My son is a Highly Sensitive child, and I, too, am a highly sensitive person (HSP). Reflecting on my own experiences, I realize that being forced into social situations as a child only exacerbated my anxiety. Now, as a parent, I want to ensure I don’t repeat the same pattern with my child.

Ever since my son was a baby, I noticed him displaying signs of social anxiety. When he was a toddler, he preferred to sit on swings during playdates, and even at four years old, he tended to leave play areas when other children came to play together. I tried encouraging him to stay a little longer, but it was challenging as he became distressed.

I always felt I was walking on a tightrope. Each time we were in a social setting and saw my child’s sensitivity come up, I wondered, “Should I push him out of his comfort zone, or should we leave?” No matter what I chose, I felt guilty afterward.

My gut told me not to push him into things he wasn’t ready to handle. Still, I often felt he was missing out on opportunities because of his anxiety.

After doing some research, I came upon the Step Ladder Approach. It’s a therapy technique that teaches you to plan in detail before doing something stressful. The approach fits like a glove to a highly sensitive child because they like to assess the risks before jumping in.

In addition, it gives the child control over the situation. That made me stop wondering whether I should push my child into stressful situations. Instead, I let him take the lead. That makes perfect sense because anxiety is much about control – we feel anxious when we don’t know what will happen next.

Anxiety is a normal human reaction unless it happens too often

Anxiety is a natural part of being human, and children are no exception. It is like an alarm system that protects us from threats, real or perceived. However, some of us have extra-sensitive alarm systems which go off quickly. But false alarms can be scary, and they can make us want to avoid certain situations in the future.

While most kids can navigate through occasional anxious moments with help from their parents, some face persistent anxiety that significantly impacts their daily lives. (If you feel your child’s anxiety significantly impacts their quality of life, please consult a specialist.)

Did you know that 9.4% of US children aged 3 to 17 struggle with anxiety?

The effects of anxiety can take various forms in children. Separation anxiety, for instance, can turn school drop-offs into daunting challenges. Sleep anxiety often arises in neurodivergent children, resulting in long bedtime struggles.

Another common form of anxiety is social phobia, which leads children to shy away from social interactions because they fear being embarrassed or judged by their peers.

Why a highly sensitive child is more prone to anxiety

When a highly sensitive child is worried, it consumes their mind because they feel emotions deeply and tend to overthink.

That’s why a highly sensitive child may be at risk of anxiety. It’s a combination of their innate temperament and how they perceive and process the world around them. Here are some factors that contribute to their big feelings:

• Sensory intelligence: Highly sensitive children often have a heightened awareness of their surroundings. They may be more sensitive to sensory stimuli such as loud noises, bright lights, or unfamiliar textures. This increased sensitivity can lead to a sense of overwhelm, triggering anxiety.
• Empathy: Highly sensitive children are compassionate. They are more attuned to the emotions and needs of others, leading to worries about others’ well-being and a sense of responsibility for their happiness.
• Overthinking and perfectionism: Highly sensitive children analyze situations in great detail. They may strive for perfection and have high expectations for themselves, which can create anxiety when they fear falling short or making mistakes.
• Sensitivity to criticism: Highly sensitive children have a heightened sensitivity to criticism or perceived rejection. They may internalize negative feedback and worry excessively about others’ opinions, leading to anxiety in social situations.

How to overcome your child’s anxiety

There are many ways we can help sensitive children overcome anxiety. Still, it ultimately comes downs to a healthy, slower lifestyle, which includes time in nature, regular exercise, healthy food, mindfulness, co-regulation, and gradual exposure.

We’ve listed six techniques for managing anxiety. Most help to calm down the nervous system, while the last – gradual exposure – can make children feel uneasy. However, exposure is essential if we want to beat the worry monsters.

Gradual exposure is a therapy technique that helps people face their fears step by step. When we worry about something, we tend to avoid the object, person, or situation that makes us feel like that. While it works in the short term, avoidance worsens this in the long run. Exposure therapy helps us face our fear systematically by encouraging us to:

• Assess the risks realistically
• Reducing negative associations with previous negative experiences
• Showing us that we are capable of handling stressful situations.

One specific exposure therapy strategy is the step ladder approach.

The Step Ladder Approach

The step ladder approach can help children gradually manage anxiety. It involves breaking down anxiety-provoking situations or tasks into smaller, manageable steps. Children can build confidence by starting with less challenging steps and progressively moving towards more difficult ones.

This approach allows children to face their fears step by step, providing a sense of control and accomplishment at each stage. It may not yield fast results, though – your child decides how long they spend on each step of the ladder and how many times they repeat an experience until they feel safe enough to move up.

You may want to give rewards (external motivation) for each accomplishment. That’s up to you. However, this approach is most effective when your child is internally motivated to overcome fear. How can you help with internal motivation? The best way is to involve them in creating the ladder’s steps. It’s up to them to decide the easiest and the most challenging steps.

