Nobody Likes Me

I came across this book Nobody Likes Me Everybody Hates Me a while ago. I don’t remember how, or why I bought it, but in unpacking I came across it again. I thought it might be a good thing to read now that the kids were starting a new school and might need some extra help in the friendship department. I started reading through it and it has some really great information. There is a discussion about the importance of friends and peers to children, and then there are short chapters on issues that your kids might have that make friendships difficult. Some of the chapter topics are: bossy, bullied, cliques, insensitive, left out, new kid, teased, too competitive, too sensitive. She gives tips for parents and teachers and offers skill building activities or conversations you can have with your kids to help them on their “problem” areas. I think anyone with kids in school would find something in this book helpful. There are also resources listed where you can learn more about a topic.

That is what lead me to the book I am reading now, The Highly Sensitive Child. I am about half way through it, and it has some very interesting information as well. I have always been wary of labeling one of my children with some sort of letter abbreviations and went into the book highly skeptical. I don’t agree with all that the author has to say, but it has been a very helpful book. There is a little quiz in there to help you figure out if your child is an “HSC” and her statistics say that one in five children are. There is also a short one for adults to see if they are an “HSP” (highly sensitive person) for which there is another book of course. She compares the brain of an HSC or HSP to an orange sorting machine that has several chutes to distinguish different sizes or weights of oranges. The sorting can be done fairly quickly with three chutes, but when there are 15 chutes things can get jammed up if the oranges are coming too fast. An HSC often has trouble making decisions or taking risks because they think about every detail before making a choice. According to the book, I am an HSP and I think many other people I know are as well. The highly sensitive person is not only emotionally sensitive, but physically as well. This person will often have some of these characteristics: get stomach aches or head aches in response to stress, very aware of the temperature of a room, the spices or textures in their food , loud noises, bright lights, flinches at being touched, tend to reach a breaking point and throw a tantrum or rage about things that shouldn’t cause such a strong response. I’m still not sure about her advice on dealing with people with this personality trait. Spends a lot of time talking about how most people label HSC’s as not normal, but I haven’t found that to be true in my experiences. So, if you are curious about this topic, read the book and let me know what you think. When I finish it, I’ll give you my final thoughts.