Raising a sensitive child

You may (or may not) have noticed that I haven't been blogging much lately. There are a few reasons for this, the most obvious being the busy-ness of juggling work and family life. Yet there's much more to it, as we have been experiencing emotional difficulties as a family, especially related with Olivia. If you have followed this blog for a while you may have noticed that I mostly like to share the precious moments with her.  After all, that is why I created this space - to capture and share such moments with loved ones near and far. This however certainly does not mean that we do not face challenging and difficult times as well in our family.

Our beloved little girl has been battling emotionally, and consequently so have Mama and Daddy. We've always known from when she was a tiny baby that Olivia is a very sensitive child, but never did we imagine that toddlerhood would be as challenging as it is right now. We got some alarm bells at the beginning of the year when we arrived home from a month's holiday in the States - when her reaction to the change seemed quite drastic. She suddenly became very clingy, anxious and emotional, both at home and especially in social settings. We thought it would just last a few weeks as she re-adjusted, but it actually accelerated to a point that she started having what seemed like small anxiety attacks when in social settings. Honestly, I'm not exaggerating! Whenever she was feeling anxious and around unfamiliar people I would see the expression in her face changing, followed by her holding on to me tightly, literally digging into my skin with her nails as she would begin to shake. We jokingly referred to this as her "silent tantrums", but we couldn't shake off the feeling that there was more to it. We didn't know how to deal with this and I definitely made a lot of mistakes in my attempts to "make her more sociable". At times I reprimanded her for her behaviour, but I soon learned that this was not helping her at all. What seemed to help, rather, was to remove her from the situation or environment that was making her anxious. Sometimes this worked well, though sometimes not so well.

After spending hours on Google, Facebook parenting groups, having chats with other moms, etc, I tried several things to help Olivia deal better with her emotions, with some attempts yielding positive results and some not making much of a difference. We've gone through various stages this year, between promising times when we think she's getting better, and then sudden reversals when it seems she she's getting worse again. Currently we are experiencing the most challenging times we've yet had with her. To give you an idea, she is probably frustrated with accompanying emotional outbursts sixty percent of the time. The smallest things can set her off, from being scared of the wind blowing on her face to seeing an upsetting picture in a magazine or TV (and yes, she probably shouldn't be exposed to TV!). Last weekend we were at a social gathering at another home with some friends and colleagues, and she was terrified of a little dog, along with a zebra carpet on the floor.  She also went ballistic out on the deck when she looked down, saw the gaps between the wooden planks, and seemingly feared that she would fall through the gaps!

We certainly don't have the answers to all of this.  But what I've realized is that we can so easily fall into the mode of trying to fix our child, thus causing both us and her frustration, anger and disappointment.

Why do I feel I need to fix her? There are a number of reasons for this - Because I have believed a lie that there is something wrong with her; because I have let my own insecurities with my personality cause me to fear that she will be like me; and because I have a preconceived idea of what an ideal personality for a child should be: carefree, fearless, friendly, sociable, etc and I unknowingly have tried to force such 'ideals' on my child.

The truth is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her, and I do not need to fix her. She has a beautiful and sensitive spirit, with an accompanying strong will, and sometimes she simply needs help and guidance on how to handle her strong emotions.  And all the while, we trust that in that beautiful way of God's Kingdom, such "weaknesses" will prove to be her greatest strengths as she continues to grow and develop!

So as much as we are battling at the moment, I know that she will be okay, as will we. We pray for God's supernatural wisdom, love and grace for this. After all, He has entrusted us with the life of this beautiful girl, an answer to our prayers, and so we trust Him to likewise give us everything we need to nurture Olivia into all that He has called her to be.

Dearest Olivia,

You are a beautiful and perfect creation. You are made in the very image of God. You carry a facet of who He is that no one else does. May you always know and be confident of who you are in Him.  We love you and are so, so proud of you!