Teaching Children Emotional Stability,
Especially With Regard to Highly Perceptive Children...

All children need training in cultivating peaceful spirits and in learning how to let their emotions be their servants, rather than their rulers. Highly perceptive children need a little extra attention in this area.

For one thing, the highly perceptive child sometimes develops intellectually before he develops maturity of emotion. Thus, he takes in a tremendous amount of information, but he may not be able to process it all wisely unless his parents help him.

Also, the highly perceptive child is likely to tune into adult conversations and the news. Thus, he may overhear and worry about some topic that another child might not give a second thought.

Unless a mother listens carefully to clues from the child, she may have no idea that her young child is conscious of, much less worried about, something that was discussed by adults. I remember that when my children were toddlers in the eighties, the subject of AIDs was constantly in the news. I didn't think that we were exposing our children to much news until my preschool age child said, "Mommy, if I got hurt and someone had to give me blood, I might get AIDS."

Similarly, highly perceptive children often have great imaginations. If their imagination turns toward the negative, they can think of all kinds of frightening outcomes to a particular situation. Needless to say, this tempts a child to worry.

Highly perceptive children may feel a lot of pressure to live up to everyone's high expectations for their performance. This can create a sense of unease, especially if they fear that they may not measure up in the end.

Highly perceptive children often place high expectations on themselves, and they can become frustrated with themselves when the actual work of their hands does not match the vision they have in their minds. This is the artist who never can be happy with how a painting turns out, no matter how beautiful others think the painting might be, or the pianist who never thinks he gave a great performance despite thundering applause from the audience.

Also, by definition, highly perceptive people are in tune with a lot of sensory input from the world around them. This can be overwhelming. There is also possible evidence that a genetic disposition for forms of depression are found with genes that have to do with artistic achievements, especially in the field of writing. Studies that trace the family trees of a number of famous writers turn up a large number of family members with traits of manic-depression. Since this has been widely publicized, artists often falsely fear that if they seek treatment for an emotional illness, they will lose their talent.

Finally, the highly perceptive child may be more in tune with our culture. Going back to the late 1700's and early 1800's, many people began to value the person with great sensibility. That's just another way of saying a person who is highly perceptive or responsive with regard to something, such as emotions or nature or art. The person who possessed sensibility was considered to be more in tune with truth and beauty than the average person. People began to measure life according to their own personal experiences and perceptions. Revealed or inspired truth ceased to be as highly esteemed as it once was. People who admired sensibility feared being ordinary people with ordinary lives, and they considered themselves to be superior to people with less feeling. They sought to imbue every moment with emotional meaning.

In this climate, depression, hypochondria, anxiety, and moodiness were almost seen as virtues, for it was thought that they indicated a refined and sensitive mind. The novels of the day reflect this ideal, for they abound with brooding heroes and overwrought heroines. Many authors of the day -- such as the poet Lord Byron -- gave birth to the stereotype of the sensitive, bohemian artist.

Sense and Sensibility and many other of Jane Austen's works lampoon the cult of sensibility. Austen's work highlights the conflict in her day between this line of thought and a cultural backlash, which championed more classic virtues of stability, good sense, and principled character.

Today, prominent segments of our culture still value feeling and individual experience over objective truth and, likewise, emotional drama over stability. In the same vein, lots of people still devalue revealed and inspired knowledge. Many either believe that this material world is all that exists or they make up their own vision of spiritual matters based on what they feel in their hearts. Our culture is largely blind to real truths that exist beyond man's limited powers of perception and scientific measurement.

Our culture's entertainment features the anti-hero, who is merely a darker version of the nineteenth century's brooding hero. The anti-hero is the person of sensibility who has become disillusioned with life. He is opposed to authority. He is often a loner and is frequently self-destructive. He is moody and unstable and often troubled by something in his past.

Children, particularly sensitive children, may be influenced to imitate these cultural images. However, while a skeptical, troubled, and brooding hero may make for interesting fiction, such emotional drama is not so fun when it is played out in real life.

As we've seen, there is just a grain of truth in the idea that people who are highly perceptive also tend to be intensely emotional. Feeling things deeply can be very positive. But, must the highly perceptive child live at the whim of his own emotions and perceptions? No. Must creativity and perceptiveness be accompanied by anxiety, depression, and other forms of emotional distress? Of course not.

The wise parent seeks to guide the child in combining his wonderful gifts of perception and sensibility with the stability that comes from "sense". The child who is trained to be self-controlled in mind and character will accomplish more with his gifts of perception than will the child who cannot rule himself.

Just how can parents do parents nurture a child's creativity while, at the same time, training the child to be stable or sensible in thought and character? Tomorrow, we'll kick around some ideas.

Enjoy!
elizabeth

Parenting the Highly Perceptive Child...Part I

Dictionary.com defines perceptive as "having or showing keenness of insight, understanding, or intuition". In my layman's treatment of this topic, I propose that all children are perceptive. Because life is fresh and new to children, they pay lots of attention to everything that's going on around them. They are generally less encumbered by preconceived notions than adults are, and, consequently. they sometimes see things that even adults miss.

However, some children are exceptionally perceptive -- above and beyond their peers -- from an early age. Others may be of generally average perception, but show an unusual degree of perception in one or two aspects of life.

