5 Tips for Highly Sensitive Parents with a Highly Sensitive Child and a non-HSC 

Are you parenting a Highly Sensitive Child (HSC) and non-HSC? Then this guest post by Katie Leigh Matthews is for you!

Katie Leigh Matthews is a freelance writer from Birmingham, Alabama. She writes about life as a Highly Sensitive Person, shining a light on HSP’s strengths and encouraging them to find more compassion for their lived experience.

So, without further ado, here are Katie’s 5 tips for highly sensitive parents raising a highly sensitive child and a non-HSC.

5 Tips for Highly Sensitive Parents with a Highly Sensitive Child and a non-HSC

When I discovered my firstborn was a Highly Sensitive Child, I immediately began my quest to learn and implement the best practices to nurture my unique kid. I thought I had found my parenting groove, rising to the occasion of raising my extraordinary son.

Then his sister was born.

Far more impulsive, carefree, and uninhibited than her brother, our non-HSC has more energy than the rest of the family combined. I knew conventional parenting advice wasn’t the right fit for my HSC. I had to learn that a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn’t cut it when parenting an HSC and non-HSC together.

It can be overwhelming to parent wildly different kids, especially as sensitive parents are already prone to overwhelm. Striking the right balance with an HSC and non-HSC is one of the greatest challenges – and greatest joys – of my life.

Here are five tips I’ve picked up along the way to navigate parenting a Highly Sensitive Child and non-HSC.

1. Trust Your Sensitive Strengths

Hopefully, you are already aware of your superpowers as a Highly Sensitive Parent. Just in case you aren’t, allow me to remind you. Your ability to notice the subtleties in your kids’ moods, interests, and phases is something other parents might not be so quick to pick up on. Perhaps that’s one reason parenting an HSC and non-HSC can feel so daunting – we are extra aware of every nuance! But when it comes to meeting each child’s needs, that’s a great skill to have.

As a sensitive parent, you can trust your intuition to know how best to parent your unique kids. You have a deep sense of what they need most. In making decisions about my kids, such as screen time and involvement in extracurriculars, following my gut has always yielded a better result than whatever I felt I should do according to external advice.

We sensitive parents know all too well that all parenting decisions involve risk. Trusting my intuition is the best risk assessment I know.

2. Embrace a Unique Relationship with Your Unique Kids

One of my greatest parenting joys has been releasing the expectation that I would have the same relationship with my Highly Sensitive Child and non-HSC. Deep and meaningful connections need not look the same for everyone.

You may find a deep connection happens more easily with your HSC as you both experience the world in similar ways.

Having a non-HSC has allowed me to learn how to cultivate a meaningful relationship with someone very different from me – something I’ve always struggled with. Sensitive parents can develop a deep connection with their non-HSC by exploring the subtleties of their non-sensitive child, which often comes easily to us anyway.

Again, trusting yourself (and your kids) is key. Enjoy getting to know both kids deeply, as you are wired to do!

3. Let Yourself ‘Sink’ with Your HSC and Learn to ‘Float’ with Your Non-HSC

I like to think of an HSP’s depth of processing as a sinking – we sink into life’s subtleties and stimulations as well as its joys and sorrows more than non-HSPs. My HSC gives me ample opportunity to sink into the depths of life’s experiences and I want to show him that there is strength in the sinking. I love to sink with him even as I strive to remain a buoy for us both.

In contrast, my non-HSC has surprised me with her ability to show me what floating in life looks like. One of the first phrases she learned to say was, ‘Don’t wowwy (“worry”) Mama, don’t wowwy!’ – which speaks volumes about her perception of me and is probably something to ‘wowwy’ about!

Still, I see her approach life with a delightful lightness. She isn’t easily bothered and doesn’t get bogged down when things don’t go as planned. I try to follow her lead and go with the flow a bit more in daily life. A non-HSC can give Highly Sensitive Parents lovely opportunities to learn to float.

4. Celebrate and Respect Your Kids’ Differences with Your Kids

Sometimes parents can be hesitant to talk about their kids with their kids. I feel this misses worthwhile opportunities to teach them that differences are to be celebrated and to see value in diversity.

I try to do this with my kids’ strengths and struggles. When my HSC is overwhelmed by an outing, I may tell my non-HSC, “Your brother tends to notice lots of things about a new place. He just needs a break and then he may want to show you what he is noticing.”

Likewise, when my non-HSC is enjoying life as she does, perhaps twirling around and singing to herself in a restaurant, my HSC often looks over at me with a smile and a shrug, saying, “She’s off in her own little world again.”

I hope that in helping them understand each other, they learn to appreciate each other’s unique traits as well as their own. By celebrating each child simply for who they are, we equip our kids with the confidence to value their own strengths while they learn from others.

5. Celebrate and Respect You, Too!

Recognise the amazing parent you are for parenting your very different kids. See yourself in the things you love about your HSC and notice the ways your non-HSC takes after you. Respect yourself by knowing your limits with each child’s temperament and honour your boundaries for everyone’s sake.

Parenting is tough. Parenting as a Highly Sensitive Person can be really tough. Being a Highly Sensitive Parent to an HSC and non-HSC can be tougher still. But there is wonder and joy in the overwhelm, too. We do well to embrace and nurture our sensitivity in it all.