#16: How to support our highly sensitive children - understanding sensory overload with Rashida Laxmidhar
Have you ever noticed your little one being deeply affected by certain sounds, textures, or environments? Or perhaps they seem to experience emotions more intensely than their peers? If these observations resonate with you, I invite you to join me on an eye-opening exploration into the world of highly sensitive children.
In the latest episode of the podcast Rashida Laxmidhar unravels the mysteries surrounding sensory overload and its impact on our little ones. We explore the subtle signs that may indicate your child is highly sensitive, creating a safe space for you to reflect and connect with your child on a deeper level.
Rashida is a mom of two and she has recently been introduced to the sensory concept. Having this new awareness has helped her better understand her children’s challenges and, looking back, her own childhood.
Rashida is also the host of Parents Connecting, a podcast that emphasizes human connections through stories, conversations and real experiences of life, in lieu of the airbrushed lives we often see through social media and pop culture. She has a strong core belief that through conversations about the entirety of one’s life, [the good, the bad AND the ugly], is when we truly connect, relate, and learn from one another.
Connect with Rashida:
Parents Connecting Podcast
IG: @rashida.parentsconnecting
Books mentioned:
The Highly Sensitive Child
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Takeaways:
- Teach your kids to be kind. It's such an important thing to make sure that they’re kind to people even in the simplest and the smallest of things. It goes to the core of who they are.
- It’s really easy to feel so much guilt around not feeding your kids the right way, giving them everything from the food groups or just following your idealized version of what it should be. Take a look at your own capacity, of where you are in life. If you’re in a really stressful period in your life and the only thing that you could do is get a sandwich on the table, that’s ok. If you don't actually have the capacity to do something, then you can't do it. And blaming and shaming yourself won’t help. It’s a season of life and it’s probably a short period of time anyway.
- When raising your children, it’s helpful to be aware of sensory challenges. If you notice that something sensory related keeps troubling your child, they might be overstimulated and might need a change of environment. The way to help our kids self-regulate is to try different approaches until we find what’s working. It’s challenging because sensory issues change with time and there could also be a gap between the cause of the overload and the actual meltdown. But there’s always a reason for kids’ behavior, they are simply trying to communicate and it’s our job to be on the lookout for queues, to have a willingness to try new things, and to not get super worked up if it doesn't work.
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