Traveling the Sensory Road, part 2
The more I learned about sensory sensitivities, the more I noticed in my kids and myself. I also started seeing sensitivities in the kids around us. The little kids who walked on their toes had tactile sensitivities. The kids who removed themselves from the group at the playground had sound and vestibular sensitivities. The kids who chewed on the collars of their shirts were seeking sensory input.
I had a friend when we lived in another state whose son would cry, almost constantly. It was as if he was so sensitive that his environment was too much for him to cope with, and he would have meltdowns every day. I could relate, my second baby was growing into a toddler who had meltdowns about transitions, new foods, and the activity in the preschool classroom.
My third baby had sensitivities, but they were different. He didn't seem to feel pain or temperature. He could hit his head and not feel it at all. He had texture issues and didn't like most foods. He had great motor control and coordination, but was inflexible and stubborn about transitions as well, and his meltdowns would last over an hour.
The more I learned about sensory sensitivities, the more our lives started to make sense, and we tried to structure them around accommodating them, instead of fighting them. The preschool teachers were helpful in providing safe places for the boys when they would get overwhelmed. And I learned to pick my battles, about what was really important for them to try to overcome and what wasn't.
As kids get older they gradually learn coping skills to either overcome or deal with sensory sensitivities. By the time I became an adult, I had learned different ways to cope with my vestibular sensitivities. The constant movement of working the floors in the hospital grounded me. Dancing and yoga connect my body to my brain and calm my nervous system.
Sometimes kids need help from the adults in their lives to cope with their sensitivities to sights, smells, sounds, movement, tastes, feelings, and touches. Learning how to help a child cope with his sensory sensitivities takes discernment, time, and patience. It requires learning non-verbal or social cues from your child and paying attention to what he is feeling.
Paying more attention to a child's behavior than to what he is saying is often a helpful way to figure out what he is feeling about his environment. Kids who are very sensitive get overwhelmed and need a place to retreat to. Kids who are seeking sensory input need more stimulation and movement to help them calm their nervous systems.
When I'm teaching parents about sensory sensitivities, we talk about two general categories of kids. One is hypersensitive and one is hyposensitive. That basically means that either they feel too much, or feel too little, and have trouble modulating between the two. Some kids have a combination of sensitivities, both hyper and hypo.
For example, a child who is hypersensitive to light and sound won't like brightly lit rooms or amphitheaters, and won't like concerts and loud music or crowds. A kid who is hyposensitive in the same senses won't be able to get the music loud enough, and will seek out bright patterns and colors.
Each child seeks out what he needs to regulate his nervous system. For a sensitive vestibular kid, he needs to sit still. For a child who is hyposensitive in the vestibular sense, he needs to move. Sometimes behavior that looks out of the ordinary is actually a child regulating his nervous system.
You may see some kids rocking, fidgeting, touching everything, or spinning. All of these regulate and calm the nervous system. Some kids are empathic and feel much of what others are feeling, and have trouble regulating themselves with the people around them. They may hug others, even people they don't know, to try to regulate their emotions with others' in their environment.
For more about sensitive kids and energy, see part 3...
I had a friend when we lived in another state whose son would cry, almost constantly. It was as if he was so sensitive that his environment was too much for him to cope with, and he would have meltdowns every day. I could relate, my second baby was growing into a toddler who had meltdowns about transitions, new foods, and the activity in the preschool classroom.
My third baby had sensitivities, but they were different. He didn't seem to feel pain or temperature. He could hit his head and not feel it at all. He had texture issues and didn't like most foods. He had great motor control and coordination, but was inflexible and stubborn about transitions as well, and his meltdowns would last over an hour.
The more I learned about sensory sensitivities, the more our lives started to make sense, and we tried to structure them around accommodating them, instead of fighting them. The preschool teachers were helpful in providing safe places for the boys when they would get overwhelmed. And I learned to pick my battles, about what was really important for them to try to overcome and what wasn't.
As kids get older they gradually learn coping skills to either overcome or deal with sensory sensitivities. By the time I became an adult, I had learned different ways to cope with my vestibular sensitivities. The constant movement of working the floors in the hospital grounded me. Dancing and yoga connect my body to my brain and calm my nervous system.
Sometimes kids need help from the adults in their lives to cope with their sensitivities to sights, smells, sounds, movement, tastes, feelings, and touches. Learning how to help a child cope with his sensory sensitivities takes discernment, time, and patience. It requires learning non-verbal or social cues from your child and paying attention to what he is feeling.
Paying more attention to a child's behavior than to what he is saying is often a helpful way to figure out what he is feeling about his environment. Kids who are very sensitive get overwhelmed and need a place to retreat to. Kids who are seeking sensory input need more stimulation and movement to help them calm their nervous systems.
When I'm teaching parents about sensory sensitivities, we talk about two general categories of kids. One is hypersensitive and one is hyposensitive. That basically means that either they feel too much, or feel too little, and have trouble modulating between the two. Some kids have a combination of sensitivities, both hyper and hypo.
For example, a child who is hypersensitive to light and sound won't like brightly lit rooms or amphitheaters, and won't like concerts and loud music or crowds. A kid who is hyposensitive in the same senses won't be able to get the music loud enough, and will seek out bright patterns and colors.
Each child seeks out what he needs to regulate his nervous system. For a sensitive vestibular kid, he needs to sit still. For a child who is hyposensitive in the vestibular sense, he needs to move. Sometimes behavior that looks out of the ordinary is actually a child regulating his nervous system.
You may see some kids rocking, fidgeting, touching everything, or spinning. All of these regulate and calm the nervous system. Some kids are empathic and feel much of what others are feeling, and have trouble regulating themselves with the people around them. They may hug others, even people they don't know, to try to regulate their emotions with others' in their environment.
For more about sensitive kids and energy, see part 3...
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