Kid toys are playing noisy music in the background and suddenly there is a loud crash as your toddler drops a bucket of things to the ground and screams with frustration. All the while your older child is hounding you for some attention with “mommy, mommy, mommy!” and your spouse is trying to have a conversation with you... Not to mention you are working diligently to get dinner on the table and timers keep beeping at you.

You feel bombarded and overwhelmed, and possibly at your bursting point when you may shout in distress for everyone to BE QUIET! Once things quiet down, it still takes time for your body to calm back to normal. You still feel that overwhelm and turmoil rolling through your body and it’s hard to think straight. You need some peace and quiet, and some alone time until the chaos settles down inside you and you can feel like yourself again.

Does this sound familiar to you? If so, then you may be a highly sensitive person (or HSP).

It can be helpful to recognize if you are a highly sensitive person, especially as a parent. So what does it mean and how may it be impacting your parenting and your household? 

Highly sensitive people are strongly impacted by their surrounding environment such as lighting, noises, smells, textures, and even other people. They often are very intuitive to people's emotions and easily take on how other people are feeling. 

There are many challenges for an HSP as a parent. Kids are often noisy. There can be a mess of toys scattered about any given room and abrupt screaming that is sometimes shrieks of fun and other times because someone was hurt or was told no. This chaotic, messy, noisy and unpredictable environment can be overwhelming for someone that is highly sensitive. Not to mention the sudden bursts of erratic emotion that kids often experience and need their parents help with regulating. 

It's hard to be surrounded by this environment non-stop and to have it infringe upon your peaceful sanctuary at home. Being self aware of your needs and how things impact you is always the first step towards managing it. If you find that you are a highly sensitive person that is parenting and you want some tips on ways to keep sane, check out my upcoming article in Denver Therapy Match for a more in depth look.