5 Tips for Raising an Overly Emotional Child at All Ages
Each child has their own feelings, personality, preferences, and needs. Sensitive children especially need parenting that’s attuned to their unique way of being in the world. In this post, we’ll dive into what makes a child sensitive and how to help your overly emotional child thrive.
The truth is that to best support your big feeling kiddo, it is best to actually refrain from viewing them as "overly" emotional (which implies there is something wrong) and instead accept their big feelings as parts of their personality that make them uniquely them!
By understanding why the highly emotional child expresses in the way that he or she does, we can support even very young children in understanding their emotional sensitivity and learning proper emotional regulation.
By engaging in this kind of parent education, your child's feelings will no longer feel as stressful for the family and you can support your child's ability to manage emotions with more ease.
This article will support you in understanding what is happening under the surface for your emotional children and offer parenting strategies to start supporting your kiddos more effectively right away.
Understanding your emotional child
According to Dr. Elaine Aron's research, about 15-20% of the population have a personality trait that deems them a "highly sensitive person." This is absolutely not a disorder and can actually become a superpower when supported appropriately. Demonstrating this personality trait simply means that your child is perceiving more in their environment than others and has a depth of processing that is greater than their peers.
When properly understood, we can support our sensitive kids in processing big emotions while still engaging in self regulation. When misunderstood, we create harsh expectations for our children to learn to manage strong feelings on their own, which often leaves them feeling really confused (and can lead to greater issues like low self esteem and negative thoughts). In this article, I will provide parenting education on how to best teach kids how to manage their emotions.
Do I have an over emotional child?
If you have a highly sensitive child, their default settings will include some of the following traits:
DEPTH OF PROCESSING
The highly sensitive person trait comes with a depth of processing that is greater than others of the same age. This means that sometimes your young children will present like older kids in their ability to process content and attempt to make sense of their world. It also often manifests in these children bringing up big topics (like birth and death and divorce) even a at young age.
SENSING THE SUBTLE
Highly sensitive children will quite literally take in more information in any given moment than their non sensitive peers. Your sensitive child will actually understand more than their peers, partly because they have access to more sensory input at any given moment (due to different brain activity than non sensitive people).
However, it is important to remember that from a child development standpoint, your child's brain is still operating according to their age. So even though they may present as wiser and more mature in some moments, they will need support that is very age appropriate in other moments.
EMOTIONALLY RESPONSIVE
Sensitive kiddos generally need support in developing self regulation skills because they very easily become stuck in big emotions (whether negative or positive). It is so important to accept your child's emotions as a part of their makeup and prioritize emotional regulation skill building as a natural part of your family system (versus making your child wrong for needing some more support with this skill).
EMPATHETIC
Due to all of the above traits and just generally having huge hearts, sensitive kids generally pick up on other people's feelings and can present as empathetic (at least some of the time). It is also natural for sensitive child to at other times put up walls or blocks towards connection as a protection strategy from all the stimuli they are receiving.
It is helpful to learn to really understand and celebrate your child's empathetic nature while also supporting them in learning how to set appropriate boundaries.
EASILY OVERWHELMED
Your highly emotional child will likely become overwhelmed really easily. Having big feelings can be a lot for the nervous system and can make for an often exhausting human experience. Limiting stimuli when you can tell your child is reaching a limit can be helpful. It is also important to prioritize extra 1-1 time and time to unwind to support your child in managing overwhelm. I'll share more on 1-1 time below!
BIG HIGHS AND LOWS
I always laugh with parents that I work with that for their highly sensitive child, it is usually either the best day or the worst day of their life...and sometimes they have both of these experiences in the same day!
I encourage you to accept and learn to love your sensitive child's strong reactions that can show ups with big highs and big lows, as it is generally a behavior that does not shift a ton over time for sensitive kids. You can, however, teach your child how to better understand each strong emotion and then find appropriate ways to communicate them and respond in a more grounded manner.
Please note that many of these concepts are adapted from Dr. Elaine Aron's work on "the highly sensitive person," which you are encouraged to look into.
