's a little bit more technical, a little bit more medical, if you will, even though it's not a medical diagnosis per se, but what it is not is sensory, issues.
For example, this child who is highly sensitive may or may not care what tags are on their clothes. They may or may not care how bright the sunshine is. They may or may not care how loud the music is. That being said, very highly sensitive children are likely to be more sensitive to their environment overall.
So if you're playing your favorite song and your highly sensitive child is saying turn it down, it's too much, it may literally be that in their body they are perceiving more noise coming in than what you are perceiving coming in. So even though it's not necessarily the same as many of the sensory differences that we hear about, they are often very closely interlinked.
Moving on to what it's not. It is not, again, that hypersensitivity that I talked about. It's not, I'm going to cry at every little thing. It's not, gosh, you just take life way too hard. It's not, a version of, this is going to sound weird, but like childhood narcissism, if you will. There is no such thing by the way, but making everything about themselves, that's just normal child development.
There are lots of things that parents will mistakenly call high sensitivity that absolutely are something else. What you are circling back more likely to see is that increased empathy. Sometimes these kids may be, and I'm saying may because again, it can manifest a lot of different ways. They might be the more intuitive children.
They might be the more creative children. They might be the children who prefer to sit back and observe The world before jumping in to a situation for the first time, this might not be the kid who at the playground immediately goes and joins a bunch of other kids their age and starts playing on the jungle gym with them because they're going to want to take things in at a different level.
That's not to say that all highly sensitive kids are introverts. We absolutely have extroverted, highly sensitive kids, too. But the difference is that these kids are going to be so much more aware of their surroundings because they are literally taking in more at any given moment than a less sensitive person would.
How's that for a really broad summary for you?
Really, really helpful, actually, because again, giving some ideas for parents who are listening about, you know, what am I looking at? What, you know, the misconceptions, the not understanding, but also you are weaving in there some of the things that can happen in terms of like mistakes parents make.
One of the biggest ones. Is this idea around kind of dismissing or minimizing the emotions that are highly sensitive. Kids are experiencing and having judgments about those and understanding. No, that's actually stemming from a more, you know, empathetic or a more intuitive or a child who kind of experiences their world with a more heightened level of intensity.
They're having a larger experience with this emotion because for them, it truly is bigger. So kind of like having too narrow of an idea about, oh, it's just my kid just being, too emotional, right? Versus as you were kind of drawing out, it's not really about that. It's not really about, in fact, a lot of times, highly sensitive kids don't express or feel a lot of their feelings if they're not being
nurtured in a way that is really saying you can have those big feelings. They're valid. This is your experience. Like who am I to debate what your emotional experiences, but again, why I think it's stemming from a lot of the times is just parents who just don't fully understand. So thank you so much for kind of highlighting what this is, what this isn't so that parents might have a greater understanding of.
Who their child is and where some of these behaviors, this, you know, the way in which their temperament of their child is and how it is tied to, again, kind of just who they are, their wiring, and the way in which they perceive and take in information in their world.
Absolutely. And you're spot on because so many of us, especially if we were highly sensitive, were told, Oh, you don't need to worry about that.
Or that's no big deal or whatever when it's not our place to say that. Only they know whether it feels like a big deal to them. And the more we can show up and validate their emotional experience, the more they're going to say, I make sense. And it doesn't have to turn into some big thing, it's actually more likely to turn into a big emotional release if they're not feeling seen or validated for what they're authentically experiencing in that moment.
Yeah, that's a really good point. And I think also, like you pointed out, the idea of labeling emotions and feelings as good or bad, how problematic that is. And how it can really lead us as parents astray in terms of our own ability to kind of attune to our Children and like . emotions, all feelings are valid.
All of them need to be felt and given, you know, life and permission to be expressed. And if we go about kind of like only responding positively to our children, when it is those, you know, feel good, feelings and emotions. What are we teaching our kids, particularly our highly sensitive, super attuned, you know, empathetic Children like, oh, good, bad, something wrong, something not valid, something not allowed, run away, run away.
And where is that going to lead us? No place. Good.
No, exactly. This is the child who learns to mask. This is a child who learns my anger, for example, is not okay. The minute I start to feel angry, I need to just stuff it down because I don't receive other people's love or affection if I feel angry. When really, anger is an incredible helper.
Likewise, with grief, if I feel sad, I'm going to say, this is not okay, I'm so sorry I'm crying, I shouldn't burden you, and not get the support that I might authentically need. And those are best case scenarios. There are all sorts of truly unhealthy coping mechanisms that people have taken on when they are so overwhelmed by their emotions that they don't know what else to do.
