We can’t always take the credit or the blame

Our children have their own temperament

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Photo by Jomjakkapat Parrueng on Unsplash

I had the opportunity to be around the most magnificent little baby this weekend. It was a loud, crowded, chaotic environment and she was totally zen. New schedule? Fine. Loud noises? Fine. People in her space? Fine. Ignored for a little? She could handle it. Late for a feeding? Bring it on. She was just plain easy.

As wonderful as it was to see a mother and baby managing these conditions very much in sync with one another (and working beautifully), I noticed how other parents kept attributing this baby’s ease and flexibility to her parents' decision to bring a three-month-old to this challenging environment. They were assuming it was the exposure to this sensory overload that enabled her to tolerate it. 

While this assumption was well-intended (of course), I had to bite my tongue on behalf of parents of more highly sensitive children everywhere. The decision to bring this baby to this potentially very overwhelming place and her subsequent delightful response had more to do with her temperament than anything else.

Biological responses to the environment are real. There is such a thing as temperament, or how we respond to the world around us. Humans don’t actually all fit neatly into one bucket like easy, spirited or slow to warm up (one of the ways temperament is described). We each experience the world, people and stimuli in our own particular way that is largely consistent over time. Now, of course, parenting matters. We can help a highly sensitive child to learn about themselves and find ways to set up their world in a way that helps them thrive. We can equip them with tools to find balance in their environment, manage their reactions and feelings, and gain strength in their interactions. We can stretch them, but we are not changing the kid we have (nor should we, as there are so many superpowers that come along with each temperament).

Furthermore, if you have a highly sensitive kid, it just wouldn’t serve them to keep thrusting them into environments where they can’t thrive. This would challenge their nervous system to the point of shutting down, and likely cause more stress and harm then help. If that same mom had brought a different baby along, that challenging environment could have backfired.

Most important for our parent-child relationships, and the growth and development of our children, is to focus on parenting the child we have. To be responsive to their needs, to be understanding of their temperament, to challenge them in the ways that help them grow within the capacity they have. The most beautiful framing of temperament comes from Dr. W. Thomas Boyce’s research (you can check out his book). He studied why some kids seem to thrive and others struggle given similar challenges. He came up with the metaphor of the orchid and the dandelion. Dandelions grow given a range of exposure to sunlight, water and soil, while orchids only thrive in specific circumstances (but when they do, they are magnificent). If you were gardening, you would not plant one kind of seed and expect to change the flower that blooms. Instead, you would offer the sunlight, water, and soil needed by the seed that has been planted.

For more concrete tools, check out this episode from Season 1 of Raising Good Humans on Parenting Sensitive Children with Clinical Psychologist Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart, and this episode on the Building Blocks of Personality with Dr. Koraly Perez-Edgar.