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- [00:00]
A
We want a sensitive boss who notices when we're frustrated by the workload. We want a sensitive lover. We want a sensitive teacher for our children who manages and notices when our children are overloaded. Right. So first and foremost, sensitive is not a bad word.
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Today is Saturday, June 27th. Maybe you've heard it or you've said it before that you're too sensitive, or maybe you're a parent trying to understand why your child seems to notice everything and sometimes gets overwhelmed by things that don't seem to bother other kids. Today we're talking about what it really means to be a highly sensitive person and why it isn't a weakness. It's also not a diagnosis. It's a temperament trait that impacts one in five people. Our guest is Megan Thompson. She's a licensed clinical professional counselor, registered play therapist, supervisor, parent coach and mental health consultant, as well as a TEDx speaker, best selling author and a mom. She's worked with highly sensitive children, teens and families for more than 15 years. Today you'll hear about the gifts and challenges of high sensitivity for both adults and kids, why it can get confused with other labels and ultimately how better understanding it can change the way we see ourselves and each other. Welcome to THE Newsworthy Special edition Saturday. When we sit down with a different expert or celebrity every Saturday to talk about something in the news. Don't forget to tune in every Monday through Friday for our regular episodes where we provide all the day's news in less than 15 minutes. I'm Erica Mandy. It's now time for today's special edition Saturday. Megan Thompson, thank you so much for joining us here on THE Newsworthy.
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A
Hi, thank you for having me.
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B
So let's start with the basics for people who don't know much about this. What does it actually mean to be a highly sensitive person and how many people likely fit this temperament?
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A
About one out of every five people. So 20% of the population experiences the world differently and this is not a deficit. So I want to explain this in the four components. First and foremost is that this is a depth of processing life experience. Your brain is taking in more information than the average person and so that means that your thoughts are more deep. You have an interesting inner world that can lead you down a very vast imagination. You can also take in more information sensory wise from the environment. And so that might mean that you could be easily overstimulated if you don't have emotion regulation skills. Next is that you're highly emotionally responsive. So this might lead to emotional reactivity. Again, if you don't have emotion regulation skills. And then lastly is that you're sensitive to subtleties. So these are people who notice more details in life. You're more susceptible to those small details and changes in those small details. And then you are also overstimulated by the environment itself. This can lead to a personal experience where you feel like there's something wrong or broken. If you have not heard of this temperament trait before, but great news is that this is a designed temperament. We need this temperament in our human experience to notice the big picture and the small picture at the same time. So it is not a diagnosis, but rather an observation that has been noticed for over 100 years.
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B
You've said that there are even brain scans that show the difference. Can you explain that a little bit?
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A
Yeah. So when they've done brain scans on highly sensitive people compared to non highly sensitive people, what we've noticed is that they are using more brain power, if you will. They're using more of their surface area of their brain. They're likely going to be more overloaded because of that. And we can see that in the neuroscience studies.
- [03:37]
B
And just for practical purposes, if a highly sensitive person walks into a room, they might notice different smells and different things that other people might not notice. Can you give us kind of that real world example?
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A
Sure. So I'm doing an interview. If I were a highly sensitive person, I would probably be more overstimulated by the very bright light that I have shining up here to make my face look normal. And in the room that I'm set up, I might be distracted more if there were construction going on right outside where I live. I might also be noticing your facial expressions and have a hard time interpreting them. If I'm noticing that you're raising your eyebrow when something I said didn't seem very clever. Right. So you might be having a thought around crap, I forgot to order groceries, and your eyebrow raised.
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B
Right.
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A
But I might interpret that as I said something that I need to pay attention to because I'm paying attention to more things in my environment than the average person.
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B
And a lot of times sensitive is used as a criticism, like you're too sensitive. But you describe high sensitivity as a gift or even a superpower. What are the benefits that people often miss?
