Have you ever looked at a choice your child made in the moment, like yelling at their friend and running off to sulk alone when the two of them had been happily playing a moment before, or smashing all the colors of salt dough together and then getting upset that they can’t separate the colors out again, and thought, “What were they thinking? Were they even thinking at all?”
As a parent of an emotionally sensitive child, you’ve likely seen both the beautiful side of your child’s sensitivity, like incredible joy, tremendous perception of details, and a level of kindness you treasure. You’ve probably also seen the tougher side of that sensitivity, watching your child struggle with sudden reactions to seemingly everyday situations. These reactions likely make life harder for your child, impacting their friendships, their ability to focus on schoolwork, and even their ability to enjoy playtime or participate fully with your family.
Impulsivity, or acting without thinking first, is a hallmark of emotional sensitivity in children
Many of the traits of sensitive children, such as those with autism or ADHD, increase emotional dysregulation. This dysregulation leads to impulsive behavior like destructiveness, emotional outbursts and tantrums, abruptly changing the subject or abandoning a task, running off, sudden anger or irritability, inability to wait their turn, taking things from others, and immediate upset at even gentle corrections.
Parenting an impulsive child is challenging. You’ve likely been on the receiving end of criticism of both your child and your parenting, and your child may have been labeled a “problem”, even though you know there’s more to them than their impulsivity.
You’re probably also frustrated with your child. Even though you know they aren’t a bad kid and that they have wonderful traits that you want to encourage, the disruptions of impulsivity make life hard for both children and parents.
Understanding impulsivity in young children helps you choose a more constructive parenting approach
Emotionally sensitive children often have a lower threshold for exhaustion; it takes more effort for them to regulate their big feelings and to sort through all the stimulation they take in every day, and so when they hit their limit (and their limit may come sooner than you might expect), they run out of impulse control, quickly.
While socializing with friends or interacting with teachers or parents, emotionally sensitive children can also be especially sensitive to feeling rejected, and may struggle when a situation feels unfair to them. That rejection sensitivity can turn into impulsive reactions to what look like everyday social interactions. Sensitive children also often experience emotions more strongly, experience emotional changes more rapidly, and have emotions that last longer than you might expect.
How can DBT help your child develop impulse control?
Conventional parenting advice often doesn’t do enough to manage impulsivity in emotionally sensitive young children, leaving parents at a loss. You’ve probably noticed that a lot of parenting advice (tough love, punishments, etc.) can actually make managing impulsivity harder, both for the child and the parent. So if the conventional advice isn’t helpful, what is?
Dialectical behavior therapy for children (DBT-C) is well-suited for helping emotionally sensitive children develop impulse control. It incorporates self-understanding and self-management, with structure and detailed skills to practice, while also bringing you, the parent, into the therapy process, helping your entire family manage impulsivity in your young children.
Mindfulness helps children focus
Impulsivity requires your child to ignore the present moment. Sensitive children often feel deep shame after outbursts and destruction, showing that if they were more present at the time, they’d make different choices. They don’t really want to express themselves that way; they just haven’t had enough practice staying in the moment.
Mindfulness can be a whole-family activity, with everyone benefitting from practicing letting go of worries and judgments, and just focusing on the sensations and experiences of the moment. As a family, try out breathing exercises that work for kids, like blowing the biggest bubbles your child can manage, or breathing in slowly and breathing out while hissing like a snake, seeing who in your family can hiss the longest.
Distress Tolerance helps increase patience and curb impulsive outbursts
When your child uses DBT-C skills to expand their ability to tolerate distress, they can better handle the impulses that stem from overstimulation, exhaustion, or perceived rejection. Distress tolerance skills for children include a mix of developing acceptance of difficult feelings and experiences, using their senses to self-soothe in distressing moments (pleasant sounds, calming smells, stuffies or blankets that are soft to the touch), using their imaginations or distracting themselves in the moment, or using their body chemistry to reduce their stress responses.
In a distressing moment, try out the STOP skill. Treat it like a game that you and your child play together. Stop everything; freeze completely both in body and mind. Take a step back, both literally and from your feelings. Observe, from the tip of your head down to your toes, everything happening within and around you. Proceed mindfully; only pay attention to what’s happening right that second, and choose what you (and your child) want to do next.
Emotional regulation helps children understand their impulses
Noticing emotions, naming them, and not judging their feelings (or themselves) as good or bad, can all give your child space to feel their feelings without being pushed to react right away. Two DBT-C emotional regulation skills that go hand in hand are The Wave, and Surfing Your Emotion.
The Wave explains to your child the six stages of an emotion, from a trigger event to a thought, then on to a feeling, the urge to act, an action, and the after effect. Understanding all these stages helps children understand what’s happening when they have a big feeling. Surfing Your Emotion helps children ride out hard feelings by encouraging them to simply observe the emotion they’re feeling, without trying to soothe themselves or to hang on to the feeling (in the case of happiness or excitement).
Interpersonal effectiveness empowers children to communicate without impulsivity derailing the conversation
All children are learning to communicate, but emotionally dysregulated children especially struggle to communicate with kindness and respect. They may stay silent when they need to advocate for themselves, or lash out, venting their feelings instead of communicating effectively.
DBT-C explains to children (and parents!) how “getting along” and “getting what you want” are worth prioritizing in interactions, making it easier for your child to use their words well. Exercises like DEAR and FRIEND help your child practice both in their calmer moments, so using their new skills in intense moments is easier to remember.
Walking the middle path helps you and your child work together, instead of against each other
For sensitive children, all-or-nothing thinking can feed impulsivity. When emotional dysregulation makes interactions feel deeply unfair, practicing dialectical thinking, or “walking the middle path”, can help remind your child that mutual respect is the best way forward.
Dialectical thinking reminds your child (and you!) that everyone in the situation likely has some, but not all, the information, and that everyone involved is at least partially correct. Mutual understanding becomes the goal in an interaction, not an all-or-nothing “fairness”.
Managing impulsivity in ADHD is easier with Suffolk DBT by your side
Suffolk DBT proudly provides quality DBT-C, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, that supports children and their families in developing impulse control, at their offices in Manhattan and Long Island, and online across New York.
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills and treatment can help you and your child manage impulsivity, creating a more harmonious household and letting your sensitive child embrace the best parts of their personality while better managing their behavioral challenges. Suffolk DBT welcomes you to schedule a free consult to answer your questions and explain how DBT-C can help your child, so you and your family can get started on managing impulsivity right away.