Sensory issues - parenting info for reluctance to try new things

Introduction

Sensory issues can be hard to spot. I have found that parents often get extremely anxious and wound up about the fact that their highly sensitive child refuses to try new things. Often they have no idea they are parenting a child with sensory issues. They are often distressed when they approach me for help with their child’s reluctance in new situations. Whether that’s the first day of camp, a new after-school sport or a party with people s/he doesn’t know, they can trigger meltdowns and flat refusals to participate. What is often distressing for the parent is that the emotional response seems so inexplicable – the child actually loves going to that place, or doing that activity, or hanging out with those people. So what is going on? This can cause great frustration and concern to you as a parent. You want your child to be happy and also socially integrated and “normal” as far as possible. You may end up seeking therapy such as cognitive or play therapy for your child – which I will argue here is not necessarily appropriate. The initial factor which is often overlooked is your anxiety about your child’s issue. I don’t say this as a criticism or to apportion blame. Rather the mechanism by which these issues are passed down is often invisible unless we can see the bigger generational picture. We will look at some of the dynamics of what may be going on, and how parents can support their children in these situations to feel better, be more relaxed, and continue to develop.

Anxiety, shyness and holding back – what do they mean?

You may be very aware that your child signs up for a new activity like soccer or drumming. Yet when the day arrives for the first class they cry or throw a tantrum and don’t want to go. If you manage to get them in the car and drag them along, they may enter the area clinging to your leg whilst protesting and looking away. Does this sound familiar? You’re well within your rights to ask yourself what is going on. It can be very frustrating, given their initial enthusiasm to participate and their repeated requests to you. Some parents even get so worn down that they develop anxiety in advance of the new class starting themselves.

There are probably at least three separate issues going on here, which we will deal with separately. Understandably as their parent, you may wonder if your child has a “real” problem, and they may need to see someone. I don’t mean to diminish the severity of the behaviour and its dramas. However I am going to suggest you finish reading this article before you come to that conclusion. In my experience it often avoids resolving the real issue, which stems from the relationship between the parent and child – you will see how this works out below.

Often the second aspect of what is going on is that something is happening in the child in this new situation that leaves them feeling very scared or unsafe. When new things are scary even for adults, the level of fear can border on excitement because we know how to rationalise – we are able to think about the fear. So parents sometimes use this as an argument to encourage children – but it really misses the point as what the child is experiencing is way stronger. They are experiencing one or more emotions and body sensations that frighten them to the point of dissociating and spacing out, or they are simply overwhelmed and shut down to survive – hence the meltdown. They may include tingling, dizziness, nausea, stomach ache, headache and a number more. These are all indications that your child needs more support to go into this situation and be successful. I will suggest here that the support the child needs is best given by one or both parents, with support from a parenting professional. That support comes from more attuned relationship from the parent(s). More on exactly what in a moment.

The holding back is often a self-protection mechanism, even though it may look like an annoying and unnecessary habit. Your child is sensing that there is something that will be unpleasant for them, too much and overwhelming, or just too frightening. Their body is sending them those signals, even though they may relate to past events, not to the present. To avoid trauma, they try to withdraw in advance. This is actually intelligent, and one of the first steps in working with you as parents is to show you how to trust your child’s instinct and take note.

A third aspect may be social overwhelm which is a separate topic. Highly Sensitive Children perceive and absorb vast amounts of emotional, physical and mental information when they meet new people. This is why they are usually better able to cope one on one, and even then they take a time to warm up and get comfortable. You may already have observed how if there are at least one or two children at a party that your HSC already knows, then getting into the swing of things is much smoother. Those people serve as anchor points, or safe islands to connect with and move out from. Or just to stay put with and weather the noise and chaos with more safety. So if your new activity or situation involves a lot of new people too, it may help to be aware of this. However, this is quite a complex subject so I will be dealing with it in a later article in more depth.

First things first – helping you the parent manage your own reaction

Parents often don’t count their own reaction to their child’s issue as a factor in what is going on. The child has the problem. But this isn’t always so because HS children’s behaviour are hughely influenced by their parent’s emotional state. I always ask how a mother or father feels about their child’s behaviour. Often the answer is anxious, worried, and often includes frustration. If the reaction is strong, the first thing we do is work on clearing the charge to their child’s behaviour. I have worked with a number of mothers who have been able to clear their own anxiety and learn to be (mostly) calm and present in their bodies when their child goes into the typical behaviour. Sometimes this takes weeks, sometimes it can take a year or more when there are long-term deeper family issues at play. As soon as the adult shift happens there is usually an immediate change in the child’s behaviour. Why? Because a non-anxious parent who is present with their child makes their difficult experience a whole lot safer, just by being there. Their nervous system supports the child’s parasympathetic system and ability to sense the body. And if they learn to accompany the child and talk to them whilst they are having the experience, things are guaranteed to work themselves out. We’ll look at this idea with practical suggestions below.

