The Practical Strategies for Parenting Highly Sensitive Children

Raising Good Humans

Dear Media, Aliza Pressman

Toddler, Sinai, Mount, Doctor, Mother, Science, Dear, Baby, Motherhood, Parenting, Psychology, Pressman, Education, Humans, Seedlings, Kids & Family, Adolescence, Children, Child, Childhood, Parent, Good, Raising, Infant, Media, Aliza

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today I sit down with Claire Lerner to discuss practical approaches for parents managing highly sensitive, highly reactive, or 'orchid' children. We address common struggles parents face, such as interpreting sensitive caregiving, setting boundaries, and dealing with tantrums. Using real-life case studies, the importance of creating 'positive discomfort' for growth is emphasized. Tips include setting firm limits, using 'mommy/daddy moments' for decision-making, and the concept of sensitive caregiving that balances meeting children's needs with family dynamics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast is a dear media production.
0:04.1	Those are great tools and they're really concrete.
0:06.7	And I think we just need to keep getting comfortable with the positive discomfort of the moments when we're growing ourselves and our kids in these very challenging scenarios.
0:20.5	Yeah.
0:20.7	And I love that, that you're saying that it's not
0:24.0	just the positive discomfort for the child, it's also positive discomfort for the parents.
0:35.1	Welcome to Raising Good Humans. I'm Dr. Elisa Pressman and I'm so excited about this episode because last week I had a conversation with Tom Boyce.
0:44.7	Dr. Tom Boyce is the one who speaks so beautifully and has done such seminal research on temperament talking about orchids and dandelions. But if you listen to
0:57.3	that episode and you thought, I have an orchid kid, this episode is for you because we're talking
1:02.7	about those big reactors, particularly younger ones. And now I'm talking with Claire Lerner about the practical strategies for parenting these highly sensitive for kids children.
1:16.8	These strategies are what you need to translate the research into your everyday parenting.
1:24.1	So we are not going to talk about the theories.
1:28.4	We're just diving into exact scenarios, how to go through them with so much compassion that this is just harder.
1:37.4	It is harder.
1:39.0	And it's important to say that so that you don't think that it's you.
1:43.4	And now I want to introduce you to Claire Lerner,
1:47.8	and you can pre-order her book, Big Reactors, Practical Strategies for Parenting Highly Sensitive
1:54.1	Children. But let's dive into it so that in these case descriptions, you can find similar experiences that other parents have had
2:03.8	and the solutions and strategies that will help.
2:08.2	I want to have a really practical conversation, especially because we've actually had
2:12.7	quite a few episodes on highly sensitive kids and highly reactive kids and orchid kids and all the different
2:19.4	ways of saying this this but what I think people are really struggling with is okay I get
	...

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