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A
Well, first off, we want a sensitive boss who notices when we're frustrated by the workload. We want a sensitive lover. We want a sensitive teacher for our children who manages and notices when our children are overloaded. Right. So first and foremost, sensitive is not a bad Word secondarily, when we have people in the world who notice the big picture and the small picture at the same time, it is much easier for society to notice how to make consistent changes compared to just rolling through with emotion and having this Machiavellian experience in life. The average human experience, especially in Western society, is go big or go home. Growth at all costs, gains at all costs, make money at all costs. And highly sensitive people are put here on this earth for us to notice, wait a minute, what is the cost? How are we paying attention to the people who are taken advantage of in this situation? What happens to society when we are laser focused on an outcome and sensitive people notice those small things? And they're also exceptionally gifted at being able to break down steps when regulated to communicate what is missing in thorough processes so that the processes don't break down. Whereas some of us, who, myself included, tend to be more big picture thinkers, we can miss those small details and things fall through the cracks when we are managing other people, starting companies, et cetera.
- [06:10]
B
And you use the Ferrari and dump truck analogy, there's also the orchid and dandelion analogy, and I think those are both helpful. Can you explain those and what they help us understand about highly sensitive people?
- [06:21]
A
Sure. So first, shout out to my director of coaching, Autumn Brennan. She's the one who designed the Ferrari and dump truck metaphor. The Ferrari is designed to go fast and to be nuanced and to make sharp turns. And the Ferrari needs to be able to notice details, to take on the details of a fast speeding highway and also to make those sharp turns without spinning out and crashing. Right. And it needs to be sensitive on the gas compared to the average person. When we call ourselves dump trucks. I'm not a highly sensitive person. And it might take us a little bit of time to warm up and speed up. However, we can probably withstand a heck of a lot more hits to the vehicle compared to a Ferrari. Okay. So both serve a purpose. And one being more sensitive, the Ferrari than the other does not make one wrong or lesser than.
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B
And what about the dandelion and orchid analogy? I like that one as well.
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A
So this is Boyce's I believe, framework. He uses this in the context of understanding children. Specifically, some children are born as orchids and some children are born as dandelions. So we think about temperament. Temperament is an innate experience. When you match that with environment, you then get the child's personality. Okay. And there are basically three temperaments. If we were to parse them out. The dandelion is a flower that can withstand a lot of wearing. It grows wherever it feels like. And then the orchid, while a beautiful flower and a very appealing to the eye flower, requires specific care in order to flourish. So you can't stick an orchid in the middle of the lawn and expect it to survive. Right. But do we make the orchid a bad flower? Cause we didn't learn how to effectively care for the flower. No, we are the ones that need to be learning how to garden. So this is part of the mentality when we're talking about raising sensitive children. They are designed to experience the world differently and that is a gift. He also brings to our attention the concept of a tulip. This is a flower that needs a flower bed. It needs a little bit more care than the dandelion in order to survive. But it doesn't necessarily require hand holding. And every new experience. Right. We can recognize that highly sensitive people experience the world as typically more orchid like where they flourish when well cared for.
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B
And you mentioned this is something people are born with, so it's not something they're going to grow out of. It can be impacted by environment, but it doesn't stem from your environment.
- [08:54]
A
Correct. Behavior is changeable, behavior is influenceable, Temperament is innate. And then how we are taught about the world, how we're taught about safety, how we're taught about love, that impacts how we see the world, our perception. And someone's perception will influence their behavior. So if they perceive themselves to be fragile, if they perceive themselves to be misunderstood, if they perceive themselves to be different or broken, they, they will behave in a way, you know, self fulfilling prophecy, as if they are different and broken. They will present gradually, they will struggle, they will freak out more often because they don't have that hardiness, what we more typically refer to as resilience.
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B
Is there a genetic component to this?
- [09:38]
A
Yes, there are genes that they are linking and studying. And that's been going on for about five years now.
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B
And just briefly, I know there are other terms that people see on social media. Deeply feeling, spicy, strong willed, intense. Are people usually describing the same? And why do you prefer the term highly sensitive?
