The Highly Intuitive Child: A Guide to Understanding and Parenting Unusually Sensitive and Empathic Children

The Highly Intuitive Child: A Guide to Understanding and Parenting Unusually Sensitive and Empathic Children  The remarkable gifts of highly developed intuition, empathy and the type of intuition that may present as premonition are exquisitely addressed in this book. Too often a child with rare and exceptional gifts is not understood or tolerated, particularly when the parents have differing gifts. Catherine Crawford explains beautifully the types of behaviors you might see in an empathic or intuitively gifted child and explains how to best support and nurture the gifts and your child. This book delivers understanding to parents and through them to the children so fortunate to possess these gifts. Highly recommended for therapists and educators. I recently heard Catherine Crawford interviewed about The Highly Intuitive Child on the Dresser After Dark Show on Lifestyle Talk Radio. The interview was also excellent and can be heard on the Lifestyle Talk Radio affiliates. As a therapist for more than three decades, I would like to say that allowing these gifts to grow and flourish when a child is young will save the child untold years of working to reclaim them.

Good insights!

This book was a huge help in understanding what’s going through my highly intuitive child’s mind. It gave me tools to cope and advice on how to approach certain issues. It arrived very quickly and in great condition!

This book is marketed on the front and back covers as providing practical advice, and in the foreword, a reviewer even calls it "down to earth." This book is from my perspective very impractical, providing almost no concrete suggestions that I've been able to apply (in contrast to much better written books I've read recently such as Raising Your Spirited Child). But most surprising is how anyone could possibly call this work "down to earth."The biggest turn-off for me was the author's redefining the word "intuitive" to mean possessing what I would call extrasensory perception (when she talks about "intuitive empaths," think Deanna Troy from Star Trek:TNG). I thought the description on the back cover referred to a metaphorical "sixth sense," but actually the author is advocating for the existence of good old fashioned ESP, a term I think she never actually uses probably due to the deservedly bad reputation it has. Despite my initial negative reaction to the author's disconnect from reality, I thought maybe I could get some practical suggestions for how to handle my sensitive 3-year-old if I kept reading. I suffered through about 100 pages of the book before finally deciding to throw in the towel last night in Chapter 6, Boundaries, after reading a story about a girl who somehow empathically "knew" that her best friend lost her hamster 45 minutes before her friend called her for comfort. I still have no idea what the story was supposed to tell me about how to help my daughter set boundaries, which brings me to the second major criticism:This book has given me no suggestions I feel I can even try out with my 3-year-old, partly because the few specific suggestions she offers do not appear to be suited to children so young, and partly because the writing is so vague, and just not very well organized. I think the vagueness of her advice is very well illustrated by the bulleted summary at the end of Chapter 3, Stress and the Intuitive Child (my thoughts in parentheses):* Listen to the child without judgment and without inflating and deflating. (okay)* Stay calm and try not to match the child's fear or stress. (Sounds good....)* Give permission for the child to express her feelings. (Umm...Do I tell my 3-yr-old "You may express your feelings, sweetie" That would fly right over her head. Too vague to implement)* Evaluate for sensory overload and help to reduce sensory inputs. (I don't remember her talking about how to do this at all in the chapter, but Raising Your Spirited Child did so I know what she's getting at)* Take some deep breaths together. (Simple enough, although I'm not sure how to introduce the idea of breathing to relax to a 3-yr-old)* Clear conflicts if necessary (What does this even mean? Let alone how to implement it....)* If the child is caught in a random intuition, help to release it. (When a child is caught in a random intuition/night terror, obviously I want to release it - this sentence states the obvious, and in no way helps me to know HOW to do it - which is the maddening thing about the whole book.)...One may wonder if the specifics were in the actual chapter and the wrap-up was just so vague, but I went back and don't see anything obvious in the chapter after looking through it a second time. Plus, if this is the author's best shot at a summary, why expect better writing elsewhere?An example of poor organization of the book - in the intro, on page 22, she mentions 10 skills intuitive, sensitive children need, and then lists them over 2 pages, saying they're the most important points to take away, and what she'll discuss in more detail over the rest of the book. Then every once in a while over the next 80 pages or so until I could take no more, she threw out an obtuse reference to e.g. #8 without getting into it in detail. There is no clear correlation between what she sets out in the beginning as such important skills and the things she goes on to talk about in the rest of the book.In contrast to Raising Your Spirited Child or Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, two great books that in everyday life present many, many opportunities to test out, after 100 pages, there has only been one suggestion from The Highly Intuitive Child that has presented itself in my mind to try in a real situation. It is a script the author provided for helping a child calm down and get ready to sleep. It hasn't helped my daughter fall asleep, but it started us telling imaginitive stories before bed (after reading), which has been fun.Overall, this book falls far short of providing the practical advice it promises, and I felt really bamboozled because of the whole goofy ESP aspect of the book.

I found this book through my library when I was looking for help in parenting my intuitive, sensitive children. I'd already read Elaine Aron's work, which I value. But I needing something that addressed the empathic, intuitive nature of my children as well as their high sensitivity.This book filled in that gap. Specifically, I learned the tools that help a highly intuitive, empathic child thrive - things like energetic boundaries, lowering the intuitive antenna, separating my child's thoughts/needs/feelings from another's, and more.I hope that empowering my children in this way will help them thrive with their nature versus managing it (or recuperating from the negative effects of not caring for their unique needs.)Reading this book also gave me understanding and compassion towards myself in caring for my own intuitive, sensitive nature.I recommend this book for intuitive parents and children alike.

I knew I was raising sensitive children but when one of them started showing signs of stress, this book was SOOO helpful! I had no idea how tuned in my child's sixth sense was and that high empathy was part of being intuitive. This book gives you vocabulary to help explain things that are difficult to understand. It helps you notice signs of stress, when to ask for help, and great ideas of things you can do at home. My world changed with this book, it was like a manual for my kid. It is such a joy to recommend this book to my clients who are struggling to understand their intuitive children.

An exceptional book that is well written! I found as I was reading it, that it resonated with my own experiences working with children, but also of my personal experiences as a child! Very informative!

I condsidered reading the book because of my wife and grandchildren all are very intuitive. I do not work at the level they work at. My youngest granddaugher 3 I feel like will be off the chart on Intuitive. For sure i have gained more tools dealing with family issues. Last the workplace there are intuitive people that are nice and some not nice my tools working with them has increased.

The author explain some things about children who are intuitive but I still could not find exactly how to help mine in some particular cases. Something is still missing in my opinion.