And by being responsive and creating that emotional safety with everything that comes up for them, kids are actually much likelier. to have a healthy relationship with their feelings where they don't need to mask them in these potentially really scary ways.
No, absolutely. So our focus of, bringing to light kind of these perceptions and and misunderstandings around highly sensitive children is, so helpful because now I want to dive in more with a focus on the gifts of high sensitivity.
I mean, we focus a lot on what we might label as like, negative or difficult to manage aspects of high sensitivity for parenting. A lot of times that's when parents are reaching out for help, right? When they are in a point of like, I don't know what to do. I'm struggling. My kid, this is so different than maybe my other child or what my,
other peers going through with their children. So they're so focused on what they would maybe define as being like negative or difficult attributes. And just like we don't want to label good or bad or positive or negative emotions. I also hesitate to want to identify positive aspects because there is no positive and negative when it comes to high sensitivity.
So rethinking the way I'm talking about this already through this conversation is helpful, but It is, I think, really helpful to shine a light and spotlight on these gifts that come with high sensitivity because there's so much focus on the parts that are more challenging for a highly sensitive person in living in this particular body and having this particular brain in this particular world that's not necessarily set up for high sensitive populations, but also really highlight.
The incredible gifts you've already mentioned several of them, but just to kind of go through some things and then we could talk about them in more detail. But You've already mentioned the capacity for empathy beyond their years, beyond the typical development of a child at age. And again, these are not in all cases, but in many cases.
So capacity for empathy, creativity, these are oftentimes our artists, our dancers, our musicians, the capacity for compassion. tied somewhat to the empathy, but having that heightened sensitivity, you'll see a child who tends to care about the feelings and needs of others around them from the animal kingdom all the way up through their fellow peers and also adults in their life.
This level of intuition. I mean, sometimes it can be the level of somebody who has Perhaps a gifts beyond the realm of intuition that we kind of associate with people who, feel like they can touch, the other side, understand, those who've passed on, or even be able to communicate at a different level than typically with animals in the animal world, that intuition, but also it's really about the ability to kind of make wise decisions and trust gut feelings because they really learn to kind of attune.
in the right environment to that heightened level of intuition. We also have very oftentimes detail oriented, people who observe notice subtleties and nuances that many kind of walk right by. We have deep thinkers, children who are at very young ages, again, considering, you know, becoming a vegetarian, if it wasn't part of their families, you know, culture already, because they're thinking about, Oh my gosh, what am I doing?
These are animals. And is this okay really common in this age group and also just thinking about, you know, driving by a person experiencing homelessness, seeing that, thinking about that, being concerned, which also ties to a strong moral compass in highly sensitive children. And also the ability to be oftentimes leaders, but empathetic leaders.
How nice would that be if empathetic leaders were in charge of our country, our world. But this is a real gift for that highly sensitive group to be empathetic leaders, not just leaders through force. So anything else that I didn't mention or anything that you wanted to kind of into those really, really high level gifts of the sensitive population.
Yeah, you know, one of the gifts that is sort of tangentially related to multiple things you just mentioned is the ability to trust themselves when we nurture their ability to trust themselves. These are the kids who are going to know themselves better and ultimately, as long as we allow them to know themselves, they're going to have more confidence standing in who they are.
Then feeling like, well, I need to do whatever I need to do to fit in with the crowd because they intuitively understand not only the world around them better, but they understand themselves better too. They're going to be in touch with their own bodies. They're going to be the ones who perhaps when they're older will say, you know, something just doesn't feel quite right.
I'm going to go to the doctor, even though maybe there's nothing really wrong per se. And lo and behold, guess what? Their intuition was absolutely right. I also want to caution people, if anybody is listening to this, who's like, hold the phone, our family is not vegetarian, and we are not going that way, I'm not cooking separate meals, or what do you mean, the other side, you know, we don't believe in that, or maybe we do, but we don't believe that you can just reach out and touch it anytime you want to, is this pseudoscience, and I am going to say, High sensitivity is 100 percent evidence based.
So although the nuances of some of the things you just talked about may or may not work for individual families, that's okay. The goal that we're talking about here is how can we nurture our children to a place where they just trust themselves. Because when they trust themselves, they can grow into all of those things that are visible and beneficial to society as a whole.
If kids grow up saying, let's see, I actually do care more when I care, and I trust myself to care and I feel comfortable caring as much as I care. Guess what? I'm going to become a change maker in the world. I am going to be a voice for those who are voiceless. I am going to stand up for the oppressed. I am going to make sure that I don't stand for the maltreatment of anybody.
