My Sensitive Child: Temperament-Based Parenting Tips from a Child Psychiatrist

By Chi-hyun Choi

“Sensitivity Is a Special Gift”

- A child psychiatrist’s guide to parenting a sensitive child
- 13 parenting strategies to reduce anxiety and boost inner strength in susceptible children


“My son jumps at the slightest noise.”
“He hates strangers and unfamiliar places.”
“My daughter gets anxious and worries about things that haven’t happened yet.”
“She repeatedly washes her hands even though they’re clean.”

Sensitive kids are a source of worry for many parents. Indeed, caring for these delicate, fragile-as-glass children can be overwhelming. How should parents raise these sensitive souls born with a unique temperament that challenges the notion of a “difficult” child?

A trained child psychiatrist, the author outlines several principles all parents should know when raising a sensitive child. Pulling out the common traits in susceptible kids who have come to him for treatment, he distills his findings into 13 key strategies.

The author refrains from complex, jargony terms and writes in an easy-to-read style using detailed examples and comparisons to deliver the essential information needed to support sensitive children. For many parents wrestling with information overload, this book will offer clear, practical guidelines as well as friendly advice that will help put their worries to rest.

When kids face a new set of challenges each day, they naturally develop a defense mechanism against the unfamiliar, which could result in heightened sensitivity. Whether these children grow up to be selfish adults or highly attuned, unique individuals will depend on how they learn to control this sensitive temperament, an area in which parents can play an immense role.

This book will show parents how to nurture the exceptional talent within their susceptible child and help ease anxiety the parents and their kids may have about sensitivity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: METASEQUO
• Release date: Nov 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9791197970818

Book preview

My Sensitive Child

(Original Korean title: 예민한 아이 잘 키우는 법)

Original Copyright © 2021 Chi-hyun Choi

Korean edition © 2021 UKNOWBOOKS

English translation edition © 2022 METASEQUO

Design © 2022 Jin-ki Hong

All rights reserved.

ISBN

979-11-979708-1-8 (Ebook)

979-11-979708-2-5 (Paperback)

979-11-979708-3-2 (Hardcover)

About the Author

Chi-hyun Choi

Chi-hyun Choi is a medically trained child psychiatrist. A graduate of Seoul National University College of Medicine, he completed his residency and fellowship at the university's department of mental health. He went on to treat children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems at SMG-SNU Boramae Medical Center.

From 2018 to 2021, he served as deputy chief of the Seoul Firefighters Psychological Support Unit, providing mental health services for firefighters. He currently delivers talks on a wide range of parenting-related topics in mental health welfare centers, offices of education, and other public institutions across Korea.

This book is a parent's guide to raising a sensitive child that shows how parents can help kids bring their sensitivity under control so that they can turn this temperament into a personal asset. By shedding a positive light on sensitivity, the author relieves parents' anxiety and sets them on a more fulfilling path to parenting. He presents his expert knowledge in an engaging, easy-to-understand style that avoids highly technical language and reads more like friendly advice one might offer a friend. This book was listed in the 2022 Sejong Book Award hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Kyung-sun Noh Book Award hosted by the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Choi is the author of What Is Wrong with My Child? and co-author of Fact Checks, My Child's Mental Health and Aggression and Anger Management Program for Adolescents. He translated into Korean Anxiety Relief for Kids by Bridget Flynn Walker.

About the Translator

Hyo-jin Kim

Hyo-jin Kim is a freelance translator based in Seongnam, South Korea. She studied translation at Ewha Womans University Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation.

Notes:

• All examples in this book have been edited to represent the problems commonly found in sensitive children. The names and contents are fictitious.

• This book is best read sequentially from Chapter 1 as it is organized in a way that first shows the appropriate parenting attitude when dealing with sensitive kids, followed by practical tips. But for readers wanting to access immediate tips, I advise reading the chapters in the following order: 1-3-4-2.

Prologue

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What You Need to Know

When Raising a Sensitive Child

A sensitive child came to see me today. Holding his mother’s hand, he entered the counseling room looking lost and bewildered. He took a quick glimpse at me, his psychiatrist, and, as if embarrassed to meet me eye to eye, quickly hid behind the dress of his mom.

With a friendly smile, I tried to engage with him, but my efforts were only half successful. Some kids remain hidden behind their mom, while some start bawling and want to go out. Even a child and adolescent psychiatrist is helpless in front of a crying child.

Parents who seek my help talk about how worried they are by their highly sensitive child. To gather information, I observe the parents and the child. After an objective analysis of the situation, I try to find a way to help them. I then explain to the parents my observations and assessments, as well as what I think are possible solutions to the problem.

