At a certain time during my adolescence I made my parents buy an entirely new set of dinner plates. We had these lovely porcelain plates but cutting into anything harder than a banana would result in a very peculiar high pitched sound when knife met plate. Nobody else seemed to notice.
Unfortunately if the other plates were in the dishwasher, the porcelain plates would be out again and I repeatedly had to remind my family not to cut anything on them - it became a sort of running joke. That noise wasn’t just a nuisance to me, it felt physically painful. After the sound was over it still felt as though my brain could physically ‘feel’ that sound. Other people experience something similar with finger nails on a chalkboard (torture) or the screech of the London underground. For me all loud noises can feel distressing, especially so when tired (which, as a parent of two young children, is the default). Steak restaurants are out of bounds because of this.
So when I came across the now ever increasing mentions of HSPs (highly sensitive persons), I took notice and realised just how common some form of sensitivity is. It turns out I have been highly sensitive all along - and I’m far from alone. This is a simply a personality trait. All of us have varying levels of sensitivity, but those on the higher end have slightly more intense ways of processing sights, sounds, smells, in the brain -i.e. the filtering these senses out isn’t as powerful, though it manifests differently for everyone.
I found it fascinating to learn that there are scientists actively researching this too, so I couldn’t help but look into it for BBC Future. Understanding this type of sensitivity in the context of parenting is also hugely useful, as it helps to identify the strengths (there are loads!) and frustrations of the trait. If you suspect you have it too, now you’ll have the vocabulary to explain why you might give a noisy bar a miss after a long day.
An excerpt of my BBC article is below. (NB Note there’s also a link for a online test to find out how you score)
Are you an 'orchid' or a 'dandelion' parent? Researchers are uncovering the hidden personality traits that can shape our family life.
Ak any parent of young children whether they've ever felt overwhelmed, and the answer will probably be: yes. Even in the most relaxed households there can be days when the noise, mess and chaos seem to spiral out of control, leaving parents exhausted and irritated. Toddlers don't have an off button or a quiet voice.
As normal and common as this feeling is, there's a personality trait that can make everyday family life more overwhelming for some parents than others. Roughly 20-30% of the population are classed as being a highly sensitive person (HSP), according do a 2018 research paper – a trait receiving greater recognition by scientists as well as the general public. This sensitivity can relate to smells, sights or sounds. People who have it may, for example, find it hard to cope with bright lights and loud noise, and can find chaotic situations very stressful. It can also involve a heightened awareness of other people's moods or feelings, and come with a particularly strong sense of empathy.
Add the demands of parenting into the mix, and it surely sounds like a recipe for disaster. On top of the daily sensory and emotional overload, highly sensitive parents may face the additional challenge of caring for children who are also highly sensitive (being highly sensitive is thought to be 47% heritable).
Fortunately, though, the trait also comes with certain advantages, research suggests. For those affected, learning to understand these nuances could help turn parenting into a more joyful and enriching experience, rather than an overwhelming one.
The first step is probably to find out if you are highly sensitive. A team of psychologists from different universities who study sensitivity have developed a free online test for this. Crucially, being highly sensitive is not a disorder but a personality trait – a certain way of responding to one's environment. In particular, highly sensitive people tend to react especially strongly to sensory stimulation, a characteristic known as sensory processing sensitivity (SPS).
"Generally, sensitive people have heightened perception, they perceive more details," explains Michael Pluess, a developmental psychologist at Queen Mary University of London who specialises in the study of highly sensitive people and co-developed the test. "They will pick up on the moods of other people and have higher empathy. They also process things more deeply so they will pick up more about the environment." That is, they have a tendency to ruminate on what they experience and can be deeply affected by what they see and feel (which explains why I can't watch horror films).
Being highly sensitive involves a brain response to certain events or experiences that is measurably different from that of less sensitive people.
In one study, researchers asked a randomly recruited group of people to take a high-sensitivity test – a set of questionnaires, similar to the online test – then showed them photos of happy and sad people, and monitored their brain activity through fMRI scans. The highly sensitive people in the group, who had scored high in the test, displayed stronger activations of regions of the brain involved in awareness and empathy compared to the less sensitive participants.
Other studies showed similar patterns of people with sensory processing sensitivity displaying especially strong brain activation in regions involved in empathy and reflective thinking.
This tendency to process information deeply can lead to highly sensitive people being easily overstimulated, Pluess adds – and I can somewhat relate to that. I flinch at hearing about the plot of a gruesome movie. Watching it is out the question. It can feel physically painful to be in a noisy environment with bad acoustics. On London's screechy underground I have to cover my ears – and often wonder why nobody else does it. This sensitivity to noise – a typical feature of being highly sensitive – can make parenting especially challenging. When my children scream, it can feel as though my brain is imploding. To respond to their needs and comfort them, I have to learn to switch off that sensation. Of course, this is easier when I feel well-rested. Unfortunately, parenting tends to come with disrupted sleep, at least in the early years.
The challenges highly sensitive parents face – including stress and overstimulation in a chaotic environment – can interfere with "high quality parenting", explains Pluess.
Research has shown that in the early stages of parenthood, highly sensitive parents report greater stress and tend to find parenting more difficult than other parents do. However, they also report more attunement with their child – good news which chimes with other findings on highly sensitive people showing especially strong empathy.
Emerging evidence also suggests the added stress highly sensitive parents feel can be short-lived. A pilot study due to be presented at the European Conference on Developmental Psychology in August 2023 found that whilst highly sensitive parents initially experienced high levels of stress, by the time their babies were nine months old they showed improved parenting styles compared to those who had low sensitivity.
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