What I'm passionate about. These are the kids who just grow into themselves in such beautiful ways, not to mention, I'm talking big picture there, small picture matters too. The kids who feel that empathy, who feel that connection to themselves and to others are going to have incredibly rich interpersonal relationships.
Their friendships are going to be loyal, beautiful sources of joy and inspiration for them. Their romantic relationships are going to be deeply devoted and compassionate to one another. These are the people who, if you're going through something hard, you can give them a call because you know, they're rock solid and they're going to show up for you.
So it can manifest in all sorts of ways. That being said, Word of encouragement that I want to give to parents and caregivers listening to this is it's really tempting as a highly sensitive child to care about all of the people and to want to save the world. We need to teach our children discernment so that they don't grow to care so deeply about those who aren't going to reciprocate.
And I'm not talking about supporting the oppressed. I'm talking about those interpersonal relationships. I personally was great at trying to get all sorts of boys in high school back on the right path, right? Not a healthy approach to life. I really had to learn more about boundaries and self care and making sure that I was going to connect on a deep emotional level with the right people, because sometimes it is easy for less sensitive, less.
kind hearted people to take advantage of the highly sensitive person who is going to be inclined to care deeply. So that's just one word I want to say about there are all the benefits of these beautiful, healthy, lifelong, deeply intimate relationships, but I want to make sure that we're guiding our children to choose people who are going to be, healthy for them as well.
That's really helpful and really a great thing to as your children are growing up and navigating social relationships to keep reminding them about, you know, you cannot help every person you cannot you know it's it's not our role to try and fix people necessarily and how that can really help A person maybe continue to focus on, , what they might perceive as being like a need and then kind of start to kind of take a step back and find out, huh, have I been invited to, support or help, or am I just feeling like I need to go out and like fix every problem, get involved.
So certainly conversations I have with, one of my kids at home is, you know, Oh, this thing was happening at school. And like, I saw someone was upset and I went over to figure out what had happened. And I said, Oh, you know, like, well, yeah, there was a teacher there helping or whatever. I'm like, okay, so why did you, you know, didn't involve you?
What, what? Oh, I just, I just want to be there to help people. And I want to figure out what happened so I can like be a peacemaker so I can be a mediator. And it's like coming from, of course, such a wonderful place, but also kind of helping her recognize that like, You know, there wasn't a crisis. There already was a help.
It didn't involve you. You don't need to necessarily get into somebody else's lane just because it's coming from this place of like, I want to be a helper. So I love that you brought that in, in terms of like, yeah, you might get involved in relationships that ultimately will not be fulfilling and you might be taken advantage of, and you might neglect yourself ultimately, if you're just so focused on the needs of others.
And then you're going to lose. Your own intuition, your ability to kind of gut check and figure out, what is needed in this moment? What do I need in this moment? If we're so focused on, just responding to what our empathy may be, our compassion is leading us towards.
So thanks for sharing that kind of nuanced way of looking at some of the challenges that can come from one of the gifts of high sensitivity that we are highlighting. So you've mentioned throughout this conversation already, a lot of ways in which parents can nurture these gifts that come with high sensitivity.
Anything else that you want to share with us in terms of specific ways to nurture these gifts?
I love that a little while ago you quoted Dr. Ross Green when you said all behavior is communication. We, as adults, need to remember that. I'm saying that in capital letters. We need to remember that all behavior is communication because when our highly sensitive child is Expressing big feelings.
Our job is to get curious about what is going on beneath the surface. What are they feeling? What are they needing? What are they needing right now? What's going on for them so that I can support and empower them in whatever way they might need my support. That being said, I also, as a highly sensitive parent, don't want to take on the role of fixing all of my child's feelings.
Because otherwise, She won't be resilient. She's going to think, I always need mama to show up and help 100 percent of the time. Here's the distinction I want to make. I want her to know that I am willing to show up 100 percent of the time. But not that I have to show up 100 percent of the time. But when a highly sensitive child is struggling, I want parents to know that that struggle is real, and the more supported they feel, the more they will trust that the world is a safe place, and that they can come to you when they have questions, when they want to work through things, and that you are going to validate their emotions.
You might disagree with the choice they made, but the feelings behind it, the You're going to say, that makes sense. I understand why you felt mad. I understand why you felt sad. I understand why you felt the need to get pulled into that situation, whatever it might have been. But the more we can validate our kids feelings and let them know that everything is going to be safe with us, that we are a point of connection and trust, they're not going to be in trouble.
They are not too much for us. We can handle it. We're the adult. We can be that proverbial calm in their storm. By the way, I'm going to talk about that in just a second.
