Is Your Emotional and Sensitive Child Struggling at the Holidays? Here’s How to Help

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Spoiler Alert: The most wonderful time of the year can also be overwhelming, especially if you have an emotional or sensitive child. With new schedules, loss of routines, loud noises, and bright lights, the holiday season can be a minefield for kids (or parents 😉) with nervous systems that are easily overwhelmed. As a parent, it can be tough to get through the struggles – because you know what? As parents, we are all just trying to make the holidays happy and memorable (in a good way) for our kids. Even though parenting a highly sensitive child is tough, their sensitivity is actually a gift. But, parenting a highly sensitive little person who doesn’t naturally thrive in situations that are new or intense isn’t always immediately instinctive…

I want you to know that you are not alone! I’ve been there. A lot of other parents have too. Did you know it’s estimated that 15-20 percent of children are highly sensitive? I’ve got tried and true strategies to make the holiday season more enjoyable for you and your child. There are definitely ways to help your highly sensitive child through the stress of the holidays and other challenges. So put on your fuzzy socks and grab a cup of hot cocoa because the holidays are about to get waaaaaaaay better!

Common Behaviors of Highly Sensitive Children

Does this sound a little familiar, but you still wonder if you have a highly sensitive child? Highly sensitive people experience the world in a way that is more intense than it is for the rest of us. More overwhelming. Sometimes, it can also be very frightening. This is their neurological hard wiring on display trying to process sensory information on any given day. At any given moment. As a result, situations can easily and quickly become overwhelming. But never fear; this sensitive hard wiring has its positives as well!

So what do you think? Do you have a highly sensitive child? If so, stick with me.

Holiday Traditions For An Emotional and Sensitive Child

It has always been important to me to create traditions for my boys. Since my oldest was six months old, we always threw a holiday ornament exchange party for our friends. Once he was in preschool, the gatherings grew to include his school friends and their families. Once our second son was born, the party again grew. It became quite the anticipated tradition both in our family and for friends who had attended since the beginning.

But all that changed one year. One of my sons was not excited as we selected ornaments for the swap. He told me he didn’t like the party and asked if he could “skip” it. I quickly saw that even the idea of a party was totally overwhelming for him. The party had too many people, too much happening too quickly, too much noise, and a lot to look at. It was just altogether too much.

So we changed our holiday tradition early on. As teens, they now have strategies that help them through challenging situations and I’ve wondered if they might be willing to start the tradition again. We’ll see. But for now, we adapt things that are easy to adapt. Now, we have a small ornament exchange with our family and our neighbors.

Making these kinds of adjustments—where they can be made—will make it easier to get through other situations that cannot be adjusted.

How Deeply Feeling Kids Struggle at the Holidays

You probably have a pretty good idea by now whether you have a highly sensitive child. Hopefully, now you don’t feel so alone, and you’ve seen that there are plenty of other parents with an emotional and sensitive child. Let me help you imagine what these children struggle with.

I try to think about the holidays from my kids’ perspective. They are continually excited about everything happening – parties, celebrations at school, stockings, candies, toy catalogs, planning service projects, and for the little ones, photos with Santa – it’s all very exciting! And then they have to handle so many new experiences. However, a highly sensitive child may not find these new situations exciting. Instead, they may cause stress or even physical discomfort. The truth is, even for many adults, new situations can be challenging.

Holiday Sights, Smells, and Sounds – Oh My!

When my other son was little, he constantly pushed all his books to the back of his bookshelf. I would then pull them all forward again. He would push them back. At first, I figured my son thought we were playing a game, even though felt like a chore to me. But then I realized he didn’t like the visual “confusion” of seeing all the different book spines. He wanted a calmer visual environment, so he pushed them all to the back so he wouldn’t have to look at them. Just imagine the holidays for this child! Lights, decorations, brightly wrapped presents, shiny ornaments, yard decorations, you name it! The visual stimulation is never ends!

My boys are both sensitive to smells, but one more so than the other. I think he might be part bloodhound. 🤭 Imagine all the new smells at the holidays – fresh greenery throughout the house; a freshly cut Christmas tree, freshly bathed dogs (that could be just us…), baking smells from the kitchen, and all the smells people bring with them – soaps, lotions, perfumes, hairspray, other hair products. If you’re attending a potluck – imagine the cacophony of food smells. 😵‍💫

Cheerful holiday tunes, exploding fireworks, or even sizzling sparklers, and frequent get-togethers during the holidays bring with them a potentially sensory overload of sounds. What many of us view as holiday joy may be stress- or anxiety-provoking or even physically uncomfortable or painful for emotional and sensitive children.

