As I was walking an upset child to class at drop-off time the other day, I was chatting with her as we walked. I asked some distraction questions at first about some things she enjoyed playing with, and pets and the like. Then, in the middle of it all, she said, “I just miss my mum.”

I tried hard to put myself where she stood, feel as she felt, and think as she thought, and my heart melted. Some children are a lot more sensitive than others, and I think it is important to understand them and adjust our parenting styles to do what is best for them. After all, we aim to develop resilient young people even if they are sensitive kids.

Below is an article that helps give us an insight into how our sensitive kids might be feeling and what we can do to support them. I hope you find it helpful.

“Does your child cry easily? Is she prone to becoming overwhelmed in loud or busy places? Does your child seem sensitive to the moods and emotions of others? Does he tend to “meltdown” or “shutdown” when there is a lot going on? Does your child startle easily? Do you consider your child to be highly sensitive?

Raising a highly sensitive child can come with a unique set of parenting challenges but it also gives you—the parent—more influence to positively shape your child’s development! Yes, that’s right. Parents have even more influence on the development and wellbeing of their highly sensitive child compared to less sensitive kids.

Research shows that highly sensitive children are more strongly affected by their environment, including parenting, than less sensitive children. Let me explain.

Just as we all differ on temperament traits such as extroversion, agreeableness, and consciousness, we also differ on another temperament trait: sensitivity. All of us fall somewhere on the sensitivity continuum from low sensitivity to high sensitivity.

Approximately 30% of us—and our kids—are highly sensitive. Highly sensitive kids tend to process information from the environment more deeply, are prone to overstimulation, have greater emotional reactivity (think more crying and more intense emotions) and higher empathy, and have a greater capacity for sensing subtleties in our environment. We can think of highly sensitive kids as living smoke detectors who are capable of detecting subtle changes in the environment that the majority of people may miss. It is thought that a finely tuned, highly reactive nervous system underpins high sensitivity.

Research shows that highly sensitive kids tend to do exceptionally well in nurturing and supportive environments but are at higher risk for developing a range of physical and mental health conditions in harsh and unsupportive environments compared to children who are less sensitive. In other words, highly sensitive children are more sensitive to their environment for better and for worse.

So how do we support our sensitive kids and provide them with the nurturing environment they need?

Understand and accept your child’s sensitivity

Our temperament is biologically based, it is not something we can simply switch on and off or turn up and down. Learning more about our child’s temperament will help us to understand them better.

By seeing our child’s temperament as an important part of who they are, we can practice accepting their sensitivity rather than seeing it as something problematic that needs to be changed or ‘fixed’. Your child doesn’t need to be less sensitive. They need their sensitivity to be understood.

This can feel like a relief to parents who have been thinking that perhaps they had somehow caused their child to be sensitive. While nature and nurture do interact to shape our child’s development, your child was born with their own unique temperament, including their sensitivity.

Provide your highly sensitive child with the nurturing relationship they need to flourish

Highly sensitive children thrive in nurturing and supportive environments. We know that children don’t benefit from harsh or punitive parenting, but this is especially true for our highly sensitive kids who need a more nurturing parenting approach. In healthy parent-child relationships, our kids use us as their “safe haven” to come back to for protection and nurturing when they are tired, sick, stressed, or experiencing big feelings.

Often parents of highly sensitive kids will report that their child is “clingy” and tends to stay close to their parent until they feel comfortable in a situation. This is rarely cause for concern. Clinging is a child’s way of signalling that they need their parent to help them feel OK again. Sometimes they simply need our presence, other times they may need our affection and gentle words. We live in a society that has a history of discouraging children from being “too dependent” or “too clinging”. Often this view comes from a place of not understanding child development and not understanding children’s attachment needs. By trusting our child’s needs and responding to those needs with atonement and sensitivity, we can provide our kids with the support they need so that they can grow-up feeling secure in their relationship with us (knowing that we have their back), and, in turn, feeling secure in themselves and the world.

