033- Embracing High Sensitivity in Parenting with Zia Hassan

Anouk :
Welcome to the podcast. Today, we are having our 2nd episode sharing more about personal and family stories, and we are talking today about eye sensitivity. And to do that, we are receiving, a dad, which is a rare sighting over here. And this dad is himself highly sensitive and as highly sensitive children too. So our guest is Zia Hassan, and he boasts a diverse background in education, holding a master's driven teaching with specialization in human growth and development and year of experience in public school education. Beyond the classroom, Zia has been instrumental in apporting soft skills to leaders. Having grown up as a highly sensitive child, Sia brings a unique and personal perspective to the challenges and nuances of raising emotionally intense children. This personal journey, combined with academic insight, passion for guiding parents and caregivers.

Anouk :
Additionally, as an ICF certified life coach for expecting dads, he has seamlessly bridged the gap between academic understanding and real world application, positioning himself as a guiding light for families navigating the complex city of childhood emotion. So Les West comes. Leah over on the podcast. Welcome to Parenting the Intensity, where we'll talk all about how we can drop the general parenting advice that doesn't work with our emotionally intense kids anyway And let go of the unrealistic expectations society puts on us as parents. Together, we'll find solution and ideas that work for you and your kids. Chances are, deep down, you know what they need. But you need a little encouragement to keep going on other days and permission to do things differently and help you fully trust that you already are a wonderful parent to your exceptional but challenging kids. Do you read all the things, listen to all the things, take all the courses, and you know whole lot of things about parenting, but you struggle to actually apply them in your real life, then you're in luck.

Anouk :
I just started the Parenting the Intensity community, which is a, monthly group support for parents of emotionally intense kids. And the goal is exactly that, to take all the information you learn from the podcast and from all the other sources and adapt them so that it work for your child and your family, your reality. Because things can work, but not always the same way for everybody. So the same thing might need to be adapted to work for you. And sometimes it's it's hard to sort through everything to choose the right things that so that you can really enjoy your life and your kids, not always being afraid of the next outbursts. You can join by clicking on the link, in the show notes or on the website.

Anouk :
Hi, Zia. Welcome to the need to the podcast. Anouk you for

Zia Hassan:
having me, Anouk.

Anouk :
Really glad to have you here. Well, I think a lot of our emotionally intense kids are highly sensitive, so I'm really glad to have you tonight to talk more about eye sensitivity. I think it's something that is not well understood. And often, we will, like, just say that to someone who is whining a lot, and it can be annoying. So I I'm happy to have you on. And, especially, I think it's something that is a lot associated to women and girls. So I'm really glad to have a father on to talk about that. I think it's a it's a change, definitely.

Anouk :
So, can you tell tell us a little bit more of why you do what you do and what you do?

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. It's a long and winding road, and I always struggle to tell it because there's so much detail packed into this this journey. So I'll try and be brief. But, essentially, I started as an IT consultant, and I hated it. I was bored every single day. I worked for IBM, and I did government consulting, Essentially. And, I just looked out the window all day and wished that I could be somewhere else. And, I The one thing I did love doing was when people would call the help desk.

Zia Hassan:
We were like a 2nd tier help desk. I loved picking up the phone and Answering the phone and helping people through whatever technology challenge they were having and teaching them something. So after a while, I thought, maybe I should become a teacher. And I left IBM and became a teacher, and I did that. I taught kids, ages between the ages of 9 and 12 the course of my teaching career in DC. And when I had my own kids, I decided it was time to leave that, so I could focus on just my own kids and not other people's kids. But the nice thing is I had a master's in teaching at the time. So, parenting, other than parenting a newborn, which is a whole other thing.

Zia Hassan:
Potentially. Yeah. Parenting a toddler, parenting my 5 year old comes very naturally to me. It feels like I'm using a lot of those skills. So after I left teaching. And after I left the classroom, I be did a number of things. I worked for Microsoft for a number of years, Microsoft Education, so I still got to be involved in and more of the technology side. And I got to travel all around the state of Maryland and show people how different tech works.