There are different types of perception. Some young children may be intellectually perceptive. Others may be drawn to a particular field of the arts or sciences. (My parents-in-law took my husband to a carnival when he was three years old. He was not interested in riding any of the children's rides. Instead, he wanted them to let him watch how the gears worked. Guess what he grew up to be? Mr. Engineer.) Others might be able to discern body language or have great empathy for what others are feeling. Still others might be intrigued with spiritual matters at a young age.

Some children have a wonderful way with animals; others are good with younger children; still others are very perceptive about details in nature.

In my layman's perspective, perceptiveness does not always depend on a high I.Q. Nor, is it a guarantee of academic success. In fact, high perception can co-exist with learning problems. Also, a highly perceptive child may also have a different learning style than another child might, and a general one-size-fits-all teaching method may not work for that child.

In some cases, the highly perceptive child is simply developing more quickly in some areas than his peers. As the peers catch up, the gap will close. This can be hard for the child who has always received attention for being "advanced". For this reason and others, gifted or highly perceptive children need to learn that their sense of security does not come from their performance.

Highly perceptive children might fall into one or more categories drawn by educators and psychologists. Two differing examples of how a highly perceptive child might be categorized are "highly sensitive" and "gifted". If a child is categorized by professionals as having a high level of perception, parents should be aware that there are many resources available to help them parent their child wisely.

Since I'm not a professional, it's not my intent to look at this as an educator or psychologist might. I'm simply offering a mother's perspective based on having been a child and a parent, as well as being around many families with children.

What defines a highly perceptive child? Again, I'm no professional, but I do think the following traits might apply:

1) Tuning into adult conversations from an early age; developing a large vocabulary early in life; thinking about topics that are advanced for a child's age; may overhear adult conversation or the news and worry about issues that children are not yet ready to handle emotionally; may develop intellectually at an early age yet lack the spiritual, physical, and emotional maturity to deal with their gift without lots of guidance; may or may not have a hard time relating to peers.
2) From an early age, being in tune with another person's expressions, tone of voice, and body language; being able from a young age to have true empathy for another person; being able to imagine from a young age what it would be like to be in another person's situation.
3) Being overly sensitive from an early age with regard to one's own feelings and emotions; being easily offended or hurt; over-analyzing own actions and character; measuring self against unrealistic expectations and becoming frustrated with his or her own shortcomings. This is basically the same perceptive talent as mentioned in #2, except that the child's focus is inward rather than outward. This child has great potential to become empathetic and kind, as well as humbly aware of his own feelings and character. However, he will need help to avoid being self-centered.
4) From an early age displaying passionate convictions; passionate feelings; intense concern for what is fair or just; intense drive toward some objective; often dreams of an altruistic career, such as being a missionary or desiring to be a doctor in a third world country. This child has tremendous potential for leadership, but may be tempted toward pride, irritability and self-righteousness around those who do not have the same level of passion that he does.
5) Wants to know the "whys" of life; has a hard time being motivated to do something unless he can understand the purpose. This can have its blessings. A child with this gift will not necessarily do something just because that's the way it's always been done; he is not afraid to try a new and, perhaps, better way. Thus, he can be very innovative. On the other hand, this can have its challenges. There are many times in life when we all need to accept direction without knowing all of the "whys" behind it.
6) Always thinking, daydreaming about ideas or inventions or ideas for writing and art, getting lost in books or projects, may need help from parents to "come back to reality" when it's time to interact with other people or when it's time to set a project aside and do a certain task. This type of highly perceptive child may be like the stereotype of the "absent-minded professor" -- highly intelligent, but not always practical. This child may a poor organizer of personal space, time, money and stuff. Now, sometimes, these traits reflect an undisciplined character and do not indicate that a child has a high level of perception. For that reason, parents may mislabel the deep thinker in the family as being simply lazy, without realizing his positive traits. While this may not be the most helpful approach, there is a grain of truth in it: The deep thinker will need to acquire personal discipline in order to function in life. The deep thinker is the person who is highly perceptive about ideas. Deep thinkers grasp the big concepts in life.
7) Conversely, an unusually advanced organizer of personal space, time, money, and stuff; may be inflexible, though, and may have a hard time dealing with changes in routine. This is the person who is highly perceptive to details. (We need both idea people and detail people -- The trick is to help each category make the most of strengths and overcome weaknesses.)
8) Can have "meltdowns" when sensory overload becomes too much for child; ultra sensitive to touch, taste, sound, etc. May actually feel physical pain when exposed to levels of noise, touch, etc., that most other people find to be acceptable or even pleasurable. In addition to some biological tendency toward sensitivity, I wonder if the intense pace, noise, and media bombardment of modern society might be a factor here.
9) Bored when not challenged; learns quickly and becomes restless with needless repetition of lesson material; has a higher than normal attention span for his age when interested in something; appears to have a low attention span when he is not challenged by the material at hand.
10) From a young age able to see more than one point of view; perceives the complexities of life; understands there is more than one approach to solving a problem; figures out creative uses for common objects; great, great quality, but the negative manifestation of it may be so in tune with different points of view that can't come to his own conviction.

Enjoy!
elizabeth