Moreover, they must go up the ladder at their own pace. That’s because anxiety is about feeling you can’t control what happens to you. So, the more your child feels in control of the process, the more willing they are to overcome their worries.

Benefits:

• Children can face the stressful situation at their own pace.
• It teaches a growth mindset.
• It helps with negative thinking patterns.

Quick tip to keep in mind before getting started:

Each step of the ladder will be more stressful, and it helps to teach your child some anxiety relief techniques to help them start each step with a calm mindset. Here are a few examples: slow breathing, quick body scan, EFT tapping, positive affirmations, the balloon technique, and the garbage back technique.

How to Apply the Step Ladder Approach

1. Motivate your highly sensitive child to want to face their fears

Facing our fears is intimidating, even for adults. So how can you convince a child to do it?

You can start by listing their superpowers – temperament traits or special skills. For instance, a sensitive child is creative, intuitive, cautious, empathetic, and attentive to details. Aim for 5-7 strengths and discuss specific cases when your child used them successfully.

Then, list 3-4 challenges directly or indirectly related to the situation that causes fear. For instance, difficulty talking with extended family, unexpected noises, or fear of swimming.

This step aims to help your child have a more positive self-image and find how their superpowers can help them in certain situations.

Let’s take an example. Your child struggles with making friends at school. You can help them identify their strengths: thoughtful, funny, and good at inventing games. Their main challenges are that they don’t know how to initiate a conversation and worry that they’ll say something stupid.

As they are thoughtful and funny, they might think of a joke as a way to start talking to classmates. In addition, they might invent a funny game and ask the teacher if the class can play it during recess.

2. Talk about what your highly sensitive child feels

This step aims to help your child identify their emotions and thoughts and understand why they think that way.

Children often have big feelings but don’t know what triggers them. They feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed. If that happens frequently, and depending on our reactions, the child can feel like there’s something wrong with them.

But what children don’t know (and many adults) is that strong emotions, positive or negative, are natural. Fear is natural. It happens to everyone, no matter how young or old. The problem is that sometimes, our brains are over-active. So the threat response activates too quickly or too often. As a result, we may feel fear even when there’s no risk.

What helps is to train the brain to get better at assessing risks. And one way to do that is by facing your fears gradually. When we do that, we gain experience, which helps us better assess risks in the future.

3. Choose a goal

The goal should be something your child wants to do, but they are too afraid to do it. For instance, football practice, sleeping in their room, making a new friend, and spending a week without you at their grandparents’ house.

4. Plan in detail how your highly sensitive child will reach that goal

Analyzing a problem and assessing the risks comes naturally to Highly Sensitive Children. However, they might get stuck in finding solutions because of their anxiety.

You can help them brainstorm solutions for every step so they don’t feel overwhelmed. When you’ve finished planning the steps, ask your child to rate from 1 to 10 how scary each step is (use a 3-color scare if they haven’t learned numbers yet).

When planning the steps, be careful not to induce anxiety where there is none – sometimes, the anxiety triggers are different than what we might think. That’s why it helps to ask neutral questions like, “How can you greet your classmates when we arrive at the party?” instead of “If you’re nervous about greeting people, we can skip that step. Is that okay?”

Let’s take an example. Let’s say that your child wants to take swimming lessons but is afraid. Now let’s break down the problem into smaller steps:

• going to the swimming pool once or twice a week with a parent
• observing what other children do during a swimming class
• meeting the instructor
• participating in a swimming class together with you.

Learning how to swim is a 10/10 scary experience. But going to the swimming pool with you can be a 4/10, observing what children do during a swimming class is a 6/10, meeting the instructor is 8/10, and you joining them is also 8/10.

5. Build the ladder step by step

Now, you can start building the ladder. Start with the most straightforward steps and check how your child feels about each step.

Going up the ladder, step by step can be strenuous. But going through the process at your child’s pace is essential. Whatever you do, don’t rush or bribe them to move more quickly.

Should you give rewards?

Highly sensitive children are more likely less motivated by external rewards, according to research. They aren’t as excited by the things that their peers chase.

However, rewards can boost the pride and joy that come with an accomplishment. It can help intensify the memory and the positive feeling that will imprint in your child’s mind. That strong positive memory can empower them to be bolder next time.

So, if you decide to offer rewards, you may want to give small meaningful ones, like words of encouragement or a special trinket, like an old bracelet of yours that your child loves. Try not to make the task about the reward. Instead, you may want to focus on the process and how good it feels to work hard and accomplish something.

When they reach the top of the ladder, aim for a reward your child truly wants and, ideally, one that improves your relationship. For example, playing ball with Dad every weekend for two hours,  family pajama evening on Fridays, or a new co-op video game they can play with friends or siblings.

The step ladder approach is an effective anxiety relief technique that can help our children choose excitement over fear. However, it takes time and patience to make it work. Raising a child who struggles with worries is hard, and it’s essential to remind ourselves, when we feel drained, that we are doing our best, same as our children.

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