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Are You or Your Child a Highly Sensitive Person?

One in five of us are

Photo by Ales Me on Unsplash

I wish I’d known when I had my babies that I was a Highly Sensitive Person and that they might be too. I look back now on a number of times when I was baffled by my first child’s behaviour. She was a premature baby, but the only one crying all the time in the NICU unit.

During those early baby months, I often found myself shielding her eyes to avoid her getting overstimulated. No-one else in my mother’s group needed to do that with their babies.

And as a toddler she was social and happy but she would become overwhelmed easily, start crying and just not be able to calm herself down. I can see now that those moments were actually a sign of her Highly Sensitive nature.

Not too sensitive

Highly Sensitive People (HSP) are amazing. In our society, sensitivity can be seen as a problem or disadvantage. If you’re a HSP, you might have heard “Stop being so sensitive”, or felt like there’s something wrong with you.

When you have a baby or young child that gets overstimulated, has trouble sleeping and finds it hard to self soothe it definitely seems like a problem. But there are many incredible things about being highly sensitive.

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Kelly Eden | Essayist | Writing Coach
Kelly Eden | Essayist | Writing Coach

Written by Kelly Eden | Essayist | Writing Coach

New Zealand-based essayist | @ Business Insider, Mamamia, Oh Reader, Thought Catalog, ScaryMommy and more. Say hi at https://becauseyouwrite.substack.com/

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