Be Brilliant in Your Role, Even When the World Overwhelms You
I am delighted to report about the publication of Dr. Elaine Aron’s new book for highly sensitive parents, as I am certain that it will be a valued resource for HSPs who are raising children. Highly sensitive parents are parents who have a highly sensitive nervous system, an innate trait that is found in about 20% of the population, in equal numbers of men and women. There are four key characteristics of HSPs:
- First is that they process all of the information that comes to them more thoroughly than the other 80% do.
- Second, they are more emotionally responsive and have higher empathy.
- Third, HSPs notice subtleties that others miss.
- Finally, because of the other three aspects, they are taking in a lot and become overstimulated more quickly than others.
Because of these characteristics, highly sensitive parents are uniquely attuned to their children, think deeply about every issue affecting their kids, and have strong emotions, both positive and negative, in response to parenting. Because of all of this, they also find parenting far more stressful than parents who are not highly sensitive. The Highly Sensitive Parent is a unique book that offers these parents strategies for handling stressors, as well as relationship issues that arise especially for this group.
It is important to point out that THE HIGHLY SENSITIVE PARENT is not a parenting book. It is written more for highly sensitive people who are parents to better respond and manage the demands of parenting as well as their own high sensitivity. In short, to become the best possible parent by reducing the overstimulation you are experiencing as an HSP and fitting in more self-care and down time.
Topics covered in The Highly Sensitive Parent include:
- Coping with Overstimulation – Managing breaks, boundaries, and how to react when it gets overwhelming;
- Getting Help – Whether it’s from parents, in-laws, teachers, neighbors, or day-care, the idea of help is to be the best parent you can be;
- Enjoying and Regulating Your Responsiveness – From toddler tantrums to teenage angst, how manage your methods, examine your emotions, and get your rest;
- Navigating Intensive Social Contact – Teachers, babysitters, doctors, in-laws, your parents, other parents – how to balance setting limits on the types and frequency of your social interactions without putting a damper on your child’s social life or development;
- Sensitive Parents and Their Partners – Weathering new stressors, from parenting styles and workloads and conflict do’s-and-don’ts (and conflict skills for HSPs);
- 8 Ways to Make Strengthen the Foundation of Your Parenting Partnership – Don’t miss the chance to repair, grow, and deepen the relationship with your co-parent.
Being a parent is one of the hardest and most valuable job you probably will ever do. As a Highly Sensitive Parent, you have a different set of challenges but also rewards and, the author hopes, an emotionally fulfilling and enriching experience. Not only can your child thrive, but so can you.
See reader reviews and buy this book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D., a clinical and research psychologist, is the internationally bestselling author of The Highly Sensitive Person (translated into 22 languages) and its companion books: The Highly Sensitive Parent, The Highly Sensitive Person in Love, The Highly Sensitive Child, and Psychotherapy and the Highly Sensitive Person. Credited for first recognizing high sensitivity as an innate trait and pioneering the study of HSPs since 1990, she has established the Foundation for the Study of Highly Sensitive Persons, maintains the website and online resource http://www.HSPerson.com, and has published numerous scientific articles on sensitivity in the leading journals in her field.
This book review is based on excerpts from the Press Release by the Kensington Publishing Corp. provided by Anne Pryor (apryor@kensingtonbooks.com).
When I will have a chance to read the book myself, I will update this review.
| Article written by Ildiko Davis (e-mail: ildiko.davis@yahoo.co.uk) |
National Centre for High Sensitivity 