Be an emotion coach for your child

Highly sensitive children often have big emotions and lots of them! This means that your highly sensitive child will need your help to understand and manage their emotions. From as early as you can, label your child’s emotions to help them develop their own emotional vocabulary so that they can express their emotions as they get older. You can say things such as, “you look sad” or “I can see you are angry”. Once you’ve labelled your child’s emotion, it’s important to show your child that you accept their emotions—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It’s important that you validate your child’s emotions and avoid dismissing their emotions, even when your adult brain might judge their emotion as an “over reaction”. Instead of saying, “don’t be so sensitive” or “it wasn’t a big deal, she didn’t mean to hurt your feelings”, you can say things such as, “it’s okay to feel angry, I get it” or “I know you feel sad, that hurt your feelings”. By accepting and validating the full range of our child’s emotion, we not only help to soothe them in the moment, we also teach them healthy ways of responding to their own emotions—this is a lesson they will carry with them throughout their lifetime.” (Samson, 2022)

Have a great week with all your kids,

Mark B

Hey PPN Family!

I hope you are all doing amazingly well. Hope you are all staying safe, healthy, and warm/cool (who knows with Adelaide weather). This past Saturday, we had our first Connect 4 event at Para Vista Church. We had an amazing turnout with many of our students, parents, and even some of our teachers attending ready for some fun. We shared a delicious meal together before getting into some fun interactive games. We have another Connect 4 event later this term. so keep your eyes out for more announcements in the weeks to come.

I know we are only early in the term but this term for me has felt busy already. We had our Week Of Worship for our high school at my other school, Prescott College Southern in the first week of the term which involved a lot of behind-the-scenes work. Getting back to the norm for me has been hard. A tool that I like to use when I feel overwhelmed and tired is to go to the Word. I go to the Bible for guidance. I like to find verses of encouragement and substitute my name as if God was talking directly to me in the verse.

A verse I want to share with you today comes from 1 John 4:4, and I would like you to substitute your own name in the verse and read it out loud. Here's the verse:

(Your name), you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

God is with us wherever we are, whatever we are doing, no matter what situations we may be in. We are God's children, the One who created everything in the world. So why should we be worried? Why should we feel discouraged?

I hope this serves as an encouragement for you, Prescott Family! We chaplains are here whenever you need, so feel free to reach out if you need anything.

Blessings,
Pr. Mal

Last chance to register – Class Act Schools

The chance to join Class Act Schools, a FREE positive communication program, is closing this week.

By participating in the program, you’ll walk away with practical skills that improve your communication behaviours and relationships at home, in the workplace and with the school.

Plus, you’ll be helping shape the future of the school’s communication commitments.

To register simply click here to complete a short online form, or scan the QR Code below.

Thank you for your interest and involvement in your child's place of learning. We love having them here, and love having you involved.

Welcome Mrs Lianne Zilm

Prescott Primary Northern would like to welcome Mrs Lianne Zilm to our school family. Mrs Zilm is joining us as a School Services Officer (SSO) for two days a week. We look forward to getting to know her. Thank you, Mrs Zilm, for joining us and blessing our students. 

Book Week Pyjama Day

Uniform Shop

All colours of library bags are available again.  Orders can be made via Flexischools.

Daily Health Check

Do's & Dont's of Dropping Your Kids to School

On Wednesday 3rd August, Miss Thomas took a team of 24 students to the SAPSASA Athletics Carnival. Our students did an amazing job on the day, with the PPN team finishing 3rd out of all the schools in our district!

The PPN team had a great day supporting each other well and also encouraging other schools.  We had some students who were awarded ribbons on the day for coming 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in their event. 

Jeziah - 1st 10 year girls Shot Put
Joseph - 1st 10 year boys Shot Put
Guransh - 3rd 10 year boys Discus
Austin - 1st 10 year boys 200m, 2nd 100m, 3rd relay
Patrick - 3rd 10 year boys 200m, 3rd relay
Abel - 10 year boys 3rd relay
Dominic - 10 year boys 3rd relay
Atap - 1st 11 year girls Shot Put
Steven - 11 year boys 2nd 100m, 2nd Long Jump, 2nd High Jump
Prabhnoor - 12 year girls 3rd 800m
Alex - 12 year boys - 1st High Jump, 3rd Discus
Dillon - 12 year boys - 1st 100m, 1st 200m, 1st Long Jump

Congratulations to Jeziah, Joseph, Austin, Atap, Steven, Alex, and Dillon who have all been selected to represent the Adelaide North East District at the State Metro Day Carnival.

Well done to all our PPN SAPSASA Athletics team.

Prescott College