Zia Hassan:
And through that, I met, people at different colleges, and I got a job as an adjunct professor in 2020. It was February of 2020. Oh. I don't know if you remember what happened after that, but we I had my 1st 5 classes in person, at a place called Anne Arundel Community College. And the class that I was Scheduled to teach there and that I still teach to this day is called human growth and development. So I get to teach a little bit of developmental psychology To people who are either studying to be teachers or they currently are teachers and they're looking for a certification, they all have to take my course. And not from me specifically, but they have to take my course. So it's given me a lot of insight into parenting.

Zia Hassan:
And at the same college, I also Instruqt and am a graduate of their coaching program. So we have a life engagements executive coaching program. Coaching skills are kind of the same across The board people just niche, and they pick different audiences to serve. But, ultimately, coaching is coaching, and so we teach those skills At AACC, and I am one of the instructors that gets to teach you, which is really exciting. Mhmm. So all of these things come together now. And the what I describe to people, what I tell people is I am someone who helps people in the midst of change. I help them navigate the turbulence.

Zia Hassan:
I help them deal with the emotional chop, and the practical side of it too. Actually putting 1 foot in front of the other. And in all the jobs that I do, I do corporate training and professional kind of development, things like conflict conflict resolution and anger management and, managing people in the workplace. I still teach my college courses That I mentioned earlier, and I'm a coach in 2 different ways. One of them is I coach people who are in a career pivot or a career transition. They're they're going from one Career trajectory to another. And then I also coach new dads, dads who find out they're about to become fathers and they're, like, freaking out. So that that is those those are all the various things that I do, but helping people amidst change is kind of the theme

Anouk :
of

Zia Hassan:
all of it.

Anouk :
Yeah. Yeah. It's it's changed. It's different changed for sure, but it's still changed. And when you change, it's kinda similar no matter what the change is.

Zia Hassan:
That's right. Yep.

Anouk :
Great. And so, you are, highly sensitive yourself.

Zia Hassan:
I am highly sensitive, and I've never been diagnosed as a highly sensitive person. Like, I've never been to a

Anouk :
sure it's I don't think it's a diet a formal diagnosis.

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. There is a book that was written about highly sensitive people. And so whether it's a formal diagnosis or it's just a a way of describing certain personality type or temperament. Regardless, I fit that perfectly, and I always have. It's been with me since I've been, since I was a young child. And the way that I might like, when I was a kid, I was glued to my headphones and my cassette Player, because at the time in the early nineties, that's what I had. Didn't have a Discman yet, but I had this cassette player, this Sony Walkman, and I would listen to music. And my parents used to kinda joke about how I was just glued to it.

Zia Hassan:
I was just immersed in it. Mhmm. And I really think that's where it started for me. The connection that I had to music deeper than most people around me. The way that it made me feel, the way that it kind of gave me a narrative for life kind of activated my senses. I think that's where I started feeling this sense of, of of of high sensitivity, but it kind of escalated Escalate it from there, I guess, is the right way to put it.

Anouk :
How would you describe in your own world what words? What is eye sensitivity?

Zia Hassan:
So for me, and this is borrowing a definition from oh, boy. I wish I remember the name of the person who wrote the book. That might be

Anouk :
Is it the Elaine? I'm

Zia Hassan:
not Yes. Yeah. Elaine Aronson. Yeah. That's right. I believe that's her name. She wrote that high sensitivity is having a finely tuned nervous system. When I heard that definition, it all made sense.

Zia Hassan:
It all made sense. Because when I was growing up, high sensitivity was just Basically, how you described it when we started this this meeting. Mhmm.

