Customer Reviews

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

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I wish I had had this book 14 years ago when my son was born. It could easily have been written about him. This book addresses the children others have labeled Indigo, but in less esoteric and new-agey tems. It demystifies empathy and intuition in children and outlines simple and practical ways to support them.
Many books i've read on the subject are great at explaining the what and why of intuitive children (and adults) but offer very little real advice on the how of living with it day to day. This book, I feel, does a wonderful job of that

Every child is different, and every child has different gifts. "The Highly Intuitive Child: A Guide to Understanding and Parenting Unusually Sensitive and Empathic Children" is a guide to dealing with children who are especially empathic or intuitive to their own feelings and the feelings of others. With advice for parents on understanding if their own child is particularly empathic and how a parent can help their child with it and turn it into a gift rather than a problem, "The Highly Intuitive Child" is a top pick for these parents and their children reach a greater understanding.

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.

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.

This exquisitely written book opens our eyes to the blessings and challenges of caring for the highly intuitive child. Children who are especially intuitive and empathic may amaze, inspire, and even shock us with their insights and sensitivities. Yet these same children can become stressed and overwhelmed by their own sensitivities and by the insensitivities of others. This book offers heartfelt wisdom as well as practical guidance for raising and caring for these kids. Ten important skills that parents can teach their children are outlined and explained. For example, we learn how to teach our children: to regulate their intuitive antenna, telling the difference between random fears and intuitions, and distinguishing your energy from that of others. I commend this book's author, who is a psychotherapist, a mother, and obviously an intuitive empath herself, for this trailblazing great read.
-- Joe Pietromonaco, Ph.D., Psychologist

I found this book to be very helpful in understanding myself and my son. It helped me to love who I am and not be ashamed of myself. It gave me skills and coping mechanisms to help myself and my son deal with the world around us. I highly recommend the book.

I ordered this book because of the good reviews. Big mistake - should have listened to the one negative review.

What really threw me off:

1) This book is not so much about sensitive children but children who have supernatural abilities, can predict the future etc. Apart from the fact that I simply don't believe in this, I think this simply doesn't belong into a book about sensitive children. One can write a book about children that are able to predict the future but then it should be stated in the description of the book so that people who simply want to get some good old-fashioned psychological research, don't accidentally buy it.

2) Related to problem (1) is problem 2: I browsed through the book and did not find much practical advice, particularly for younger children. My son is 3, highly sensitive and extremely extroverted and expressive. This is a very explosive mix and I needed a book that provides actual advice, not just nice little anecdotes about children who drew pictures of 9/11 before it even happenened. Sorry - this is just not what I expect from a popular-scientific book. Not enough scientific in here. I'd like to know that there is a bit more to it than just a few interesting stories.

3) The list on how to determine whether one's child is highly intuitive is quite vague and leaves a lot of room for interpretation. E.g. the question: "Does you child have a high level of sensitivity?" is really useless. This is exactly what I am trying to find out!

I may not have the right to write a review since I didn't read the whole book but simply browsed through it (throughly). However, I simply couldn't get into the book (and I am trying to set the average rating right here because I really think this book doesn't deserve such a good rating...). I tried to read the book but kept skipping pages because I thought it would get more helpful a bit further on. I had ordered Elain Aron's book at the same time (it arrived before this one) and I couldn't stop reading it. Her book is really full of good, practical advice for children of all ages.