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A
Well, they're describing a misrepresentation of the highly sensitive temperament trait. These ineffective labels like deeply feeling, neurospicy, strong willed, all of those are labels to describe the outward behavior. You see, and this is common for professionals to label these experiences. If they don't actually study temperament, they're describing symptoms of a bigger problem, that the environment isn't supporting the child. When you describe your kid as strong Willed as deeply feeling. You're missing the vast important characteristics of these children. They're not innately deeply feeling, they're deeply processing. If you're telling yourself that your child is strong willed, then what happens is you end up looking at that child like they are stubborn. But if you start to understand what highly sensitive means and the correct terminology in the research is called sensory processing sensitivity, what happens is we actually are more capable of understanding how vastly intricate this type of temperament can be. And it actually allows for parents to notice that their child is very unique and stop mislabeling their child with these ineffective and unhealthy labels.
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B
I'm curious, while we're talking about the labels, do you consider highly sensitive people to be neurodivergent? And is it ever confused with ADHD or autism?
- [11:23]
A
What is important to understand is that the definition of neurodivergence is that your neurotype, your nervous system experience, is different than the average person. So if we're gonna use that definition, then sure, highly sensitive people, because they are one of every five, 20%, we can move with that assumption. If we are using the more traditional assumption of the word neurodivergent, which means a mental need where there's a confusion in the brain or one might even determine a disorder in the brain, then we are considering it to not be a neurodivergent method of thinking. Being highly sensitive is not the same as autism. People are misconstruing the experience of the highly sensitive temperament trait as autism, and this is actually doing a disservice. It is inhibiting children, in my opinion, and their capacity. Now, adhd, we want to think about this as a difficulty in managing executive functioning. There's a little bit of a parallel to someone who is overwhelmed, who's highly sensitive, and they experience what we call analysis paralysis. That is very different than someone who's experiencing ADHD who's just like, I know what the end is supposed to look like, but I'm not sure what to do to start. And also, I experience a dopamine deficit where I don't know how to upstart and motivate myself to start that. Those are two very different things. Highly sensitive people do not experience a lack of motivation. Instead, they are actually feeding an ineffective dopamine loop through anxiety, which is perpetuating this paralysis experience.
- [12:53]
B
I guess for somebody who feels confused about that, talking to professionals like you is the way to go if you
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A
aren't sure about your child. Yeah, absolutely. The expectation that a parent is supposed to look at their kid's behavior, the outward center, and understand the N word processes. It's a fallacy born from social media.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
I've been studying this for 20 years and I still take a while to explain it because it's not supposed to be simple.
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B
Let's talk about social media. I mean that's very kind of phrase based. Say this, don't say that to your child. And specific to parenting. Now you're getting these 90 second clips. How do you think Instagram parenting advice is affecting parents?
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A
But there's been a trend towards understanding emotional intelligence that is good overall a good thing for parents to understand that emotions lead to certain behaviors. And if we can start to shift a child out of intense emotions, then we can change their behaviors versus just judging the kid as, you know, quote unquote a bad kid. So the education being moved out of the university libraries, that is a good thing. Right now, however, what we're seeing is a flood of jargon being used by mom bloggers. Let's be completely honest, someone who experienced some sort of success by understanding a little bit of something new. And that I think is a large disservice to families because we have underqualified and misrepresented and undereducated people creating huge communities online because they have learned to use the definition of a word, even if they're using that definition inappropriately.
