Empathic feelers have acute mental or emotional sensibilities, and as children, want to be responsive to other people’s feelings. Yet, at times, their sensitivity threshold is low. They are often told, “You are too sensitive,” rather than being recognized for their gifts.
What a delight when a child is recognized for his gift of empathy! Our friend, Minette, shared that when her sensitive son Conner was five years old and entered kindergarten, she went to work in launching a local parenting newspaper. One week of every month was pressure filled with newspaper deadlines, and Conner’s response was to feel his mom’s stress and become distressed.
He ended up getting into trouble at school for pushing another child into a locker. The teacher was clear that he was provoked but expressed concern that Conner, a normally happy, relaxed child, should react aggressively. After a lengthy discussion about what was going on at home, Minette realized that Conner would react to her stress at work by acting out at school.
She learned to help Conner through these stressful times by giving him plenty of advance notice about the timing of her busy-ness. She would tell Conner, “I won’t be home much this week” or “You won’t see me as often this week, but once we get to Saturday, I will have the whole weekend to spend with you.” By managing her own stress and preparing Conner, she gave him language and a way to healthfully express his distress at not seeing her enough during that week of the month.
Join us on this intuitive journey to learn more about the power of intuition in the next post.
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