What you need to know about raising a highly sensitive child

‘Highly sensitive’ children pause before they act, because they feel so deeply that any change in their life is dramatic

Tue, 08 Apr, 2025 - 01:53

Helen O’Callaghan

Your child takes in everything from the world around him, he seems highly perceptive, observant. He misses nothing, not even the nuances of mum’s and dad’s emotions.

“Up to 30% of children are highly sensitive,” says chartered counselling psychologist Dr Aoife Durcan, whose book, Your Highly Sensitive Child, is out this Thursday.

“From the get-go, you’ll notice they’re very intuitive kids, deep thinkers, who also feel things deeply.”

Durcan says these children tend to have big hearts and lots of empathy, but she smiles as she says so. Because while a child may tick a lot of boxes for ‘high sensitivity’ — a term first coined by American psychologist Dr Elain Aron in the mid-1990s — Durcan says these children’s empathetic qualities may not be apparent until they are older.

“Parents often laugh and describe them as fiercely determined little souls, who are strong-willed and really driven by their own needs,” says Durcan, who explains that it is also developmentally appropriate for children to be more egocentric, even the deeply-thinking and feeling ones.

Deep-feeling, sensitive souls are born with heightened emotional awareness, Durcan says. In her practice, she helps parents understand why their child becomes so quickly activated under stress, explaining it in terms of the child’s ‘window of tolerance’, a concept first described by US-based neuro-psychiatrist Dr Dan Siegel as ‘that certain window in which we can manage a range of experiences and sensations throughout our day’.

Durcan says that when we become stressed or overwhelmed, we can be pushed out of our window of tolerance more easily and when we get tipped too far out we can feel extremely anxious, out of control or angry.

And highly sensitive children, because they feel so deeply, can be more easily pushed out of their ‘window of tolerance’.

A mother of two boys — aged four-and a half and almost three — Durcan is 32 weeks pregnant. Both her boys fall in to the highly sensitive category, particularly her first-born, in whom she sees a tendency to be tentative about new experiences.

“Highly sensitive children are known for being a bit more reflective before diving in to something,” Durcan says. “They’ve an internal ‘pause-to-check’ system. This can be misunderstood as anxiety or shyness, whereas they’re just taking time to survey their environment, to take it all in, before they feel comfortable to dive in, to show their true selves.”

She observed her little boy at his playschool graduation, as he stood at the side watching the other children who were already singing and dancing: “He was standing, with a thoughtful, serious expression, not getting involved. I could have misinterpreted it as anxiety or shyness, but he was being authentically himself and taking it all in. This tentative nature is often mistaken for fragility — it’s just slow to warm up.”

Make time for transitions

More sensitive children often find transitions challenging, so Durcan recommends moving more slowly with them. A transition could be any kind of ‘moving from one to another’— from ending the weekend to starting a new week, from getting up in the morning to getting dressed, from playing to having breakfast, from watching television to doing homework, or from travelling from school to home. “Sensitive children often need us to go a little slower with transitions — they often just need a bit more time. Trust in their process,” urges Durcan.

A major transition in early childhood is starting pre-school. “It may be their first time separating from their parent and because of their capacity to feel so much they become really upset, a lot harder to soothe and take a lot longer to settle. It can be hard for parents to manage this.”

At such times, even a parent’s natural wish to comfort by giving the child a hug can sometimes be too much for their little one. “For a sensitive child, in the depths of their sadness, this can be experienced as ‘too much’. They’re already processing so much for their internal world — any further sensory input can tip them in to too-muchness.”

Durcan’s heart goes out to parents in these situations. “They become so worried and stressed if their child’s having a huge meltdown — ‘what will people think, that I have no control of him? I have to get him to stop’.” Big emotions can easily be misunderstood, especially from the perspective of old-school narratives: ‘Oh, he’s just being difficult, he’s purposely being manipulative, he’s being bold’.

Psychologist Dr Aoife Durcan. Picture: Yvonne Keane.

“Yet it always comes back to that the child is experiencing the feeling so deeply, their little system has become flooded with the fight-or-flight response, which generally translates in to bigger meltdown.”

Sometimes she finds parents are advised to take a ‘drop-and-go’ approach when bringing their child to pre-school. It is key, she says, not to be afraid of big emotions. “By giving the emotion space to be felt, you let it move or pass.”

She recommends preparing your child for that pre-school parting (as much as you can) and letting them know their emotions are OK.

“You might say ‘I know love, it’s hard when I have to go to work and you’re going to playschool. I know you’re sad and I’m going to miss you, too, but I love you so much and I’m going to be so excited to see you later’,” suggests Durcan, who urges parents not to “be afraid of the tears”, or of “making them more upset” — their upset is completely normal and appropriate.

She says doing this validates the child’s upset, their emotion, helping them feel understood by their parent. “Feeling ‘Mom/Dad gets this’ helps build resilience over time — that little buffer inside.”

Challenging for parents

In an ideal world, Durcan says teachers and other adults in the child’s environment would not “pathologise” the child’s separation anxiety — sometimes by comparing them to other quicker-to-settle children. “It’d be great to have understanding that — much like neuro-divergent children — some children are going to find transition difficult and it’ll take time. And to ask if there is anything we can do to make their little nervous system feel more comforted.”

Sensitive children are also prone to feeling shame, particularly within social dynamics, she says: “They’re so quick to notice when they’ve done something wrong, something to disappoint another person — they feel it very intensely.”

Much of Durcan’s work involves reassuring parents, supporting them to be kinder to themselves. “Having a sensitive child with big feelings does make things feel a bit harder sometimes. It can be so easy to feel you’re doing something wrong. It’s not a reflection on you — you’ve got a little person who feels everything so much. So go easy on yourself.”

Durcan says so much of parenting will activate our childhood wounds: “Reaching out for support can massively help us understand why we might find certain behaviours in our child difficult.”

And count your blessings. “When highly sensitive children find their interest, they’re often so creative. Having a child with such a big heart, who notices so much about the world around them, can be a gift to us as they grow — and a gift to others.”