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B
Still ahead, why supporting a highly sensitive child is about more than just a few magic phrases or code coping skills. Megan Thompson explains how a parent's mindset and relationship with their child come first. How to tell when meltdowns may need more support, and how to help sensitive kids feel understood without lowering expectations for them. That and more coming up. But first, a break for our sponsors. Need an easy win as a parent? Grab Haya's children's vitamins. Haya's vitamins and probiotics have become such a simple part of our morning routine that both my son and I love. We love the taste, the experience, the nutritional value, all of it. My son gets a great tasting chewable that he happily eats daily. And I get the peace of mind of knowing that Haya has looked at what modern kids are actually eating or not eating and formulated their vitamins around those specific nutritional gaps. Also, Haya just launched something brand new. If your kids are active and growing, adding in a clean protein powder with added minerals designed just for kids might be exactly what they need. Haya's new Kids Daily Growth plus Protein is a total game changer. It's more than a protein shake. It's a purity awarded clean protein powder with added minerals and healthy fats that mixes right into water, smoothies and more to support muscle development and cognition. To fuel everything they've got going on, we've worked out a special deal with receive 50% off half off your first order on any of their products. To claim this deal you must go to hiyahealth.com Newsworthy this deal is not available on their regular website. Go to H I Y A H E a l t h.com newsworthy and get your kids the full body support they deserve. The Newsworthy is also brought to you by Bolan Branch when we moved into our house a couple of years ago, I knew I wanted to give our bed an upgrade. It's one of those non negotiables when starting fresh since our bed is the foundation of getting great sleep and it's the key to having a peaceful, comfortable space. Thankfully, I was already loving our Bolen Branch sheets at this point, so I knew I would turn to Bolen Branch once again for a fresh set of white sheets and our duvet cover and I'm still so happy with our bed. Since then, we've added another set of sheets and a waffle blanket for texture and extra comfort. When everything on your bed just works together, the room instantly feels more polished and inviting. And then even more importantly, my bed feels amazing the moment I get into it. The sheets are so soft and breathable. So sleep cooler this summer with Bolen Branch during their annual summer event. For a limited time, you can get 20% off site wide at bolandbranch.com newsworthy with the code newsworthy that's bolandbranch b o l l a n-d branch.com newsworthy with the code Newsworthy to take 20% off bolenbranch.com newsworthy code newsworthy exclusions apply. Okay, now back to my conversation with Megan Thompson. What I think stands out about your work is that it isn't just this kind of 1 92nd thing that can, you know, quote unquote fix your child. Why do you think supporting highly sensitive children requires kind of this whole system that can't be put into a 90 second clip.
- [17:42]
A
Parents change their children's behavior by changing how they relate to their children. Sensitive children actually change their behavior once they perceive a positive environment, a positive relationship with their parents. So you can't create a positive relationship with your child if your relationship skills are focused on getting your kid to do something that is transactional. Right when I break it down and kind of over exaggerate it. Parents are more capable of noticing. Oh, you're right. I have been trying to teach my kid this one magical coping skill or these three magical coping skills, expecting to see a new different behavior. But I haven't changed how I see my child and what they're capable of. So if you don't do that, you're not going to create lasting change. Instead, what we get is whack a mole. So maybe the meltdowns decrease, but the kid now starts hitting or the kid starts shutting down. Right. The difference in trying to shift behavior without trying to change yourself creates this passive dynamic in the household, which is also counterproductive for the child. So one of the things that I know parents need to be able to do is to create stability and consistency. And you can't do that if you don't understand how you are creating your own inconsistencies.
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B
Mindset first, strategies later. Yes. So you do talk a lot about the meltdown cycle. How can parents tell the difference between typical childhood meltdowns and emotions and a cycle that needs more support?
- [19:15]
A
We look at age appropriate behavior. Always sensitive children and non sensitive children should be growing out of their meltdowns by age four. By the time they've had their fifth birthday, they have no longer had regular meltdown. Daily, weekly, multiple times a day. What is a meltdown? A child is completely not conscious of what's going on. They are having outbursts, they're irritable on a daily basis, basically demonstrating a lack of emotional control. Even if you've been coaching them to exhibit that emotional control or they're shutting down and the cycle is the fact that it's happening so frequently.
- [19:52]
B
Should parents be talking to their children about being highly sensitive? If they think they are, and if so, at what age and how would you frame it?
