Cover of Same Words: Deep Feelings

Same Words book

Deep Feelings

Overwhelm, anticipation, intense reactions, empathy and a child’s inner world.

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45 prepared situations

The seam in the sockDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchChildren differ in how much input it takes before they notice it at all.The room got too loudDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchRothbart's work describes reactivity along three lines: how little it takes to set a child off, how strongly they respond and how long it takes them to come back down.It touched the other foodDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchA child who gags at a mixed texture is not performing.The light is too brightDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchPluess describes children who register more of what is around them — sound, light, other people's faces — and are affected more by all of it.Water on the headDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchTwo things a low threshold makes worse are both present in a bath: water arriving where they cannot see it coming, and a position that takes their head backward.It smells wrong in hereDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchSmell is the input adults notice least and children this age report most bluntly.Fine all day, wrecked at the doorDeep Feelings · After they held it inHolding yourself together is work.Getting out the doorDeep Feelings · After they held it inLeaving is not one task.Empty after a good playdateDeep Feelings · After they held it inPluess describes sensitivity as taking in more of the surroundings and being affected more by them — and other children are the richest surroundings there are.Too happy, then in piecesDeep Feelings · After they held it inReactivity is not only about distress.It takes them longer to come backDeep Feelings · After they held it inAmong the temperament dimensions Chess and Thomas tracked was adaptability — how long a child needs to adjust to something new or something over.Stuck at the edge of itDeep Feelings · Before it even startsKagan spent decades following children who react to unfamiliar things by stopping.Dreading it for three daysDeep Feelings · Before it even startsAround three or four, children become able to hold a future event in mind — and an inhibited child, in Kagan's sense, holds it with the wariness attached.The goodbye at the doorDeep Feelings · Before it even startsProtest at separation is the attachment system doing its job.The order changedDeep Feelings · Before it even startsChildren this age hold the day as a sequence rather than as a schedule.Nothing to say to grandmaDeep Feelings · Before it even startsThe child who talks all day at home and produces nothing at the door is showing the same pattern Kagan tracked: with unfamiliar people, the first response is to stop.Cannot pick the cupDeep Feelings · Before it even startsChoosing needs two things at once: comparing the options and letting the losing one go.Hiding under the table over spilled milkDeep Feelings · Bigger than the eventKochanska's work follows the early appearance of conscience and separates two responses that look similar from outside."You hate me!"Deep Feelings · Bigger than the eventAt the peak of an argument a small child has no middle vocabulary.Still sorry an hour laterDeep Feelings · Bigger than the eventThe other half of Kochanska's work is the part that is going right.Tearing up the drawingDeep Feelings · Bigger than the eventHenderlong and Lepper reviewed what different kinds of praise do over time.Twenty minutes over a scratchDeep Feelings · Bigger than the eventIntensity is its own dimension in Rothbart's framework, separate from what set the reaction off.A slight cold, a whole day lostDeep Feelings · Bigger than the eventYoung children cannot locate or describe what is wrong with much accuracy.They caught your bad moodDeep Feelings · When they feel what others feelEisenberg draws a line between two things that look like caring.You used a slightly different voiceDeep Feelings · When they feel what others feelTronick's work showed how early and how finely infants track an adult's face and voice, and how much a mismatch matters.Crying about the dead birdDeep Feelings · When they feel what others feelSympathy in the Eisenberg sense does not stay inside the family.Grandpa is ill and they are lostDeep Feelings · When they feel what others feelWhen someone they love is unwell, a sympathetic child gets the feeling without the means.The sad part of the storyDeep Feelings · When they feel what others feelSensitivity in Pluess's sense means taking in more of what is around — and stories are around."You can't play"Deep Feelings · With other childrenRubin's research on young children and their peers found that being turned away is ordinary rather than rare."Why is that lady so fat?"Deep Feelings · With other childrenThe parts of caring about others do not arrive together.The face they think you madeDeep Feelings · With other childrenA child who watches adults closely is reading a channel that is always broadcasting.Losing the gameDeep Feelings · With other childrenCompetitive play asks for two things at once that are hard at this age: handling the loss and handling it in front of other children.Everyone is singing at themDeep Feelings · With other childrenKagan's inhibited children respond to the unfamiliar by going still — and being the object of a room's attention is unfamiliar every single time.They did not hear you at allDeep Feelings · Their own worldA child bent over a long build is doing the thing Diamond's research treats as the foundation of everything else: holding attention on one goal and keeping other pulls out.The friend who is not thereDeep Feelings · Their own worldWinnicott treated play as serious work rather than as time off.A pocket full of nothingDeep Feelings · Their own worldThe bottle top, the smooth stone, the piece of string.It has to be done the same wayDeep Feelings · Their own worldRegularity is one of the temperament dimensions Chess and Thomas described, and children sit at very different points on it.They do not want the book to endDeep Feelings · Their own worldA child who takes in more of what is around them, in Pluess's sense, goes further into a story than an adult does.The moth in the bathroomDeep Feelings · Their own worldChess and Thomas separated the first reaction to something new from what happens after.You are the one who is doneDeep Feelings · The adults around themGoodness-of-fit was never a claim about the child alone."You're spoiling him"Deep Feelings · The adults around themWhat relatives are describing is real and their explanation is wrong.Our house is too loud for himDeep Feelings · The adults around themFamilies have a volume, and it is rarely chosen.The day comes out at bedtimeDeep Feelings · The adults around themThe questions arrive at nine at night for a straightforward reason: it is the first point in the day with nothing else running in it.It was the sleep, not the sugarDeep Feelings · The adults around themBirthday parties are followed by difficult children and the sugar gets the blame.The same trait, later onDeep Feelings · The adults around themThe sensitivity described in Pluess's research is not a deficit with compensations.