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100 reviews for:
The Highly Sensitive Child: Helping Our Children Thrive When the World Overwhelms Them
Elaine N. Aron
3.76 AVERAGE
100 reviews for:
The Highly Sensitive Child: Helping Our Children Thrive When the World Overwhelms Them
Elaine N. Aron
3.76 AVERAGE
I wish I had read this when my kids were younger, as I gained so many insights into his personality and my own. It was not that I was unaware of our traits, preferences, and behaviors, but understanding it under the umbrella of sensitivity helped me see it in a new way. I appreciate her take on both the upsides of being highly sensitive and the potential challenges. Before reading this book, I associated aspects of being highly-sensitive with introversion, so it was interesting to tease out the differences.
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
A helpful overview of the HSC (highly sensitive child), Which includes 15-20% of children. Most of the book, however, focuses on the more common type of HSC, the "shy" kids (I'm not supposed to call them that). My child is in the 30% of HSC that are outgoing and social, but also highly emotional, explosive, resistive to change, and hyper aware of details, sounds, etc. the "drama queens". So while I learned a lot from the book, not a ton of the practical advice in it applied to me. The only section explicitly aimed at parents of my daughter's type can more or less be summed up as "you are so screwed... But your kid will turn out pretty cool if you all survive their childhood". Still, I did get a lot of insight into the way my girl sees he world, and some tips on how to work around her temperament. I also discovered I'm probably an outgoing HSP myself, so... Sorry mom.
informative
slow-paced
I feel like a lot of the parenting “advice” in this book is the typical stuff you’d see anywhere else. The only difference is everything is a little *extra* with a sensitive kid. So do the typical parenting stuff but just more with a sensitive child. Be MORE calm. Be MORE understanding. Spend MORE time dealing with a tantrum.
I honestly didn’t find anything useful from this book beyond reaffirming I should accept my kid as they are.
I honestly didn’t find anything useful from this book beyond reaffirming I should accept my kid as they are.
Valuable resource for understanding the why behind highly sensitive children's behavior.
I am a little torn on how many stars to give this book.
On the one hand, I feel that the book definitely helped me understand my highly sensitive son better. Little things that used to annoy me, or times when I thought he was overreacting, now make more sense to me and I'm able to have more patience and understanding. I feel less overwhelmed by him and so relieved to know I'm not alone and that there's an underlying thread to many of his perplexing behaviors.
On the other hand I felt like the book was a bit too all over the place. As soon as the author would describe a behavior to expect from a highly sensitive child, she'd backpedal and say of course your child could be the opposite type of highly sensitive child, so in that case he would do this other thing instead. I realize that all children have different personalities, but I think it would have been more appropriate for the book to stick to the most common threads of behaviors in highly sensitive children and leave descriptions of the other types out. It just added clutter and confusion to the book.
Also, I did not agree with all of the parenting advice (although I didn't expect to). The author basically gives the impression that you should set up your whole life around making sure your child is at the optimum level of stimulation. I did think that many of the recommendations were very useful (how to get your child to enter a new social situation or try a new experience, how to talk with him about his feelings while still guiding him into correct behavior), but I thought many others were over the top (let him choose his own food to eat, take him shopping and let him choose all of his own clothes, use very mild punishment at all times, do whatever you can to comfort him through all tantrums, basically set up the physical environment of your home - especially his room - to be a little bubble where all of his senses are happy).
So...I am thankful to have read this book, because I do feel that I understand my son and know how to deal with him better. At the same time, I was annoyed with a lot of the book while reading and felt like my time was being wasted. So three stars it is.
On the one hand, I feel that the book definitely helped me understand my highly sensitive son better. Little things that used to annoy me, or times when I thought he was overreacting, now make more sense to me and I'm able to have more patience and understanding. I feel less overwhelmed by him and so relieved to know I'm not alone and that there's an underlying thread to many of his perplexing behaviors.
On the other hand I felt like the book was a bit too all over the place. As soon as the author would describe a behavior to expect from a highly sensitive child, she'd backpedal and say of course your child could be the opposite type of highly sensitive child, so in that case he would do this other thing instead. I realize that all children have different personalities, but I think it would have been more appropriate for the book to stick to the most common threads of behaviors in highly sensitive children and leave descriptions of the other types out. It just added clutter and confusion to the book.
Also, I did not agree with all of the parenting advice (although I didn't expect to). The author basically gives the impression that you should set up your whole life around making sure your child is at the optimum level of stimulation. I did think that many of the recommendations were very useful (how to get your child to enter a new social situation or try a new experience, how to talk with him about his feelings while still guiding him into correct behavior), but I thought many others were over the top (let him choose his own food to eat, take him shopping and let him choose all of his own clothes, use very mild punishment at all times, do whatever you can to comfort him through all tantrums, basically set up the physical environment of your home - especially his room - to be a little bubble where all of his senses are happy).
So...I am thankful to have read this book, because I do feel that I understand my son and know how to deal with him better. At the same time, I was annoyed with a lot of the book while reading and felt like my time was being wasted. So three stars it is.
A book that should be required reading for anyone that works with people, but especially children. So good.
