How to Handle An Emotionally Intense Child

I am not a Disney person, but I finally caved and let my 3-year-old daughters watch Frozen. Rose intuitively grasped the deeper message of the film: “Wow, Elsa sure has super strong feelings that makes a lot of things frozened!” Later that night when I tucked her in, she told me, “Your love is sparkly everywhere like Elsa’s magic.” I thanked her and said, “That’s the thing about strong feelings—sometimes they’re so beautiful, and other times, they can be kind of rough.”

Rosie contemplated that for a minute. “You have strong feelings when you drive,” she said.

“I do,” I told her. “I’m working on it.”

“I’ll help you, mommy. I’ll remind you.”

“Thanks, baby,” I say and kiss her goodnight.

It’s true—my road rage is out of control. Though I’d like to think most people would describe me as sunny, when I drive I confront a deep well-spring of rage. My enemies on the road are myriad: The woman whose speed varies wildly as she studies her cell phone. The guy who weaves in and out of cars at high speed. The people (who are these people?) who speed up as you try to merge on a short highway entrance ramp, dangerously cutting you off. These people bring me face to face with my most irrational self. It is totally reasonable to dislike these drivers, and regret the way their habits make the road less safe for all of us. It is less reasonable to lay on your horn, and swear loudly two or three times per drive. It is even worse, when you catch up with them, to roll down your window, and scream that they put away their damn phones. The last incident occurred one sleep-deprived Tuesday morning in Redwood City on the way home from a doctor’s appointment with my daughter. I’m lucky the guy seemed totally mild mannered and just looked at me, wide-eyed. I apologized to my little girl and admitted to myself that I have a problem.

Nobody understands my anger management issues better than Rose. She’s been struggling with what she characterizes as “strong feelings” since she was a baby. When she was only a few weeks old she let out a shriek that sent my husband and me into a panic. So piercing and enraged was the small cry, we stripped her naked to see if she was hurt. We changed her clean diaper. We cuddled her close, trying to calm her even as she strained against us. Finally, idiots that new parents are, we fed her. As she drank her bottle in one gulp, we sat back shaken. What the hell was that?

These intense breakdowns with loud, endless screaming and rigid body occurred throughout her babyhood and into her toddler years. As I checked in with other parents, and parenting books, I learned that her tantrums weren’t particularly unusual. In fact, my preschool teacher friends reassured me that some children’s tantrums were even longer and more intractable. Still, her outbursts alarmed me. Her crazy called out my own, and I found myself responding with a frantic energy that I knew couldn’t be good for her. I knew enough about young children not to yell or punish her, but I often found I had to walk away from her, putting myself in mommy time-outs. I would sit on the floor of my bedroom with the door closed, leaning against it, so she couldn’t burst her way into me. She would scream for me so loudly on the other side of the door I sometimes wondered if a neighbor would call CPS. I would sit there shaking, feeling out of control, wondering what kind of a parent hides from a child who so clearly needs her.

Overwhelmed by Rose’s extreme emotions, I consulted a child psychologist. From my description of Rose, the doctor labeled her high-intensity. She explained that high-intensity children have a more acute physiological experience of the world, responding to stress with higher heart rates and accelerated breathing. Somewhere in the midst of that conversation I had an epiphany. I was a high-intensity kid, who had become a high- intensity woman. It’s just that instead of such a clear, neutral description, I’ve always thought of myself as over-sensitive, dramatic and emotional. This negative judgment of myself led me to try to control and repress difficult emotions, which I’ve more or less learned to do. Except, apparently, when I drive the car, or deal with my screaming toddler. The best gift you can give her, the psychologist explained, is being calm and in control yourself. She needs to be able to trust you. She doesn’t want the power to overwhelm you. Give her space during the tantrums, but in between talk to her about what’s happening with her, help her understand herself. Clearer about the situation, armed with some strategies, I waited for the next storm.

One night, after a long day of minor upsets, Rose lost it completely. It began when she got into bed. She started smoothing her perfectly orderly covers. “This isn’t comfortable. It isn’t right,” she said, frantically turning in circles around in her bed pushing at every wrinkle in her sheet. Then she began throwing her stuffed animals overboard. “There’s no room for me here! There’s no room!” My husband and I tried to help her, offering to smooth her blankets, but our attempts only made her angrier. “You are making it worse. Leave it! Leave it!”

My husband went to Eva, our other daughter, who had sat up in bed and begun to cry. He reassured her we would take care of Rose. As Rose’s sobs overwhelmed her I picked her up, and for the first time, she fought me. “Leave me alone, Mommy! Just leave me alone.” I held her tight and took her to the rocker. She was still small, but she was strong and she twisted in my arms to get away. “I’m leaving. I’m just going to leave.” She got up, walked out of her bedroom, and headed to our front door.

I would sit there shaking, feeling out of control, wondering what kind of a parent hides from a child who so clearly needs her.

Exhausted now myself, but determined to be her calm anchor, I followed her. I watched her as she struggled to open the locked door. I unlocked it and opened it for her. The night was cool, but not cold. It was dark. We both looked out the open door for a second. “Are you just going to let me go?” She asked in that shuddery voice small children get when they have been crying for too long. I picked her up and walked out the door with her. The cold air filled our lungs.

“Do you see the moon?” I ask. She calmed and scanned the sky. “There,” she pointed. After a few minutes, her head slumped on my shoulder. “I’m tired.” She said. “Tell me about it,” I whispered.

“The power of the high-intensity child,” the child psychologist would go on to explain, “is that she makes us feel what she feels.” As difficult as Rose’s tantrums can be, mostly she is an utter delight. She is the kind of kid who makes mundane events magical. One day, Rose brought her imaginary dog, Poppy, to the grocery store. Not particularly well behaved, Poppy quickly ran away from us. As Rose called out the dog’s name, many people stopped to check in with her. “Oh, my dog, Poppy, is really, really not well-trained. She is all black, with black fur, black eyes and a black nose.” People often describe Rose as “a character,” “adorable,” “unique” and, my favorite, “a sparkler.”

On top of all this charm, Rose is the most together person in my family. She reminds us to return the book bags to school on Monday, to turn on the dishwasher before we leave the house, not to eat pancakes this morning because we’re having lunch with friends at a breakfast spot, and to take the cupcakes off the hood of the car before we drive away. Once, after we’d gotten into the car, Rosie reminded me, “OK, mommy, today when you’re driving maybe you could remember to take deep breaths. If you feel the angries come, count to ten.” “Good idea!” I answered. Unfortunately, a woman on her cell phone soon cut me off and I whispered, “Dammit, lady, Jesus Christ.” It was quiet in the backseat. I worried. What kind of an example am I setting? A moment later, I called back, “Sorry about that, girls. I’ll try not to lose my temper again.” Rose answered, “That really wasn’t that bad Mommy—your voice actually sounded pretty polite.” I marvel at her generosity, her easy kindness.

When my children were babies, I’d hoped I could be perfect by the time they reached consciousness. It’s already too late. But Rose reminds me that our flaws are deeply tied to our abilities. We can’t eradicate our entire temperament, and trying to is a denial of the bedrock of the self. Rose’s intensity is likely to be her struggle and her strength. These days what I try to remember, what I try to communicate to my daughters as best I can, is that the honest goal is to remain empathetic, to help each other grow toward our better selves. And to just hang in there with each other while we try to get there.