The Benefits of Being Highly Sensitive
There are many benefits of being highly sensitive. However, you may need to point those benefits out on a regular basis to your highly sensitive child.
A Highly Sensitive Child Feels Different
There comes a point when a highly sensitive child realises they react and behave differently in various situations than their friends do. They inevitably view this fact negatively.
When that happens it’s a good idea to be ready with a list of positives to counteract the list of negatives that they will invariably reel off about themselves.
Why Can’t I Just be Normal?
One of the most heartbreaking conversations I have had with my higly sensitive son centred around the questions,
“Why can’t I just be normal? Why don’t my friends get full? How can they go straight out to play after school without feeling full from school?”
What do you think normal is anyway? I asked him.
Normal is overrated.
Who want’s to be like everyone else?
Everyone is different. Different is not right or wrong, it’s just different. But the conviction is in the detail.
Negativity Spirals
It wasn’t a one-off conversation. It’s one we have every now and then when he’s feeling down on himself: when he’s had a meltdown he couldn’t control, when he needs time out alone instead of being out playing with his friends.
But he now knows that for all the downsides of being highly sensitive, there’s a long list of wonderful things about being highly sensitive.
The Benefits of Being Highly Sensitive
Emotionally Tuned In
My son is the first to notice when someone is upset and he tries to comfort them. He shows empathy beyond his years. He can imagine how it would feel in someone else’s shoes.
There is no fobbing him off. He reads emotions, he feels beyond the words that are said. He notices the nuances. My highly sensitive son notices when a mouth smiles but the eyes don’t. He demands openness in those around him.
Affinity with Animals
He sees the beauty in a robin red breast landing in the garden to feed from a fat ball he helped make. He gets angry at the idea of animal cruelty. However minor.
Creative
He’s incredibly creative and can amuse himself for hours with nothing more than paper, pens, scissors and glue. He loves making things and drawing.
These are the people who bring beauty to the world, the artists, the designers, the architects, the creators.
Heightened Senses
He hears things that other children tune out. He was the first to spot a deer running in the dunes a few days after he asked why he was different to his friends for the first time. Suddenly, he heard a rustling in the trees that the rest of us didn’t hear. He glowed with pride for a week afterwards, and still, months later, refers to that day and his ‘super ears’.
Notice the Details
He notices the details. He knows when someone is wearing a new top. A new haircut does not go unseen. He comments on it, gives compliments. He knows when something has moved or been removed in our home. And my son is observant, a great skill for later in life.
Deep Thinking
He questions how things work, thinks about things in more depth than others his age. These are characteristics of the engineers, the scientists and the inventors of the future.
Want to Make the World a Better Place
He has a desire to make the world a better place. My child takes the misery that some people live in to heart. He asks how we can help those in need. These are the healers and the carers of the future.
Touched by Music
He’s touched by music. Last week he lay in the relax tent we created for the boys with headphones on listening to classical music after a busy morning of school. He was in a world of his own, lying on a big cushion with his eyes closed, his penguin hat on to keep his head warm and I’m sure he could have stayed there all afternoon had he not been hungry, and hadn’t had to go back to school!
These are the musicians of the future, brightening our world with beautiful sound, energising or calming us in a way only music can.
Exercise Caution
He’s cautious. He thinks before he acts. My son weighs up his actions before he commits. He considers options and outcomes. For one thing, it has meant zero trips so far to the emergency room with him – touch wood.
Great to Have Around in an Emergency
He has an amazing sense of smell, which makes life richer. He’s also the boy to have around if a fire breaks out; he’d be an early warning system for sure.
Wears Heart on Sleeve
He wears his heart on his sleeve. His emotions are there for all to see. It makes him vulnerable, but it also ensures he reaches out when he needs our support. He shows his affection and comes regularly in search for cuddles and hugs.
And that is something, as his mother, that I see as the most wonderful of all his highly sensitive traits. Long may it remain.
Further Reading
Want more benefits of being highly sensitive? Check out this great post on Bustle. Want to understand the difference highly sensitive people make in business ? Then read this.
This is beautiful Amanda, as always. I hope our little HSCs realize how special they are and how lucky the world is to have them.
Thank you – that is the message I so desperately want to get through to my sensitive boys, and that they go through life knowing that! ?
I am loving reading your posts, I find them helpful and positive
Thank you so much – that’s very encouraging!
Thank you, Amanda, for this post. It feels so good to read how positive it is to be a HSP (HSC in this case). I wonder why your son thinks he’s not “normal”: when children use this word I always cringe, because someone probably made them notice (often in a very rude way) that they are “different”. But, as you say, “normal” is overrated and, to be honest, it seems quite boring to me 😉
His idea of normal is what he sees – and that’s his friends in the street coming home from school and going straight out to play without needing down time. And of course ‘doe even normaal’ is uttered a lot here……. ? I avoid the word in this context but did have to deal yesterday with a conversation that started with, “I wish I wasn’t highly sensitive.” We talked about the plus sides and he seemed reassured again. It also helps to realise his mama is a HSP – then he knows there’s light at the end of the tunnel and we learn to ‘manage’ overload. Most of the time in any case ?. Thanks for your comment!