Highly Sensitive Child: Understanding This Trait to Better Support Them

High sensitivity — also called hypersensitivity or "HSP" (Highly Sensitive Person) — affects around 15 to 20% of the population. In children, it manifests as a deeper processing of sensory, emotional, and social information: they feel more intensely, perceive more nuances, and can be quickly overwhelmed in stimulating environments.

It is not a disorder. It is a nervous system trait, recognised by research since Elaine Aron's work in the 1990s.

What characterises the highly sensitive child

Depth of processing

The highly sensitive child doesn't take information at face value. They reflect at length, ask many questions, make connections that other children don't. What can appear as slowness is often depth.

Intense emotional reactivity

Emotions are experienced with greater intensity. Joy can be overwhelming; sadness or disappointment, very deep. Bursts of tears that surprise adults are not tantrums: they reflect a real intensity.

Sensitivity to stimulation

Noise, crowds, bright lights, changes of plan, transitions — all of this can cause sensory overload for the highly sensitive child. They need time to withdraw and regulate.

Strong empathy

They feel strongly what others feel. They can be deeply affected by conflicts around them, even when not directly involved. This empathy is a strength — it can also become a source of exhaustion.

What adults can do

Accepting sensitivity without pathologising it, providing quiet withdrawal time after stimulating situations, valuing depth of thought over speed, and avoiding injunctions to "not be so sensitive" — which only generate shame without reducing the sensitivity.

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