Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Question for parents of sensitive kids

Can you expand on your desensitizing campaign? How did you go about it, and how did your son respond at the start? DS5 is still a no-Disney, no video game, no TV kid...

Okay, I do consider myself sensitive.

Five is still very, very young. I don't lie or anything, but I certainly don't see the necessity in wallowing in all the 'bad news' on TV. I know about current events - seriously, you can't hide from it - but I don't see the point in watching hours and hours of what is usually the same footage repeated and people talking about how awful it is. I know that already. There is enough sadness and pain in life without the magnifying it. Especially to the exclusion of some of the wonderful and beautiful things in life.

The world needs more sensitive people. These are the people who look at things that everyone takes for granted and ask the questions that make people's lives better. Sure, they need o learn to manage that, and we need to help them do it, but I think we can do that while still allowing them to be sensitive.

I just exposed him to increasing doses of reality and more mature themes in movies and other media. I've let my son watch lots of movies since before he could read well, and we would discuss different characters' motivations, why they sometimes felt compelled to do as they did, the difference between being aggressive and defending one's self or another, etc. At the beginning he probably would have had a problem with something pretty tame like "The Incredibles", but it was just a gradual process of expanding his boundaries. We don't play video games.

Oh, and another thing that occurred to me is that I imposed a strict moratorium on dumbed-down kids' programming. That wouldn't help a no-TV kid, of course. I remember specifically banning some shows, like "Caillou", that I thought might encourage a weak self-perception.

I would say that while I've decreased my son's sensitivity in the sense of increasing his ability to deal with hefty doses of reality, I've not decreased his perceptivity or empathy. Those are going as strong as ever.

I don't plan to shield her from current events forever, for goodness' sakes. But...she is 7, and has been known to cry in her bed and shake because she's so terrified of tornadoes *just generally.* I am not going to expose her to media coverage of recent and terrible tornado destruction.

A lot of this is part of asynchronicity, IMO, and trying to wish it or "expose" it away doesn't sit so well with me personally. I don't know. I am also sensitive myself. NPR can and often does make me cry, and I can't watch senselessly violent movies or TV, though I certainly do watch and read other distressing content that has redeeming value. I would never change this about myself. Truthfully, I want my children to be distressed by war and cruelty. It's distressing. But at this age I am also going to be careful not to completely overwhelm them.

I agree with you completely, ultramarina. My son is 5 (nearly 6), and is very sensitive. He does not like anything that is very scary, and he particularly doesn't like any shows or movies where there is a character who is mean to another one (he won't watch one Team Umi Zoomi episode because there is a dump truck in it who is mean to someone). I personally love that about him; he has been described by multiple parents and teachers at his school as being a kid "who doesn't have a mean bone in his body".

My approach is to reassure him at this age that things he hears about (tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, etc) won't happen to him or anyone he knows. At this point, he just needs reassurance so he doesn't have to worry; he doesn't need the grim perspective of unvarnished truth. When he is older he will get a better sense on likelihood and probability, and we can have more elaborate discussions. Right now, his worries tend to keep him from being able to go to sleep, so we try to help him work through why those things shouldn't worry him right now (e.g. no volcanoes in Florida, etc, which can go on and on ad nauseum). My husband was the same way and has issues with anxiety and OCD; I won't be surprised if my son ends up the same.

Exactly. There came a point when I realized that "Well, it's very, very unlikely, and furthermore, we live in a concrete house, so..." was not helping. DD needed to hear "That isn't going to happen to you" so she could release the thoughts and worries. We are now starting to get to the point where discussion of probabilities is more possible, but on some things she still needs absolute reassurance. I figure that if a tornado really does destroy our house, we have much worse problems than my promising it wouldn't happen.

Although now that I think about it, what I specifically promise is "I will keep you safe." I tell her again and again that it is our job to keep her safe and that nothing is more important to us. I think she needs to know that she doesn't have to be "in charge" of her safety should a disaster occurr-- that she can release that responsibility to us.

Exactly my thought!

We have tended to address issues when the kids ask questions. I usually listen to NPR in the morning but the kids tend to tune it out. My kids know there is a war going on but haven't asked too many questions. That changed this week. In addition to bin Laden's death, DD9's teacher's child is being deployed to Afghanistan this week. DD9 couldn't sleep last night because she was worried that Mrs. A's child might die in war. We had to talk about the fact that people in the military are at risk and that it is part of their job. Many people come home safe but some do not. DD grilled me this morning about 9/11, bin Laden and the war in Afghanistan. She was pretty upset that she didn't know enough about these events to talk about them at school. I tried to answer her questions and to give her the facts as I understand them. I also found that a lot of her questions did not have easy answers, i.e. why do some people get so angry that they want to kill people they don't know? how do you help your cause by killing yourself? I feel a little guilty that I couldn't wrap it up in a neat package for her so she could stop worrying about it. I think that we will be working through this over the next few weeks.