Feelings Before Words

Younger children feel their way through their worlds for the first six years until cognition sets in around ages six to eight. Then, intellectual development becomes the leader in exploring environments, overpowering feelings.  For an intuitive child, negotiating their worlds through feelings is a normal, natural process that can extend beyond the early years. What influences whether or not an intuitive child keeps their feelings open or shuts them down and intellectualizes them?

A child who shuts them down typically says, "I don't know," when you ask them how they feel.

A child who intellectualizes them will say, "I think I feel..." This means the child is out of touch with their feelings. 

We have observed that children who are less sensitive are better able to initiate action, make change happen or learn to control their environment. On the other hand, children who are more sensitive are shy of and reactive to the environment. All of us react from both responses, but parents will observe a general pattern of a child's response to their environments, like I observed in my grandson's gymnastics class. 

I was a fly on the wall while observing two years olds (an their parents) in a saturday morning gymnastics class. My grandson, Calvin, was fearless. He hurled his body through space to land on mats. He yelled no to his mom's offer of help on the balance beam. He could do it himself, and another parent suggested he open his arms, which allowed him to move along even faster. He took control of his environment through curiosity and trial and error. Louis, on the other hand, was a sensitive child who seemed overwhelmed by the noise and the flying bodies of other two-year olds. His eyes were wide as he stood on the sidelines and watched. His dad pushed him here and there gently to encourage his trying new things. Yet, sensitive Louis wasn't ready for the commotion which was too much sensory input for his young nervous system. Then, Lyla, was willing to try new things, but only with her mother nearby, an away from the other children. When the kids tried the mats, Lyla was on the balance beam. 

In our book, Raising Intuitive Children, we encourage parents of intuitive children to be aware of an overly sensitive child's feelings to people, sounds, smells, pollution, lights and other stimulation in their environment. Sensitivities can have a biochemical basis such as allergies, hypersensitive immune system, or hypersensitive nervous system. How an intuitive responds to their environment will determine how successfully he or she uses intuitive intelligence.