Anouk :
You

Zia Hassan:
had said, it's kind of like if someone's whining too much or if they cry a lot, Mhmm. Then people will say, oh, they're just really sensitive. Or if they get their feelings hurt easily, which I did as a kid. I was a kid who if, you know, Stuff that other kids could handle, you know, kind of ribbing and people making fun of me. I I I did not do well with that sort of thing. I'm better now. I've learned to cope with it. But at the time, it was, like, a very, I was extremely sensitive to those, those types of behaviors.

Zia Hassan:
And so I would come home, and I'd be crying about something that happened at school. I'd be relaying all the details and telling the story over and over to My teachers and my parents, and nobody really knew how to help me. Mhmm. The most anyone could tell me, either they would be a good listening ear.

Anouk :
Mhmm.

Zia Hassan:
Or they would tell me to just grow a thick skin or, you know, why why do you care about that? Just don't just care less about it.

Anouk :
They would dismiss it, basically.

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. Or or they were trying to be helpful, I think. They were trying to tell me that there it was possible, to Ignore it, essentially. To ignore the the feelings that I was having. And, and I'll and I'll go into detail later about why I feel like that is Not the right approach, but I think everybody who was doing it was well meaning. They were trying to help. I just think they didn't really know what to do.

Anouk :
Yeah. Makes sense.

Zia Hassan:
And you were talking about the gender thing earlier. I think part of it is that I grew up as a boy. Mhmm. And I think that When it comes to that maybe for some girls, the way that they when they have issues like this, like interpersonal issues with friends, sometimes, we're a little bit more receptive to helping them and talking through it and giving them coping strategies and coping mechanisms. And when it's a boy, sometimes we're, like, Just suck it up, basically. And and it wasn't as if I grew up with sort of like, oh, you're a boy, and so you you can't be that sensitive and don't be sensitive. It was just an underlying feeling of, like, why is this so important? Why do you care so much? The other thing the other way that I would define high sensitivity, I said how it's a finely tuned nervous system. So that has to do with how you feel things, of course, but it also has to do with other sensory parts of your of your being.

Zia Hassan:
Like, if I'm around a very strong smell like, I have 2 children, and if one of them has thrown up, which happens a lot with young kids, I it is very hard for me to be around the very intense smell. I have to. Right? I have to clean it up. Or if I'm if I'm the the parent that's there. I I can you know, I really I have to take care of it, so I have to deal with it. But it's really hard. When there are loud noises, someone like my wife, She doesn't notice. Like, if there's a loud bass you know, loud car driving by our house that's booming bass, It really gets me irritated.

Zia Hassan:
It really raises my blood pressure. It gets me really annoyed. Yeah. Whereas she's totally fine. She doesn't even notice sometimes. I'm like, do you hear that? And she'll say, no. I don't hear that. So, apparently, about 1 fifth of the human race is highly sensitive, this this temperament that I'm describing.

Zia Hassan:
Mhmm. And so, it can it's where some people are more sensitive than others. Mhmm. So, yeah, I think that's a good start to explain what sensitivity means for me. Yeah.

Anouk :
I think that's a good example. And, yeah, it's it's definitely a spectrum because I've learned recently, like, some people, for example, will sense. If there's, like, roadkill, they will sense the the the like, how they feel, basically. Or if someone is earth, they will feel that, like, someone else Yeah. Or so it, like, it it is. Like, some people are really, really, really highly sensitive, and it is Almost am unbearable, but then there's, like, all the spectrum until, like you said, your wife just doesn't here, that car. She probably duh duh, but, like, it doesn't butter

Zia Hassan:
at all. So just doesn't

Anouk :
realize that's that's happening. So I would say the norm, probably.

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. You were saying something a minute ago that made me think of it. Remind me where how you started that

Anouk :
that It was the the spectrum, and I talked about the roadkill.

Zia Hassan:
Oh, that that people feel. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, I feel, when when someone has passed away and, when I was a kid, my mom used to say, you should call so and so and, you know, give give your condolences. I would avoid it. I still do. I still avoid it to this day. I know it's the right thing societally to do.

