Читать книгу The Highly Sensitive Person - Elaine N. Aron - Страница 36

When Rob and Rebecca were almost three, their little brother was born. My husband and I visited for the night and slept in the bed of their parents, who were at the hospital. We had been warned that Rob might wake up at least once, frightened by a bad dream. (He had many more of them than his sister—HSPs often do.)

As expected, at five in the morning Rob wandered in, crying softly. When he saw the wrong people in his parents’ bed, his sleepy moans became screams.

I have no idea what his mind envisioned. Perhaps “Danger! Mother is gone! Horrible beings have taken her place!”

Most parents agree that everything gets easier once a child can understand words. This is so much more true with a highly sensitive child, caught up in his own imagination. The trick was to slip some quick, soothing words of mine in between his sobs.

Fortunately, Rob has a great sense of humor. So I reminded him of a recent evening when I had baby-sat and served the two of them cookies as “appetizers,” before dinner.

He gulped and stared, then smiled. And somewhere in his brain, I moved from the category of Monster Who Has Taken Mother to Silly Elaine.

I asked him if he wanted to join us, but I knew he would choose his own bed. Soon he was back there, sleeping soundly.

In the morning Rebecca came in. When she saw that her parents were gone, she smiled and said, “Hi, Elaine. Hi, Art,” and walked out. That is the difference in the non-HSP.

It is painful to imagine what would have happened if I had been the sort to have shouted at Rob to shut up and get back to bed. He probably would have done just that, feeling abandoned in a dangerous world. But he would not have slept. His intuitive mind would have elaborated on the experience for hours, including probably deciding he was somehow to blame. With sensitive children, physical blows or traumas aren’t required to make them afraid of the dark.