What makes emotional kids so sensitive?
There is quite a bit of research on what contributes to a child's high sensitivities. Here are some proposed contributing factors.
A lot of it has to do with the differential susceptibility model which posits that a child's level of sensitivity relates to a difference in brain development. The model suggests that some children are simply naturally more susceptible to being very sensitive to their environment, while others are not. Some studies have actually showed a difference in the size of the hippocampus (which is the region of the brain that stores memory).
By the way, this model of differential susceptibility suggests that sensitive children will respond more intensely to both positive and negative factors...meaning they will suffer more if they receive bad parenting and thrive more with good parenting.
This makes it really important for parents to understand their sensitive child's feelings and prioritize the mental health of their entire family, by learning the appropriate parenting techniques.
There is also evidence for differences in neurotransmitters in the brain for children with a highly sensitive personality trait. Many of these factors our outlined in this article on "What is a highly sensitive child?" (Note, this article is helpful in making a distinction between a highly sensitive child and a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).
How to support emotional children
Now that you have a sense of whether your child's emotional reactions relate to their being highly sensitive, take some deep breaths! You are now one step closer towards getting the most appropriate support for your family as your child grows.
Many parents feel angry that their child is having difficulty with managing emotions; I encourage you, however, to feel hopeful that you will now be able to retrieve information that will support your child in feeling more understood.
5 parenting strategies to help your overly emotional child
#1: NORMALIZE BIG EMOTIONS AS MESSENGERS
The more you understand your child's big emotions as parts of their unique make up, the more they will feel supported in being able to use their own emotions as tools to help them come back to center more quickly. Emotions actually store a lot of information.
Generally if your children feel upset, and they can learn to name emotions and allow them to move through, they can then actually integrate new skills to know more clearly what they are needing or desiring.
This does not always mean that they will get they want! Helping kids, however, to always respect and listen to their emotions (such as sad feelings and emotions of anger and anxiety) will support them in managing emotions on their own in the long run.
#2 PRIORITIZE CONNECTION
Parents that I work with know that at the core the transformational support I offer parents is supporting them in connecting more deeply to themselves and their children. When the connection is strong, all the other stressors become less of a big deal.
If you prioritize connection, you will teach your child they are worthy of your time and attention; and therefore, they are more likely to respect your redirection and teaching of new behaviors when they are upset. On our course page, you will find a free 15 minute audio lesson on how to practice 1-1 connection time that will support your long lasting connection with your child.
#3 FOSTER SELF REGULATION
The number one way that children learn is through seeing a model of the desired behavior. This is the science of mirror neurons ("monkey see, monkey do"). Expecting your child to talk to you when they are upset or having a hard time is simply not realistic.
Instead, you can focus on offering co regulation until your child is calm enough to express what they are feeling inside (if at that point it even matters).
This process can only effectively occur if you as a parent have engaged in life skills to understand and manage your own emotions. Check out this blog post for how to practice healthy emotion regulation yourself (so you are ready to teach your child later).
Engaging in a mindfulness practice consistently (even if just for 5 minutes a day) is also a really important way to lead your entire family in learning helpful tools for emotional regulation in a socially appropriate manner. Your child will only engage in emotion regulation and self regulation skills to the extent that you practice and embody it yourself.
#4 EMBRACE LOVING BOUNDARIES
There is nothing more dysregulating to a sensitive child than not knowing what the boundary is.
Even though, it is normal for many kids to consistently test boundaries, it is particularly important for the sensitive child to be supported in managing emotions by receiving clear, loving, and consistent boundaries.
When I teach about boundaries, I encourage parents to ultimately ensure that their child understand that every behavior is rooted in a feeling, need, or desire. Any child psychologist or clinical psychologist would agree with this fact that every behavior serves some function.
If parents can validate their children's feeling, need or desire (when they are pushing a boundary) and then consistently create boundaries that will support children in managing their emotions, it is more likely that boundaries will stick.
Remember though, it's like a slot machine, if your child wins once, they will keep playing! This doesn't mean that you have to be perfect; just expect the reaction you will get if your boundaries have been loose, and don't blame your child for that!