Sensations – slowing down and getting to the bottom of things

I’m going to suggest something here that has worked for many of the parents I have accompanied. First of all, think back and remember what signs of discomfort you have observed in your child before the new situation. Do they go through a familiar sequence as the moment approaches? Would it be possible for you to be calm and as the moment approaches, connect with your child as soon as you start to notice them getting upset or agitated? You might just ask gently how they are and what is going on. Or offer a hug and a glass of water. Or a comforting touch. Something to let them know you are with them.

For example, “Hi Sam, I can see you’re getting a bit antsy or nervous. What’s going on?” You may get a reply about that funny feeling, or feeling dizzy, or sick. The important thing here is to be very connected inside your own body as the parent so that you can get a good sense of your child, independent from yourself. You may be able to ask them if they can feel their feet, or what part of their body feels good. You can reassure them that whatever they are sensing, you can take a few moments out to feel it with them, have a drink and some quiet, breathe some fresh air and wait until they are ready to proceed. You may want to share that you sometimes get these feelings too, and that it’s ok to feel them but they don’t are not dangerous and don’t mean you have to stop what you are planning to do.

Helping your child regulate their nervous system can increase their capacity to sense

What is going on here neurologically is that you are helping them to regulate their nervous system by reducing the overall load, helping things subside, and lending them your own calm system to attune to. If you can help your child to be aware and stay inwardly connected, they will start to regain a sense of safety even with the sensations inside their body. Over time this means this means that the same sensation will be something they recognise as familiar, rather than causing panic. For this to happen they will need your help in practising noticing, slowing down and naming the sensation. Try to stick to actual body sensations rather than emotions, as sensations are easier to isolate as felt facts. Emotions usually come attached to very loud circular mental stories about things that take you into the mind and right away from sensations. This is useful if the sensation scares you, but not so useful if you want to overcome your fear of it!

A real-life recent example

I recently worked with a mother of a five-year-old girl who repeatedly refused to go to ballet classes although she loved dancing. It got so bad that the girl started vomiting every time before even getting in the car and her mother had to stop classes. When I started working with the mother she was convinced her daughter needed medication. However after three months, we had begun to tackle the mother’s high anxiety, and she was learning to handle her own stuff separately from her daughter’s reaction, things turned around. The mother was able to stay calm as a birthday party approached instead of dreading her daughter’s reaction. She managed to spot her daughter literally going pale twenty minutes before they were due to leave, and was able to pause the proceedings. By sitting her down and asking questions, being calm, gentle and connecting sensitively, she found out that her daughter was experiencing tingling in her legs and thumping in her chest. She was able to make her daughter feel a lot safer by being present with her until the sensations had passed, and later on shared what sensations she herself would feel when she got anxious. Her daughter had a lot of detailed questions! She didn’t make it to that party, but she wasn’t sick. Instead, they stayed at home for a quiet afternoon – a wise choice on that occasion to help her child integrate rather than pushing her immediately. She went to the next party and was able to enjoy part of it before getting overwhelmed. Fast forward to a year later and her daughter is back at ballet classes and her phsyical co-ordination has improved beyond the teacher’s expectations. This often happens when children integrate an unresolved sensory disturbance…

What are shyness or anxiety issues really about?

When a child is shy, anxious or reluctant these are usually symptoms of something deeper going on. This is not really such a revelation – probably most people would assume this to be the case. The question for parents is how do you resolve the symptoms if you don’t know what the issue is? The answer often lies in looking wider than the behaviour. Sometimes there is a family history of anxiety that is being passed on. Other times the root of the answer lies in a lack of sense of physical and emotional safety for the child – simply put, feeling unsafe. In Highly Sensitive Children this is sometimes at an emotional overwhelm level where they shut down and pull back to protect themselves, and more often simply at the level of unfamiliar sensation in the body. Without going into too much detail, traumatic events like birth, early infancy, breastfeeding, and even events in the womb can leave unresolved experiences that affect small children’s ability to develop higher capabilites. The area of the brain that deals with survival and fear develops before the part that thinks, processes thought and speech, and social relations (the pre-frontal cortex). I’m not a brain expert, I’m more of a super-detailed behavioural observer. And yet I can tell immediately when a child won’t be able to respond to requests to use their words or to calm themselves down. Children develop this ability at different ages from about 3-4 onwards, and some much later if they have sensory issues. If a child is having an experience at a sensory level that is life-threatening, then they won’t be able to think about it and even less communicate it in words. What will really help them is for you to perceive what is happening and be with them at the sensory level to help them readjust their sense of the surroundings from dangerous to safe.

