My oldest has always been a quieter kid. He’s not one to show a lot of emotion or express his feelings very often in words. I’ve mentioned before that he doesn’t even use the words I Love You to anyone. We know he feels it; he shows us in actions versus words.

But on the other hand, he is also very sensitive. And sometimes it can be hard for us because when he doesn’t share his feelings, it is hard for us to know exactly what is wrong.

The other night the entire family, including his grandparents, aunts and uncles and myself, were gathered around the table at my parents house. He asked my dad if he can get the internet password so he can use the computer for a game.

My dad, without meaning anything by it, responded that yes he can, but he must make sure he closes it after because the last time he left it open and it caused some issues with the computer.

We all looked at him and jokingly, I said, ‘was that you’!?!? And he gave a little smirk letting us know it was him. He smiled and we all laughed. We all were joking around that he had done it and found the innocent face he made cute and funny. Hence the laughter.

But he didn’t get it. He thought we were all laughing at him. ALL OF US. And there were a lot of us. And so, he started to cry. Bawl actually.

We all felt horrible! I didn’t understand at first why he was crying until we got it out of him. But let me tell you, it took a while to get it out of him because he just doesn’t like to share his feelings.

My boy is so sensitive that sometimes we just don’t get when we might be crossing a line. Which we obviously don’t mean to.

My husband and I pulled him into a different room to explain what our perspective was and try to get him to understand that we were not laughing AT him, but with him. And we apologized if it came out a different way to him and that we would never want to make him cry.

He accepted it, moved on and after a short time was fine again (it didn’t hurt that there were chocolate cookies for dessert).

I really wish I knew a way to show him that expressing feelings and talking about things is a good thing. We try to explain that holding in feelings isn’t a good idea. We tell him that no matter what he says or does we love him. And we do our best to always be vocal about our own feelings so that he can see that it is okay to talk about things.

I really hope this is a stage that he will overcome. It really is hard to help someone or understand a situation when you can’t quite get all of the details.

But for now, we just love him as he is, as we always will, and hope that as he gets older he understands that while it is okay to be sensitive (wonder where he gets it from…) he should still talk about his feelings.

Tell me, are any of your children super sensitive? Have you ever had a situation where something went wrong but you didn’t quite get it?

Please share your experiences and opinions!

xo

D