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A
At various ages, I believe that parents should be speaking positively about their child's capacities as early as straight out of the womb. All right. Or even when they're pregnant. The experience where you're speaking life into your child, you're telling them how skilled they are, what they're growing into, all of that just pouring into your child through words. Very important because our brains are designed to notice what isn't working. So if we don't actively work against that, we will speak sadness and chaos into our family's lives, whether we want to or not. So as early as possible, highlighting that your child is detail oriented, highlighting that your child notices things that other people don't, making sure that the Child notices that that is a gift, as well as helping them see that their emotions are not wrong. And that's really important for them to understand. So telling them, thank you for sharing with me how big that emotion is for you, for example, would be an indicator. I would talk about in terms of positively acknowledging. The child needs to communicate to you how big their emotion is in order for them to feel heard and understood. And then for you to then teach them how to decrease that intensity because it doesn't feel safe for them when they're communicating that.
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B
I love how you say talk about emotions like you would the weather.
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A
Yep, exactly. The sky is blue, you feel sad.
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B
And what is that doing? That's making sure the child is not feeling shame for having that emotion, and then that decreases the intensity of it.
- [21:29]
A
Two things. Yes. That as well as giving the child language to communicate more effectively, repetition is the path to mastery. So if we're only talking about emotions when the kid's overloaded, they're not taking that information and you're basically talking till you're blue in the face. It's inefficient.
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B
That reminds me that, you know, so many parents now have heard about validation. What do you think it's important to know about validation?
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A
Two things. Validation is not agreement, and reassurance is not validation.
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B
And validation is needed. And it's not the only thing correct.
- [21:59]
A
100%. You can't validate and then not give skills. Right. So we have to validate and teach the child that they are experiencing something, give them words to what they're experiencing so they don't feel crazy, and then we have to teach them what to do instead so that whatever behavior that they're experiencing doesn't just perpetuate over and over and over again. They feel very unsafe if they're having meltdowns on a regular basis. Avoiding that till they figure it out is actually extremely psychological, overwhelming, and can lead to mental health diagnoses for sensitive kids.
- [22:32]
B
There's so much to talk about when it comes to parenting, and I know that can. You can go very in depth about that. But for just, let's say teachers, caregivers, even doctors or neighbors of kids, what's one thing you wish just more adults in general understood about highly sensitive kids?
- [22:48]
A
So what is important to understand is that we don't want to reduce the standard for sensitive kids, but we do need to understand that there are a lot of steps that support them and they can change that in a couple of months with clear and consistent changes in the household. But it is important for everybody involved to not put kids in a box, especially the kids who think outside the box.
- [23:11]
B
Anything else you want to add or just a final takeaway that you want people to remember about highly sensitive people in general?
- [23:17]
A
I just keep going back to the fact that this is a gift. It might not feel like a gift if you haven't ever learned skills. It might not feel like a gift to your child if they don't have the skills yet. But children can be extremely forgiving when they are able to process their emotions, so parents can start immediately and they can repair years of chronic invalidation very quickly when they make pointed decisions to shift out of the dynamic.
- [23:44]
B
Before you go, Megan is offering a free gift for listeners who want more guidance, especially those who have children stuck in a meltdown cycle. She says you can grab her Meltdown Decoder tool to help you review a hard moment, identify the pattern your child may be showing, and choose a steadier response. Just go to eliminate meltdown cycle.com decoder. We'll also link to that as well as her book and website. In today's episode notes over on thenewsworthy.com and a quick note. My family has worked with Megan and her team, which is part of why I wanted to have this conversation and share a bit of her expertise on this topic. So thank you to Megan Thompson for helping us and for coming on the show. And thank you for listening and sharing this episode. If you found it informative, join us again during the week for all the days news in just 15 minutes a day, every Monday through Friday, we help you stay informed even when you're busy. So we'll be back on Monday with the latest news. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.