What I learnt from taming that scared wild animal

The best way I can explain this in simple terms is dealing with a wild cat or any hurt animal. Most people know that you can’t go straight over to a wild or injured animal with an outstretched hand. First, you have to stop dead still and notice. You might calm your own nervous system and just look, but not in a too direct or threatening way. You establish a sense of being there without expectation, like companionship. You wait, you receive. You see the animal breathe and soften, or you feel its system decrease at least one level in alert. It may blink at you – you blink back. Only then can you take a very slow step, make a subtle movement and wait for adjustment. You may offer food but it will take a long time usually for the animal to creep out, and maybe not until you leave. However, over time, if you are consistent and very aware, you will build up a relationship. This is how you can tame totally wild animals that have never been in contact – and it works for calming totally traumatised people, and helping them to feel safe and trusting. The body needs to feel safe by connecting with another safe body – even without touch – that perceives them accurately but allows them to be as they are.

How to apply this to improve your relationship with your child

You can develop your relationship with your own child in exactly the same way – and I’m not joking here. If it works with an animal that can’t process thought, it will work with your child and their instinctive self. If you have a highly sensitive child with behaviours you can’t resolve, then they may well need this kind of careful attentive approach. Of course you need to put aside your offence at their being that scared – often its hard to say what has caused your child’s issues, and its unlikely to be through any conscious fault of your own.

Only an extremely traumatised child or adult would need the level I describe for a wild animal. And yet I routinely work in this way with all new clients who exhibit body tension or fear, as it resolves all underlying developmental issues quickly and they can make huge strides through old patterns of behaviour to new, much safer and better-feeling states of functioning and relationship. I worked with one infant from about a year old for several years who was later diagnosed with a genetic disorder. I mainly worked with her sense of safety in the body, and was able to regulate her digestion and get her to poo when constipated just by gently touching the top of her head, as I got to know how her scared sensory system responded to the right touch. As practitioners, we know immediately that a body is tense if the digestion has stopped and there is constipation. It’s also incredibly easy to release and regulate. But her system was always very scared – and I explained this to her mother, who listened and adapated. The amazing thing about this girl was really her mother’s dedication to the relationship. Her mother’s attention and persistence allowed the child to develop her own signing system by age three not only to communicate needs but to have very warm and humorous interactions with people she cared about. She still couldn’t speak and yet went to school, and had an active social life. All against the predictions of medical experts who didn’t ever think she would get that far. By age 4 she was swimming unassisted and beginning to make sounds. I feel that the early work we did with her nervous system via observation and craniosacral touch will have set the foundation for her success, and continues to support her development, along with her mother’s instinctive support and understanding. I realise that few parents have time to function at this level of detail or calm in daily life. And yet you may be motivated if you have been having long-standing difficulties with your child. All it takes is 20 minutes a day or so. And over time you are likely to see dramatic improvements.

Just slow down and tune in

When you slow down and attune your relationship with your child, by not pushing them in these sorts of holding-back situations, you create a space for healing to occur. Staying very present in your own body and sensation, and emotionally and verbally connected with them when they are frightened creates increased safety. This safety allows things to happen on their own that would otherwise be too scary. Having an emotion or sensation is possible when your parent is really with you and it may be impossible or overwhelming if you are alone or disconnected. The child may spontaneously make a step towards development when they are allowed a safe space. You don’t need to know exactly what emotion or sensation your child is experiencing or why for it to move through and resolve. You just need to be present with them. They don’t need to know either. Breathing and allowing are very powerful and things can resolve in moments and minutes, and undramatically. As your child starts to recognise the things that scare them being triggered they will learn to reach out to you for help. “Mum I’m having that feeling”, for example. “Which one?” may be a helpful response. “The one where I get scared and don’t know what to do”, may be the reply. This is a queue for you to step into a calm presence and be there with them. A brief time-out may be necessary before plans can resume.