The more they know that they can count on us to show up for them in non punitive ways, the more they grow into trusting us, trusting themselves, and thriving.
And not only the relationship they have with themselves, but also in the relationships with others as well. But being responsive, being connection based, being non punitive, these are some of the keys that really can make or break how our children embrace or don't embrace their high sensitivity. Very briefly, when I talked about being the calm in our child's storm, that can be tricky if we have a highly sensitive child, because their anger might be bigger.
Then we might think it should be, or their grief might be bigger than we think it should be. I have kind of a love hate relationship with the analogy that's so prevalent out there about being in a calm in our child's storm. If my child is in a storm, let's pretend for a second that it's an actual storm.
It's pouring rain outside, she's outside in this emotional storm. If I am going to be the calm in her storm. What do I have to do? I have to enter the storm a little bit. I don't get to stay inside the house and say, good luck out there. Hope it passes soon. I am going to get pulled into that storm. I'm going to get wet.
Right? So to think that I'm going to be completely emotionally regulated and that it's going to be no big deal. This won't affect me at all. would be impossible because we have, from a brain science perspective, we have something called mirror neurons, which basically means that emotions are contagious.
So for the parent who's like, I'm always overwhelmed by my child's emotions, I'm going to say that makes sense. The goal is to say, how can I be the one who brings an umbrella to the situation to say, I've got this. Yeah, we're wet right now, but watch me put up this umbrella. And the analogy with the umbrella is the umbrella represents the tools and the resources that we have to cope when things are hard.
So I'm moving away from just magically show up and be this solid rock for your child. Not feasible, not realistic for most of us, but instead model for your child. This is how I regulate myself when I'm feeling triggered. And one of the things that I use personally in my parenting as one such tool is this simple phrase.
And this phrase is, All of your feelings are safe here. And when I say that, it's a reminder to my child that she gets to feel whatever she feels. because it makes sense to her. But it's also a reminder to two more people. One is my adult self, the parent. Make it so, make it so that all of her feelings can be safe here.
And that means I don't tell her it's no big deal or that I try to mask it with, oh, let's just go watch TV or whatever. Instead, I hold space for those big feelings and say, do you need a hug? I'll hold you if you want me to hold you. I'll walk with you if you want me to walk with you. I will show up for you and whatever you need so that your feelings can be safe in my presence.
And then that final person who was also in the conversation, it's not one we see with our eyes, but it's our inner child. Because many of us were raised, regardless of whether or not we are highly sensitive, many of us were raised with the narrative that some people, the false narrative, I will repeat, that some feelings are good and some feelings are bad.
And when I model through my own active parenting, that all feelings are helpers, all feelings are simply information, part of my inner child heals as well. Because she is also watching, you mean I don't have to run away here? You mean I'm not in trouble here? You mean this is actually maybe even kind of a little bit safe, even though it feels big and overwhelming?
We get to heal ourselves from the inside out as well.
That is such a beautiful way to kind of like draw kind of like back to how we started the conversation in terms of, you know, that kind of surprise. Bonus prize of becoming a parent is like, Oh, this is also about my continued journey of growing up and maybe through my parenting through.
The challenges sometimes associated with parenting, recognizing some growth, some wounds, some areas that we as parents also need to nurture alongside our children. Again, whether we're highly sensitive or not, but again, going back to the fact that this is a temperament and trait frequently that is, inherited.
, there's a lot of highly sensitive parents raising highly sensitive children. And It's oftentimes parallels kind of also going back to the idea of, I know you're talking about the science around mirror neurons, but it's also like, I'm looking in the mirror of myself, literally growing up and having an opportunity to maybe validate my child's feelings in a way that I didn't and what a gift that is not only to our children but to ourselves.
Thank you for drawing that. connection, for us, Sarah, because I think it's, one that oftentimes we don't talk about is in terms of kind of parenting also being a personal journey of healing and growth and maturing as well for us as parents.
Absolutely. I do a lot of inner child work. So I feel this one big time.
Oh, yes. , so I want to, before we get off our call, I want to have an opportunity to talk about your book. Since you were last on my podcast, you have published a book and actually have it here and I am reading it. I, Ordered it recently when you're coming back on the show. I'm like, I've got to read this book.
I know it's going to be full of insight and oh my gosh, so much research. I'm just blown away by all of the, work that went into not only bringing about really, interesting information, but also like, and here's where you can find out more. And here is the science to back this concept. So it's not just like you were talking about earlier, like, oh, is this just somebody's woo idea.