I feel so passionate about parents learning how to set proper boundaries and would love to support you in a deeper understanding if you are interested.
Shoot me a message through my contact form saying "loving boundaries," and I will send you free access to module 8 on Loving Boundaries of the TUNED IN course that will offer you a deep dive on this topic.
#5 CELEBRATE YOUR CHILD'S UNIQUENESS
If you have a sensitive and emotional child, your kiddo is simply different than other children. It is likely that your child may initially have a hard time learning skills to express big feelings of anxiety, anger, and sadness. This is because for these kids, the emotions feel so big, that it gets overwhelming.
Throughout family life, talking to your child about these big feelings will become easier, but while their brains and hearts are in early development, it is much more important to focus on celebrating them for who they are!
You will have plenty of time later in life as a parent of your kids to talk and teach to all the lessons you hope they learn. However, if your kids don't have a basic template of feeling unconditionally loved and accepted for whatever behaviors they are showing you, talking to them about "the real stuff" will become much more difficult, because the loving connection will not be as strong.
Special considerations for older emotional children
If you have an older emotion child that is consistently demonstrating anger or upset, it is important to remember that it is not too late to build a strong relationship for supporting yoru kids with their emotions.
It might take some time to rebuild trust if your child has received a message over and over again their feelings are "too much" for you as their parents, but in time, if you demonstrate that you can hold their experience without becoming angry yourself, they will be more likely to talk to you.
Here are some considerations for supporting self regulation on your older child demonstrates big angry, sad, or scared feelings.
Allow for big feelings
Particularly with hormonal shifts towards tween and teen years, it will be so important that you create an environment where your child feels like big feelings are allowed...even angry feelings! You can even offer words of encouragement when your child is having big feelings like "It's all okay. These feelings are okay."
There is so much power in teaching your child that their feelings are allowed, as long as they keep themselves and others safe.
Don't take anything personally
Children, especially slightly older children, often need to project on people they are securely attached to in order to individuate and find themselves. Please engage in your own personal work to engage in self regulation when your child is in a process like this; and while of course, you are are not going to allow yourself to be treated like a doormat, it is a natural part of development for your child to sometimes brush you off or push you away. Allow this, and they will come back to you later.
Continue to prioritize connection and create loving containment
Boundaries are even more important for older children. Make your boundaries clear, consistent, and age appropriate. Inquire with yourself and your co-parent about whether you need to adjust boundaries due to your child's getting older and adjust as needed.
Also, please be willing to identify in moments you are feeling angry, whether anger is actually the emotion present...or whether you are actually feeling some fear or anxiety.
The more you can accurately identify what you are experiencing and then engage in self regulation, the more clearly you will create boundaries. If you have prioritized, staying in connection to your child (by engaging in activities they like to do with you), the easier it will be to set the boundary in the difficult moments.
Give your child space
Older children need a lot of space to find themselves. If they don't get the space now, they will push you away more intensely later. Allow your child be in their own space and have hard days without micromanaging their experience. They will respect you more for this and your long term relationship will be stronger.
Trust your child's process
Your child is rapidly growing! Quite literally from ages 14-16, the pre frontal cortex is growing at its most rapid rate (along with the 2-4 age range). For this reason, your tween or teen may sometimes act like a toddler.
This is okay! They are going through a huge transformation. Trust they will come back around to a mature space, and they don't need you to make them wrong as they go.
The TUNED IN course can help you learn more about supporting your overly emotional child
If this information has been helpful, it is likely you will benefit from diving into a self paced learning journey by taking our signature course, TUNED IN. This program can be taken any time. You can listen along like a podcast. And it will change the way you relate to your child, parenting, and your entire family, for good.
You may also benefit from individual parent coaching which will support you in clearing any stuck points preventing you from showing up for your kiddos in the way they need you most. Check out this page for all the information you will need on parent coaching support.
Please reach out if you'd like to discuss whether the course or parent coaching is a fit for you and your family.