Small steps create big changes

If I were working directly with a child I would work exactly in this way. It’s also the same way that I work with mothers when they show up for their session panicked or disconnected. I have done the same with scared and wounded animals since childhood to get them to trust me. We relate. We look at one another without moving, we feel each other. We breathe, sense, and get back into the body, allowing sensations. When you support your child in this way as their parent you are simply making some adjustments so that the child can feel safe in small steps. You are noticing how they are, the difficulty they are experiencing, and slowing things down so that both you and they can accept what is being experienced, together. Instead of the experience creating fear and overwhelm, your joint acceptance creates a space for it to exist and integrate. What seems huge shrinks and melts away. When you practise these small steps consistently every time your child freaks out, you create deep trust with your child. They learn cumulatively that they can count on you when they run into difficulty, that they can speak up or reach out their hand when they are scared, and that you will be there with them. You will sense them, speak with them, listen, and maybe hold, cuddle or touch them as they need until they can calm down and readjust. This is an attuned relationship at its best, and if you are patient, it will resolve the majority of your child’s issues over time. It also allows the opportunity for really detailed communication, and for teaching your child about their inner world of sensation and emotion. This can set you up for good two-way understanding as your child grows up and their needs change and develop. It’s like a problem- preventative and future problem-solver all in one.

Isn’t all that the therapist’s job?

Well it really depends on if you are invested in having an excellent relationship with your child. I was talking to a parent this week about how much her son’s anxiety has reduced. She reminded me of a time when she wanted to take him to a therapist, and I gently nudged her into doing her own work instead. She carried on doing the work of taking him aside when disturbed, allowing downtime, letting him feel, helping him feel safe and verbalise, and refocusing her own anxiety on other things. She went through her own process to be able to come off her long-term anxiety medication. She really began to live as her authentic self with all her feelings intact. She commented how absurd it would seem to her now to take her son for help rather than working on her relationship with herslef and him and his sense of physical and emotional safety. That was such a profound moment where she verbalised her own experience of building a consistent empathetic bond with him where he knew she understood and was available to be with him. Results like this can be really life-changing in the depth that they touch parents and children. And the process is simple and within many parents’ reach. Why does our culture encourage us to hand this over to a therapist I wonder? I don’t consider this the therapist’s job, I feel it is the parent’s role – in fact because of the deep bond and level of trust that the child has with the caretakers they live with, that person has way more power to shift the relationship fast. The child is primed to notice and respond to mini-shifts in emotion, mood and attitude for their own survival in a way that they are not with a therapist. The therapist needs way more skill and depth of feeling to connect with the child and it takes time to build up the kind of relationship necessary. Of course it’s possible – however, in the long-term, I feel it’s beneficial for the parent to have these relational and problem-solving skills themselves if at all possible. Not least because their state constantly broadcasts a nervous system model to the child that they can’t help but imitate.

In the words of the same dedicated mother last week: “we took our son to a baseball match last week. In the past he needed noise-cancelling headphones and he would have been anxious and overwhelmed. But he has got so much better at trying out new things – his anxiety level is right down and he even went out on the pitch with the other kids without thinking about it. I’m so grateful for the work I’ve done with you – I can see the result in my child first-hand”.

Conclusion

I have tried to give a sense of how anxiety and reluctance to participate in new events may relate to an HS child feeling afraid at a sensory and scared for their survival. I have shown this by anecdotal evidence of my own experience of working with parents to show them how to resolve their children’s difficulties. In my view, it seems logical that when a child has these sorts of issues, the first avenue for help would be supporting the parent in refining and improving their relationship with themselves and with the child, rather than sending the child for external support. Since a child will usually return to their family after any kind of intervention, it is their parents who will most influence their nervous system and sense of safety. So working on helping parents be calm, creating an accepting non-judgemental environment, and slowing things down would seem more effective. That way they can accompany their child in their everyday activities after school and so on, and resolve any recurring blocks that cause emotional issues or disturbances. I have also suggested that building this kind of relationship is a useful investment for preventing later problems and resolving other issues as the child grows up. Ultimately it also empowers the parents to know how to solve their own problems by trial and error and to trust their child’s instinctive behaviours and learn from them. Behaviours that appear problematic can provide rich learning opportunities that improve family relationships and create deep trust and connection for life.

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