No, we're talking about stuff here that is. Very researched and we have so much information that previous generations didn't have and you're sharing about it in your own way in your book, peaceful discipline, story teaching, brain science and better behavior. Could you tell us just a little bit about your book, what it's about and who it is for?
Sure, absolutely. So, Peaceful Discipline, the title essentially is the summary, but I'm going to do a couple of reframes. One is, discipline is a loaded word. A lot of people assume it means punishment. It doesn't. Discipline means to teach. So, when we have that mindset around it, how do we teach our kids?
Let's go back to the first word. peaceful. But it's not just I want to be peaceful in my teaching of my children. Even more importantly, I want my children to perceive my teaching as peaceful. And this applies not only for the kinds of behaviors that our kids are already doing that we love and we want to reinforce these behaviors, but it's also for the problematic stuff too.
How can I teach In ways that do no harm, how are kids most likely to learn? Well, it's when they feel emotionally safe when the environment feels peaceful to them. Nobody can learn well when they're in fight or flight or chronic stress. So essentially, this is a book centered around what are some non punitive ways to have a connection based relationship with your child, all evidence based, that addresses not only how can we change behavior that needs to be changed, but how can we reinforce the behavior that we want to reinforce, so that, bottom line, we can simply have a joyful existence together.
Because as parents, we want to like our job. We want to go to bed at night feeling like, I had a good day with my kids today. And this book is a roadmap of some of the tools you can use to get there. Where you feel really good about your parenting and your kids feel really good about the way that they're being raised as well.
With healthy boundaries, with compassion, and with a whole lot of love.
That's wonderful. , yeah, go pick up this book for sure. And, congratulations on getting this out there. I know that you're a published author before this, but a book is like, Next level in terms of it. It's on my goal. I'm actually in the baby process of writing my own book, just gotten through the outline and oh gosh, it's a lot of work to throw yourself into this process.
So congratulations for getting it out there. And I know it's being very well received. So I hope all of you listening will, pick up a copy. So I always love to end my episodes with a guest. And I know I asked this of you last time, but several years have gone by your child has grown up and is a little bit older.
So I always love to ask something that you love to do as a family to connect to one another. So what do you love to do, Sarah, with your family to connect?
Good question. One of our big things has always been reading together. We love reading. My husband's a little bit less of a reader but my child and I guaranteed as a ritual every day around four o'clock in the afternoon you will probably find us on the couch reading together and it's just a really nice way to spend some time physically in the same space winding down and just being in each other's presence.
Are you reading, like, a book, out loud, or is it just you're both reading your own books but together?
Good question. Now that she's older, we sometimes do side by side reading, but we also make a point to do a read aloud together, just because it's a tradition that we started when she was little, of course, before she could read, and we haven't gotten tired of it.
But it's been really fun how the books evolve that we've read together. It's no longer, watch the truck go. It's now, , really deep stuff that we can unpack and process then as a family. And by the way, that's Not intentionally, but kind of tied into one of my concepts and peaceful discipline as well because books are great way to experience situations in life without having to go through them firsthand.
So it's been a beautiful teaching and discussion tool for us as well.
Oh, that's so great. I love that and reminding people that, read alouds does not have to be just for little ones that those shared, stories. With our kids as I continue to grow up.
I mean, what a delight to be able to, not only have opportunities to talk about what's going on, but just to kind of like have the shared experiences to build off of and keep that ritual alive as your child continues to grow up. So tell us, Sarah, how can parents work with you? How can they receive your support or follow you?
Give us a little idea of where we can do that.
Absolutely. So my website is dandelion seeds.com. There is a hyphen in there. If you go to Dandelion Seeds without the hyphen, you're gonna end up with, seeds to buy Literal
Dandelion Seeds. Dandelion
seeds. Dandelion hyphen seeds.com is my website.
I have a newsletter that I encourage you to sign up for, and here's my disclaimer, I hardly ever use it. I don't like getting extra emails. I'm guessing you don't either, so I really only use it if I have a giant discount to send to you or something that you are probably actually going to want, so feel free to sign up.
My book, as you mentioned, is peaceful discipline. I do offer a certified and accredited parent coaching program. So people are welcome to contact me for more information about that. And as for my socials, I'm dandelion seeds positive parenting almost everywhere except for Instagram where I am dandelion seeds positive living because the word parenting wouldn't fit.
Got it. And I will be sure to put all the links to the places you mentioned on in the show notes for this episode so parents can just click and follow and find out more about you, sign up for the newsletter and so forth. Thank you so much again, Sarah for coming back on the 3D Parent podcast and sharing all of your wisdom and insights with us today.
Thank you for having me.