Zia Hassan:
I know it generally makes people feel better, but I to to walk into that much pain in someone else's life for me becomes extremely overwhelming. It seems more so than a lot of People. I don't know what to say. I kinda freeze up. So I've learned over the years to cope with that by coming up with scripts. So I there's a certain thing I will say to people now, and it's not Anything groundbreaking. It's the typical thing that you might say to someone who who lost, somebody in their life, but it it took that for me to actually be able to confront someone who had law had had was was grieving.

Anouk :
Mhmm. Yeah. And it's it can definitely be harder if you can feel the other person's feeling more than the typical person would because then you are not just there for them. You are also feeling that pain or that sadness yourself for real. It's not just, Like, most people will be there just to support the other person.

Zia Hassan:
Right. Yep.

Anouk :
So, yeah, that totally makes sense. And as a parent, there's a lot of the like, you gave a lot of examples, like the the noise and the smells. And there's lots of things as parents that can be overwhelming when you have a more sensitive, nervous system. How do you cope with that?

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. Yeah. So that's a great question. How do you cope with that? You can't just grow a thick skin. You can't just ignore it. I suppose you could train yourself to do that. But the thing about a temperament, and this is something that I've learned teaching human growth and development, You have a temperament, and you have a personality. Your temperament is kind of the core of who you are, and there are different categories of different types of temperaments.

Zia Hassan:
You can look at someone's configuration. No one person is exactly the same, of course. Mhmm. But you can kinda see things like rhythmicity, Like going to the bathroom, how often you do that, times of the day, whether you're a night owl or a a morning person. And one of those things happens to be, how sensitive you are. And I don't know. I would I'd be interested to see with my parents, What I was like as a baby. They they never said that I was particularly sensitive as a baby or that they noticed anything.

Zia Hassan:
But I was their 1st child, so they may not have had any comparison.

Anouk :
Mhmm.

Zia Hassan:
And, so you have this temperament that is sort of at your core. And the thing about the temperament is you can't change it. No. You can't change it. Personality is the other thing, the thing that gets formed by your environment. So personality can shift over time, And it works with the temperament, and they do this little dance. Mhmm. And so for me, that's that's the fundamental misunderstanding that my caretakers when I was a kid had.

Zia Hassan:
They thought this was something that could be changed. Mhmm. That if we just say, just change it, just get over it because we don't we're not as sensitive as you are, That I'd be able to do it. And, of course, I can't. I can't change it. So the question then is, how do you cope with, sensitive feelings. So for me, it depends on what those feelings are. One of the biggest tools that has helped me Cope with the the emotional side of things, so the feeling side, is assertive communication.

Zia Hassan:
And by that, I just mean that there's a lot of sensitive people tend to be, more on the passive side. Meaning that, I don't wanna put it bluntly, but they kinda become like a doormat, Or at least that was my experience. I was very passive with people. So if you if I wanted something, I would not say it. I would wait until someone asked me if I needed something. I wouldn't just say my needs. Mhmm. And, and then if, you push me to a point where I would get really upset, I would Flip into aggressive mode to the other side of that spectrum, and I would just lose it.

Zia Hassan:
So either you're walking all over me or I'm flipping out on you, which is inconsistent with that behavior, so It put people off. Mhmm. So a lot of my friends, if they got if they saw that side of me, would be like, that's not you. Like, what how dare you?

Anouk :
They don't expect that at all.

Zia Hassan:
Exactly. Exactly. You're a nice guy. Right? So you need you know, that's not part of who you are, but it is. And it's a consequence of not staying somewhere in the middle. So the middle way is being assertive. It's stating your needs to other people, and it's just accepting that they're they're gonna do the same to you. You want people to be assertive with you as well.