Finally, I don’t know about you, but I seriously dislike crowds. Crowds necessarily mean all of the olfactory, auditory, and visual stimulation mentioned above – but more. People bump into you. You must be careful where you walk. Trying to find their way, people move in unexpected directions.

Newness and some uncertainty necessarily come with the holidays. Parents and children need reliable tools to survive the holidays. Children need to be able to use these tools later in life to persist through any other new situations they face. The truth is, we can’t eliminate new or stressful situations for our children. So, we must teach them how to handle the newness and uncertainty. But how?

Plan. Plan ahead. And then plan ahead more.

Helping your kids anticipate what to expect and set expectations helps more than you can imagine. Planning is an excellent life-long tool to ease tension in the moment. Discuss any new situations with your child—in whatever way is most age-appropriate—and firmly set expectations for each of you.

As an example, you may be worried that your child will eat something that they find unpleasant – bad taste, slimy texture, whatever the objection. Decide on two things. First, how do you want your child to react to the situation? Second, evaluate how realistic your expectations are.

Then, discuss this hypothetical situation with your child and clearly state your expectations. Maybe you can even role-play what an appropriate response would look like so that your child feels confident.

Trust me; the skill of planning is useful in many other areas of life and this lesson will never go to waste!

When I was in law school, “a trap for the unwary” was how our professors described any of the myriad ways we could screw up on an exam. Or in court. And then they would include a little wicked smirk for good measure.

So…here’s a trap for the unwary (absolutely zero smirks from me…). As a parent, you must not only be aware of your child’s emotions, but you must tune in to your own emotions and manage them appropriately. Highly emotional children are like sponges—they will soak up your stress and worry. 😱

But think about it this way: they will also soak up your calm and confidence if that is what you are showing them. 🤩 So, as you are discussing appropriate expectations and role-playing with your child, be aware of your own feelings about the situation. Is it really important to you that your child not play with her food because your father shamed you for playing with your food? And if he sees your child playing with her food at dinner, will you relive that shame?

Just make sure none of your stuff is coming through you to your child. We can teach and emotional and sensitive child how to handle newness and uncertainty by modeling our own calm responses.

I have always believed that we all do the best we can with the tools we have. If you want your child to behave better, you must figure out the basic needs underlying the behavior and provide your child with alternative tools to meet those needs.

Behaviors are your child’s best way of telling you that she is overwhelmed. She is using the tools she has available to feel safe. You wouldn’t get angry at your child for hanging their artwork with a shoe. You would give her the proper tool – tape or a picture hanger – and then teach her how to use it.

If There’s an Emotional Moment, Get Curious!

Let me also warn you: Nothing with children is guaranteed, and nothing is perfect. So, when you find yourself in a moment of emotional chaos, here’s what you do.

So start by replacing your shame, anger, embarrassment, or desire to punish your child for their behavior with curiosity. I know it sounds strange, but get curious about why your child behaves the way they do.

It’s time to get curious! Why was she overwhelmed in this particular moment? She felt “icky?” Why did she feel icky? Her feet felt crooked? Why did her feet feel crooked? She doesn’t know? Let’s take a look. Oh! Her socks were on crooked and the feeling on her feet was all she could think about so she wasn’t paying attention to Grandpa.

If your child is in a position to discuss their overwhelm with you, ask her to tell you specifically what it is that’s overwhelming her. Then, respond appropriately to help your child feel safe. Other times, an emotional or sensitive child may just be too overwhelmed in the moment to discuss it with you. Take that opportunity to remove her from the situation and help her feel safe. You can discuss alternative strategies later.

Happy Christmas To All, And To All A Good Night…

The holidays are a challenging time for everyone, and especially so for highly sensitive children. But you’ve got this, mama. Understanding how your highly sensitive child perceives the holidays is the first step to helping prepare them for new situations they will certainly find themselves in. Then, prepare your child for the situations you can anticipate. Set reasonable expectations and even role-play with them to practice appropriate responses. Keep your own emotions in check and model calm and appropriate behavior. And finally, get curious!!! Always seek to get to the root of your chlid’s behaviors.

Taking these steps will allow us all to breathe a bit easier during the holiday season and embrace the magic of the holidays by creating a truly inclusive and memorable experience for everyone.

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