How do we support a highly sensitive child without trying to change who they are — or protecting them from every uncomfortable experience?

In Part 2 of my conversation with Amy Lajiness, LCSW, PMH-C, we focus on highly sensitive children: what sensitivity can look like, how overwhelm affects them, and how parents can help them grow without pushing them past what their nervous systems can handle.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What high sensitivity can look like in children
• Why sensitivity is a temperament trait, not something to “fix”
• How overstimulation can affect highly sensitive kids
• The difference between support and overprotection
• How to know when to gently push and when to pause
• Helping sensitive kids build resilience while honoring who they are

Learn more about Amy:
https://www.highlysensitiveparenthood.com/

Get the free Self-Schooled Parent Toolkit:
https://self-schooled.com/

If parenting sometimes leaves you feeling touched out, overwhelmed, foggy, irritable, or desperate for a quiet room, high sensitivity might be part of the picture.

In this episode, Heather talks with Amy Lajiness, LCSW, PMH-C, therapist, coach, and founder of Highly Sensitive Parenthood, about what it means to parent as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).

Amy shares how becoming a parent can amplify sensitivity — including both the beautiful parts, like deep empathy and attunement, and the harder parts, like sensory overload, decision paralysis, guilt, and overwhelm.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why many people don’t fully recognize their high sensitivity until becoming parents
• How overstimulation can show up as rage, panic attacks, brain fog, fatigue, withdrawal, or shutdown
• Why the toddler and preschool years can be especially intense for highly sensitive parents
• The guilt that can come with needing space from your children — and why needing regulation doesn’t mean you’re doing parenting wrong
• Why support doesn’t have to be reserved for a crisis, and how learning to trust what your body is telling you can be an important first step

Go Deeper

Learn more about Amy and Highly Sensitive Parenthood:
https://www.highlysensitiveparenthood.com/

Learn more about Highly Sensitive People and Dr. Elaine Aron’s work:
https://hsperson.com/

Explore Highly Sensitive Refuge:
https://highlysensitiverefuge.com/

Download the free Self-Schooled Parent Toolkit:
https://self-schooled.com/

A quick note: This episode includes discussion of postpartum depression, panic attacks, postpartum psychosis, overwhelm, and other mental health challenges related to parenting.

If you’re struggling during pregnancy, postpartum, or parenthood, Postpartum Support International offers support, resources, and help finding providers: postpartum.net

For immediate crisis support in the U.S., call or text 988.

What if, instead of trying to stop a behavior, we got curious about what was underneath it?

In this episode, Heather talks with Nikki Magliaro, LMHC, co-founder of Puzzle Pieces and a DIR/Floortime Expert Training Leader, about understanding the whole child — their development, sensory needs, individual differences, relationships, and the reasons behind their behavior.

Nikki introduces the DIR/Floortime approach and shares a beautifully simple idea she calls “best humaning”: approaching our children — and ourselves — with curiosity, connection, and the most generous interpretation of behavior we can find.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why the same behavior can mean something completely different for every child
• What DIR/Floortime is and how it supports neurodivergent children
• Looking beyond behavior to understand what a child may actually need
• Why relationships and connection are central to learning and development
• How parents can become more confident understanding their own child
• Giving our kids — and ourselves — the most generous interpretation possible

Learn more about Puzzle Pieces, their services, and their free virtual parent seminars: https://puzzlepiecesmass.com

You can also register for upcoming parent workshops through Puzzle Pieces. The seminars are virtual, open to the community, and recordings are available to registered participants.

Want to take what you’re hearing and bring it into your real life?

Download the Self-Schooled Parent Toolkit — a curious parent’s guide to understanding your child and trusting yourself. https://www.self-schooled.com

How do we help our kids get the nutrition they need without creating fear, pressure, guilt, or shame around food?

In this episode, I’m talking with registered dietitian and mom of three Nicole Cruz, Registered Dietitian, founder of Nourish Together and host of The Intentional Table podcast, about what it looks like to raise kids who can trust themselves around food.

We talk about:

• How well-meaning food rules can unintentionally create shame
• Why our own relationship with food matters so much
• Ellen Satter’s Division of Responsibility: parents decide what, when, and where; kids decide if and how much
• How to support picky eaters without becoming a short-order cook
• Why safe foods, repeated exposure, and low pressure matter
• What intuitive eating actually means — and how we can help kids stay connected to their own hunger, fullness, satisfaction, and body cues

Learn more about Nicole Cruz + Nourish Together: https://nicolecruzrd.com/

Follow Nicole on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicolecruzrd/

Watch Nicole’s free training on raising an empowered eater: https://nicolecruzrd.easywebinar.live/register

✨ Grab the free Self-Schooled Parent Toolkit: https://www.self-schooled.com

What helps kids stay curious, motivated, and connected to who they really are?

In this episode, I’m talking with educational psychologist, professor, researcher, and longtime unschooling parent Dr. Gina Riley about intrinsic motivation and Self-Determination Theory — a framework that has shaped both her academic work and the way she raised her own son.

We talk about:

• The three things that support intrinsic motivation: competence, autonomy, and relatedness
• Why freedom and choice matter so much in learning
• What it looks like to let children develop interests that we might not have chosen for them
• How unschooling supported Gina’s son in becoming his own person
• Why knowing your values can make parenting decisions feel much clearer
• The importance of protecting curiosity, joy, and the precious time we have with our kids

Explore Self-Determination Theory: https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/

Learn more about Dr. Gina Riley: https://ginarileyphd.com/

✨ Grab the free Self-Schooled Parent Toolkit: https://www.self-schooled.com

What if, instead of starting with what our kids are doing wrong, we started with what’s already strong?

In this episode, I talk with Gallup-certified strengths coach Jill Soucy about strengths-based parenting — a way of understanding ourselves and our kids that shifts the focus from fixing weaknesses to noticing, naming, and developing the strengths that are already there.

We talk about how our own strengths shape the lens through which we see our children, why the very same trait can look like a problem in one environment and a superpower in another, and how curiosity can help us understand what’s actually underneath our kids’ behavior.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why knowing your own strengths can change the way you understand your kids
• How deficit-based thinking — especially in school and special education — can shape the stories kids learn about themselves
• Looking at neurodivergence and differences through a strengths-based lens
• Why your child may be doing something for a completely different reason than you assume
• How to help kids “name it, claim it, and aim it” so they develop language for what makes them uniquely them

Go Deeper

Want to discover your own strengths — or your child’s?

→ VIA Character Strengths Survey — a free character strengths assessment for adults and youth
Take the VIA Character Strengths Survey

→ CliftonStrengths + Clifton Youth StrengthsExplorer — Gallup’s strengths assessments for adults and kids
Explore Gallup’s Strengths-Based Parenting resources

→ Strengths Based Parenting by Mary Reckmeyer — the book Heather mentions in the episode, which includes resources for discovering both parent and child strengths

Connect with Jill Soucy

Jill is a Gallup-certified strengths coach and founding partner of Innate Force Coaching & Consulting, where she works with individuals, families, teams, schools, and organizations to help people understand and use their natural strengths.

Website: innateforce.com
Email: [email protected]

Keep exploring with Self-Schooled

Understand your kid. Trust yourself. Find your own path.

Explore the Self-Schooled Parent Toolkit and more at self-schooled.com.

What is Self-Schooled all about? Heather DiNino shares what inspired the podcast, the ideas behind Self-Schooled, and what you can expect from each episode as we explore child-led learning, alternative education, parenting, and what it can look like to rethink school.