Zia Hassan:
So when I'm with someone who's overly aggressive and I'm in I'm in that passive mode, that is a a dynamic that is really hard for me. And I do happen to have very aggressive some very aggressive friends, and we have a lot of friction sometimes because of that. Then I have friends that, if we're both passive, sometimes we don't say what needs to be said. So what I really want my in my relationships is for both people to be assertive. And I've learned that if I am assertive, I train people around me to be more assertive and and to interact and communicate with me in that way. Someone who might be a bully in Intense a situation where I'm more passive might be more on an equal footing if I'm assertive with that person, So when I stay in that middle ground, I learn to cope with those feelings and emotions. The sensitivity to other stimulus like sound and, smell, that's a little bit harder. There's it's harder to deal with.

Zia Hassan:
So the one way I've done, like, at night, I sleep with a white noise machine. I discovered this when my son was born, And I've just kept it in my room ever since. And it's an incredible invention. It just masks the sound around you. If there was a car going by, you'd never know it. I might wear earplugs. And with smells, I kind of you know, I don't deal with pungent smells often. But if I do, I usually have my wife come in to to help with whatever is going on if she if she happens to be there.

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. If she's not, then, of course, I just deal with it. It's not like it's gonna kill me. I just have to suck it up in those cases. So there are some times where I just have to say this. But the thing that I think I'm coming the the the the point behind all of this is that Being an HSP is not an excuse to not be assertive or to shirk your responsibility as a parent. It is It is something to be aware of and to learn coping strategies like these. These just happen to be mine.

Anouk :
Mhmm. Yeah. And everybody, of course, has their own, but I think it's Interesting to know, like, how you've dealt with that. And so you you touched a little bit on that, that you don't think it was the right thing to do to tell you to, like, grow a thick skin or something or tool, try to have you grow out of it. What how would you suggest that parents support children that are already sensitive instead?

Zia Hassan:
The thing about stimulus is that for people like me, when we're encountering a strong feeling or a strong smell or sound or whatever it might be, There's no gap between that stimulus and our response to it. So there's no we we're not trained To like, for most people, they're able to say, oh, that's a loud noise, and then separate the emotion of feeling like, well, maybe I'm bothered by it, but They can kinda separate from it a little bit. For me, there's this immediate reaction that happens. So one of the tools that really helps with an HSP is mindfulness. It's learning to put a little gap between you and the thing that is bothering you. So if it's, say, a feeling that has come up, When I was a kid, I would just feel it. I would just let it overtake me. It would just overtake me like it was, like, a fire or something like that.

Zia Hassan:
Just kinda, like, consume me. Now I've learned, and this happened through many years of therapy and coaching and, and just personal growth on my own part, practice in the real world, so to speak. Mhmm. I've learned that if I experience an emotion and I label it, Which is just a form of mindfulness. That's a a technique or a tactic, but the strategy is mindfulness. I've learned if I can label my emotions, It's important to have that vocabulary, but, also, it separates it takes me one level of abstraction away from that emotion. So if I say I'm feeling I'm feeling ruffled by the sound of this police siren going by. I can I and I say that out loud? I get to say, I am feeling ruffled.

Zia Hassan:
Not I am ruffled. Not I am distressed. I'm feeling Distrust. This is a feeling that I'm experiencing right now. And in that moment, I get to take a bird's eye view of myself and say, this is Zia experiencing that thing. Doesn't make it immediately better, but it does make that that level of separation lowers the anxiety, lowers the stress that that stimulus brings to me. So this is just one way that I could say, if you have a child who seems to be highly sensitive and by the way, Children are highly sensitive by their very nature. So Mhmm.

Zia Hassan:
I don't wanna I don't want parents listening to this to think, oh, yeah. My child is like, gets, You know, they cover their ears when the loud toilet in the airport goes off.

Anouk :
More kids will do that. Yeah. Most kids, like, under the age of 5, 6 will do that. Yeah. That's true. They like, the same with the vacuum war.

