Welcome to our Are You Highly Sensitive community programs. About twice a year, we hold an open forum. Anything goes in this "Parenting Sensitive Youth" open forum. We discussed reframing the parenting we got and living in the trenches if you are parenting now. Parenting sensitive kids, but also parenting as a highly sensitive person. The community looks forward to hearing your thoughts, suggestions, and of course, questions.

There is no doubt that we think we could do more, we could do better, or we are just doing it wrong. When you are highly sensitive, you think more, feel more, and notice more. That means you are likely to be  more overwhelmed more of the time.

The good news? Well, you are not doing worse... in fact, you might even be doing better. That really keen thinking brain of yours has thought of a million ways you could do better, but that doesn't mean you have to do all of them. Let's talk it out. Let's all thrive. 

QUESTIONS

1. How do I help guide my female 18-year old HSC on a career?  In school, she's been good at so many things - likely what has helped her succeed is her achievement orientation (she loves to check off boxes!), people pleasing (seems to be socialized in people who present as female no matter the familial counter efforts), and ability to thrive in structure.  It seems hard for her to distinguish what she can work hard and do well at (which is a lot) versus what she really likes and enjoys to do.  I know that she will be able to adjust her career as she goes, but I would love to help provide her guidance as there are many competing factors to balance (high sensation seeking, highly sensitive, neurodivergence, etc.).  She is working with the school counselor but honestly, they seem to have very outdated notions of what careers are and there is a lack of awareness of careers outside the norm (doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.).  Side note:  I worry about how she will fair when things are not so structured as they are in school.
   Question 1 could have been written by me. My daughter has so many and such broad interests that it is hard to narrow down to a direction to try first. She has gotten discouraged by the difficulty of community college and is ready to cross anything requiring education off her list. She’s wanting to get a low paying sales job in the meantime, but if she is going to skip college, I’d like to see her start working in a field of her choice. She is working with the Department of Rehabilitation, but they have only asked her what she wants to do and have given no guidance at all. Like #1, I’d like some advice on how to guide or steer her into something that will lead to something substantial rather than have her go through a series of low paying, dead-end jobs.
2. How do you address shame when the child (age 11) freaks out and gets upset if you give feedback on something they did every time? Like he did a project for school and used a sharpie and the sharpie bled to through the page and it was unreadable and I told him that I couldn’t read it, and he dug his heels in and said he wasn’t going to change it and then got upset that I didn’t think it was amazing. Or he got cranberry juice right after I said he could have water only and then when I called him on it, he said he didn’t know he couldn’t have it and had a meltdown. 
3. Can we talk about the genetic nature of the HSP/HSC trait? If both parents are HSPs, will their child be an HSC?
4. I know we may not neatly fit inside labels, but I’m wondering if we can talk about the differences between:  1) highly sensitive introverts, 2) high sensitive extroverts, 3) highly sensitive, high sensation seeking introverts, and 4) highly sensitive, high sensation seeking extrovert. 
   
5. Should sex education be different for HSCs vs. non-HSCs?  (i.e., does it benefit HSC to be educated in a certain way, setting, age, etc. as compared to non-HSCs?)
6. My HSC teen is considering identifying as asexual. How do we know if her aversion or disinterest in sex is due to high sensory sensitivity (ugh bodily fluids) or asexuality (of course it could be both)?
7. Following up on #5 and #6, it concerns me that I can’t even talk about normal bodily function with my young adult daughter, especially if they are related to female parts in any way. She needs to understand enough to know if something is going wrong, and I’m concerned about her body image. She’s okay with herself when dressed, but turns around a small mirror I have in the bathroom and even sleeps in her bra because she doesn’t want to deal with her breasts.
8. My 8 yo HSC has been struggling with the unkindness of a few classmates and deeply wondering why they do what they do. My son said recently in reference to a girl in his class, “She looks at me “with stern looks” as if I’ve done something wrong and I haven’t done anything wrong!” How might you guide him towards acceptance of others and the fact that we can’t control their behavior?
9. We just found out that my 8 yo son has dyslexia and is going to need quite a bit of intensive support moving forward. How would I begin to share this with him? I hear that using the term ‘superpower’ is really better for older kids but he is already struggling with anxiety around not being at a similar level as many of his peers. Thank you! 
10. Especially for female HSCs, I'm curious about the difference between being highly sensitive vs. having high-masking autism (masking is an adaptive approach in which people consciously or subconsciously hide behaviors or emotions due to blend in or appear "normal").  I understand that having a personality trait is different from a diagnosis. I've learned that alexithymia (an inability to identify and describe emotions) can occur in autistic folks, and when they occur together, this is actually what many people think of as the "stereotypical autistic trait" of lack of empathy.  However, in autism without alexithymia, there could be the same empathy as neurotypicals or even hyper-empathy (like HSP!).  I've also learned from some members of the autistic community that they believe the term "Highly Sensitive Person" has been used to foster stigma against autism - that HSP is a repackaging of autistic traits in a more socially acceptable package and actually reflects the high masking autism phenotype.  In short, can we talk about the key characteristics of being 1) highly sensitive (without being autistic), 2) high masking autistic (esp. in females), and 3) HSP + autism occurring together?  Have others had experiences with this differentiation or co-occurrence in themselves or their family members?

Live Question: My 20 yo daughter is either calm or yelling. When she yells at me I calmly tell her I don't like being yelled at or I point out that she is yelling when it's not necessary. She doesn't seem to get that her yelling is upsetting to the rest of us. How can we set the limit to get her to stop yelling every time she is displeased?