Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Emotional OE & "innocuous" triggers

I realize that my thread title is, by definition, redundant.

Over the last few weeks, DS22mo has been displaying more signs of the same emotional OE I tend to exhibit. He is an extremely empathetic child and seems to be internalizing the emotions of characters in books we read, particularly. These are innocuous stories, though I do understand how he could be upset.

He usually indicates his discomfort by saying, "I don't like this book/song/video" and asking to nurse or snuggle.

Here are some recent examples of points of tension that have caused him to react:

- Paddington Bear slipping in a bathtub and struggling to get out
- A little girl's kitten gets stuck outside in a thunderstorm, and the girl worries all night about her pet
- A mother tiger goes on a hunt, a forest fire breaks out, and she is delayed in being reunited with her cub
- A version of row-row-row your boat featuring a crocodile in the water

I'm trying to label emotions, give lots of hugs (he's usually in my lap or snuggled against me when we're reading, anyway), and talk about how it's okay to feel sad/afraid/lonely. He's too young to get into a deep dialogue of how characters feel, though he does usually give an accurate one or two word description of the character's emotional state. (e.g. "I think she's sad.") If he's really quite upset, we stop the book and I flip to the end to help him see how the conflict resolves.

Is this just something we have to wait for DS to grow into? I'd love to hear your suggestions.

My two, DD in particular, were really, really (really!) prone to emotional OE. Five was a particular rough year for DD (read: OH.MY.GOD.) I thought I was going to go crazy.

It's much better now (she's 10). However it has been an arduous road, riddled with landmines...

(sigh)

Hang in there - it gets better

My middle child was very good at self filtering what she would read or watch, and still is pretty good. Mostly we just let her self monitor without comment. It did happen more with tv than books, mostly because she watched wayyyy too much tv from 3-5yrs as I was so incapacitated, first by the pregnancy from hell and then the sick newborn who never slept. Anyway, for us, lots of cuddles when wanted and self filtering.

When our youngest gets scared by fairly innocuos things I ask if she thinks it will end badly and if she says "No" that's usually enough for her to keep going and see what will happen.

You are at a tough age. I agree with others that it does get better. For my most emotionally OE kid, it helped to let her see the end of the movie or read the end of a book so that she could see that things turned out "OK" for herself. Watching the movie or reading the book then turned into 1) Everything turns out OK 2) Let's see what the problem was (we went through how most every story has a problem or conflict) 3) How did they solve the problem. At 11, she still does this occasionally. I'm not sure how things will work once we get into high school and books don't always have happy ending.

Yes, you may need to tell him how it turns out, skip that part, etc.

With DD, we were mostly past this at...um...9? Sorry.

DS5 is still in this phase, although it's not as bad as it was with DD. He's mre easily scared than prone to attacks of existential melancholy. However, he recently burst into sobs at the end of Amos and Boris, by William Steig. (Of course, I also find this book emotionally affecting, so.)

I would say, though, that you probably don't need to go crazy and limit yourself to completely innocuous everything. Try to get a sense for exactly what triggers him. For my DD, anything where families/loved ones are separated or animals or innocent creatures die or seem like they may die was a complete disaster. However, generalized peril was okay, even battle, and scary creatures were fine. For DS, monsters are a big problem, along with the same things DD doesn't like, but again, battles and fighting don't bother him.

Oh boy, yes, been there. I agree with what the others have said both about telling them what happens/skipping to the end and about the odd selectivity of what gets to children sometimes. (Well, same is true for me too, come to that; I can take some things in my stride and be poleaxed by something apparently much less, and I wouldn't be that good at predicting which things would get to me, even now, I think. It probably depends on my internal state as much as on the things. Although there are certain things that get me every time... can anyone else read aloud or hear read the end of The House at Pooh Corner without dissolving into tears? I can't, which is embarrassing as they use it as a reading at DS's school end of year service every year!)

Sounds as though others did the same as I did: try not to set limits on what DS read because of this, but let him opt out as necessary.

At 9 it's much better, I agree. But it got worse rather than better for quite a while after 22 months, I'm afraid!

Love You Forever is the one classic that DD has never had me read to her...

because I dissolve into undignified SOBS by the end...


It's (IMO) hard to know what is OE's versus developmentally normative at 22mo, I think. DD is not particularly OE this way-- but she went through an "anxious/fearful" period at about this age.

The difference between that phase in her and in friends' children was that she had a better grasp on fantasy/reality and so her fears were the kinds of things that much older children and even adults would have been concerned with... so they were that much harder to defuse since you couldn't just rely upon "do you think that could really happen?"

The problem was that she COULD actually be hit by a car... or lose a parent in an auto accident... or get lost in the grocery store... etc, etc.

Omgosh, ME TOO!! lol. That book gets me every time.