Often, there’s not enough time to explain everything in detail. While I try my best, I feel that my explanation falls short because of the limited time. This book is my attempt to provide more in-depth help to parents coping with the challenges of raising a sensitive child.

When writing this book, I tried to distill the most important pieces of information and present them in an engaging, easy-to-read manner. In terms of narrative style, I tried not to speak as a doctor to a patient, but as a friend offering friendly advice to another friend having trouble raising a sensitive kid.

I hope readers find not only useful information but also some comfort in these pages. Because no matter how worrying the situation may seem, there really is nothing wrong with a sensitive child; she’s just a little different.

My Sensitive Child was written with the following in mind:

First, I tried to explain in an easy-to-understand fashion the essential points that all parents of sensitive children should know. Mothers and fathers don’t have to delve into all the technical and complicated academic research related to parenting. In today’s age of information overload, it’s easy to drown ourselves in a flood of data and lose our ability to discern what’s important and what’s not. To provide a steady foundation for those wavering parents, I contained in this book only the most reliable and relevant information.

To make this information more accessible, I employed various examples and metaphors. I believe an expert is someone who can break down even the most complex concepts into easy-to-digest forms. Therefore, readers are likely to find the most important information presented in clear, understandable terms.

Second, I focus on how parents should behave toward their children in this book.

Books on the topic of sensitive, anxious kids abound in bookstores. But in many of these books, the parenting strategies are organized by child age or specific situations. Of course, it can be helpful for parents to learn how to approach their sensitive kids under various scenarios. Reading about the solution to each of these situations can also give parents the confidence to tackle the problem at hand.

But I believe that changing the parents’ attitude toward their sensitive child is more important than offering a quick fix. What’s more critical than actual parenting skills is the mindset of the parents and the lens through which they view their child. Nurturing, I believe, is not a matter of technique but of attitude. Unlike the numerous other resources that provide solutions by child age or situation, I think this book, with its different take on the subject, has something new to offer.

Raising a sensitive child is in some ways similar to solving an arithmetic problem. To solve a math problem, you must first learn how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Without these basic skills, you’ll find yourself at a loss if the problem gets even a little difficult. The same goes for parenting. There are certain basic principles you need to know when raising a sensitive child. Armed with these principles, parents can then work their way out of each new challenge.

But unlike a math problem, which has only one answer to one problem, there is no one right way to raising a child. You need to be flexible in finding a solution that is the best fit for your child, given your particular time and place. Blindly following the suggestions of others is bound to end in failure.

While this book may be a how-to guide for parents with a sensitive child, it is by no means a solutions manual. I hope this book will help readers learn the appropriate ways to raise their highly sensitive kid. As long as they have a good grasp of this attitude, they’ll be able to respond to nearly any situation—with a much lighter heart.

This book is for all sensitive children and their parents. I hope one day to see a big smile on your faces.

Chi-hyun Choi

ch1

In Chapter 1, we’ll first look at the definition of sensitive.

To solve a specific problem, we first need to look at the underlying fundamentals behind it. One useful way to understand the basic elements is through conceptualization. We conceptualize complex information and events to derive commonalities and general knowledge. Seeing the problem through this conceptual framework makes it easier to understand.

When trying to understand a sensitive child, it’s much more efficient if we start by looking at the common traits of sensitivity. While aspects may vary depending on the child and situation, sensitive kids share certain common features. If the approach and solution to a problem is as varied as the children themselves, this would require a significant amount of time and effort on our part. But lucky for us, this approach becomes much easier if we understand the common features of sensitivity.

At the end of this chapter, I provide a mental checklist that parents should be aware of when dealing with their sensitive child. I hope this helps you discern what your biggest concerns are and conceptualize these mixed worries to get at the heart of the matter.

The Various Features

of a Sensitive Child

What do we mean when we say my child is sensitive? What does a sensitive child look like in the eyes of a parent?

Sensitive kids are different from birth. They would cry for no reason and fret and wake up more frequently. They’re also sensitive to sound, smell, temperature, and touch, and can instantly tell if there has been a change in the environment.

Sensitive children do not calm easily in new or unfamiliar situations. This is why they’re labeled as having a difficult temperament. Temperament here refers to a set of inborn behavioral traits. We can identify a child’s temperament through various characteristics, including level of physical activity; regularity in feeding, sleeping, and stooling patterns; level of attention or lack thereof; sensitivity to stimulation; and overall mood.

Kids with different temperaments respond differently to their surroundings. Consider a two- or three-year old being seated in an infant car seat. Some kids sit calmly without