Zia Hassan:
Ex exactly. Right? That's not that's very typical. It's really when you start to get out of early childhood. So around the age of 6 is when early childhood ends. And you get into middle childhood where when you start to see some of these behaviors, still, I don't think you should say, okay. My child's def definitely a an HSP. But be aware. Even if they're not highly sensitive, they could be sensitive.

Zia Hassan:
Mhmm. They could be on that spectrum, and then these techniques still help them. There are people that don't consider themselves highly sensitive that still need coping strategies for sensitive situations.

Anouk :
Mhmm. I would say I'm I'm Pretty much on that end of the spectrum. Like, I'm not super sensitive, but some things will bother me more than most people will. So, yeah, definitely agree that it it's it can be a challenge, and it can be useful. And, honestly, Those technique can be useful for any children.

Zia Hassan:
Right.

Anouk :
Let's be like, it it it's it's worth for any like, there's no arm in using that with any children anyway. So it's not like, if you were arming your child, if you're trying that because you're not sure if your child is innocent, they were not. Yeah. But yeah. That I think that's important to make the distinction in, a young child that doesn't like noise. And that's normal because their sense of like, their senses in general are more aware of everything at that age than we are as adult. We lose some of it as adults.

Zia Hassan:
That's right. And there are other conditions too where these Yeah. Tactics still work just the same way. For instance, I know when I was in the classroom, For my students that had ADHD, sometimes they wear noise canceling headphones. Or even if they were on the autism spectrum

Anouk :
Mhmm.

Zia Hassan:
They they would wear headphones sometimes to keep focused and to block out some of the noise.

Anouk :
Yeah. A lot of of, like, neurodivergent children will be highly sensitive also for sure.

Zia Hassan:
But even in the general classroom I was just talking about this in one of my education classes. There's something that you'll see. I don't know if they do this in Canada, but in in the States, they have this thing in a lot of classrooms called the calm down corner or the cozy corner, sometimes they'll call it. And this is the place that used to be like go to time out for kids. You know, you're misbehaving, so go to time out. You're having a tantrum, so go to time out. Now we're a little bit more progressive, and we realize it's a skill that they don't have. It's a part of their brain that's not developed yet.

Zia Hassan:
And so when they lose themselves, they lose their minds, they need a place to get it back. And that's the code the calm down corner. And one of the things that people that I've seen the most pro teachers put in the calm down corner is a mirror. Why a mirror? Because when you look at a mirror and you are feeling an emotion, all of a sudden, you see yourself. You see that emotion, and it's just like naming it. You can see it, and you can say, oh, I look angry. Oh, I'm experiencing the feeling of anger. So they don't quite think that eloquently at that age necessarily, but you same idea.

Anouk :
Uh-huh. It puts the distance between you and your emotion. Again, that's another Exactly. Love that thing. Because for younger kids or for kids that have more trouble naming their Emotionally, because lots of kids even at, like, ten, 12 can still have some trouble being aware of their emotion and naming them. I think that's a great tip.

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. We we we remember adolescence. Right? It is it not understanding your emotions is the name of the game. Analysis.

Anouk :
2 of those in my house. So

Zia Hassan:
There you go. Yeah. You know all about it. You don't have to remember. It's right there.

Anouk :
It's right in my face. Yeah. Definitely get that. And I think it's also true for some so many people. And especially if even as as adult, if we were Like, our emotion were dismissed by our caretakers for like you were saying, not because they wanted to arm us, that They didn't understand how we were experiencing the world. We might have learned not to experience our feeling the way that they should. Like, I'm not sure I'm clear, but, like, you you learn that what you're experiencing is not what you're experiencing because you were, like, negated your own experience. So you don't Yep.

Anouk :
You're not in contact with your feeling as much.

