“Brain dumps” can help your sensitive child

I came across this great post from SimpleHomeschool.net about how “brain dumps” can help your worrying child.

“Brain dumps have been a huge success, not only to calm my son’s worries, but also to improve his focus for learning. This simple strategy has become one step in his journey toward understanding himself and managing difficult situations.”

What a great idea.

I have one child who is very sensitive, who will become overwhelmed with her feelings. When I ask her what’s wrong, she replies “everything!”.

(Everything ends up being two or three things, tops. But sensitive feeling types get overwhelmed easily. She is an INFP in Myers-Briggs parle, and I’m an ISTJ. It’s not easy for me to get into “feelings” mode, and the brain dump would buy me time so I can help my child best.)

I have often encouraged her to write down all her complaints to help her put them in perspective, and so we could discuss them one by one. But I like this approach better. Wording it this way, framing them as “worries”, would probably help me be more compassionate.

The post includes a free printable you can use to encourage your child to do a brain dump. Before bed is a great time for this.