Zia Hassan:
That's right. It's kind of like an unintentional form of gaslighting. Like, I really don't I really don't want to, Turn turn the caretakers in my life into villains here. They were doing the best they could. They were trying to help. But it is it is exactly what you're saying Where it's almost feels like, you know, they don't believe the experience that I'm having. And even to this day, I'll talk to friends about certain experiences that that I have, and they won't even believe it. They're not as aggressive about telling me to change my mind about it, but But it's pretty clear that they don't quite relate.

Zia Hassan:
They don't quite understand.

Anouk :
Yeah. And I think there's some simple example. Like, I do have one. One of my daughter clearly is highly sensitive. And, for example, it can take her 7 minutes to put on socks because the seam needs to be just exactly right. And sometimes as parent, that can be so annoying because you have to leave the house and you're stressed for time. But then If you don't let that time the child will experience, it's not just a discomfort. It's it hurts.

Anouk :
So it like, it it's like, like, if you step on glass, you would not expect someone who step on glass to just move on right now and leave the house. But for those for children that are highly sensitive, it can be as aggravating. Like, it can be just a seam or, a tag or and some clothing or

Zia Hassan:
things like

Anouk :
that that they it feels like I I can tell you sometimes I need to take some shirt off and put on another one because the tag is just bothering me so much.

Zia Hassan:
You know, I it's funny you say that. I think about I'm in this room with all these guitars, And they are, for the most part, in pristine condition. Some of them are older, but they've been in pristine condition. And my prize one is it's sitting over there. As you can't see it, it's a German custom made guitar called a lay the brand is called Lakewood. And I came home one day to this Lakewood, something had fallen on it, and the side of it had split open. And I was beside myself. I mean, this is my prized guitar.

Zia Hassan:
This is the one that I saved up all the money for. And I went upstairs, and I'm like, I'm so sorry, but I'm gonna have to buy another guitar. And my wife was like, couldn't you maybe just give it to the repair shop and see what they can do? And I was like, I don't think gonna be able to do anything. It's done. It's done. It's like this huge gas. Anyway, they repaired it for, like, $80, and it's on the bottom of the guitar, so I barely see it anymore. So it's One of those excite so that's another coping strategy is I have to reframe a little bit.

Zia Hassan:
In that moment, I talked to my guitar friend, and I said, I just There's this blemish on this beautiful guitar, and they said, look. It's a it's a battle scar. Right? You you go through adventures with this guitar. This guitar has been with you through and thin. You've told stories with it. You've you've experienced life with it. And just like you get little nicks and and pimples and, you know, Parts of you that are need to be repaired and, you have surgery sometimes, you know, the guitar is the same way. And That simple reframe was enough for me to say, I get it now.

Zia Hassan:
And I can actually feel that guitar more deeply now. It's my guitar because of the experiences that I've been through with it.

Anouk :
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's interesting because, like, you said, you talked to someone who loved guitar as much as you. So, like, the vocabulary was Similar. Like, it could feel your pain and understand your pain even if not necessarily as highly sensitive, but the shared interest and shared passion gives that opportunity to understand deeper the experience that you were you were having, I'm guessing, in Yes. That moment.

Zia Hassan:
Yes. That's why that's why I messaged this person. I knew that they would have something to share.

Anouk :
Yeah. Different than than someone else in your life that might love you, but just don't get it.

Zia Hassan:
Doesn't get it. Exactly. Exactly. Yep.

Anouk :
Yeah. And You we touched a bit, but how would you identify that a child is highly sensitive, and is it necessary to do so?

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. I don't know that it's necessary to do so. I think, for me, it all comes down to every individual is different. So even among highly sensitive kids, They aren't going to show the sensitivity in the same way. Mhmm. Like, your your example of your daughter with the clothing is not something that I relate to, but that still could be a highly sensitive trait. Mhmm. And so, what I think is really important is understanding the needs of kids, and that goes for any parent.

Zia Hassan:
If you understand the needs of your child, especially if they aren't typical. That's the key. Because sometimes we think to ourselves, like, okay. A typical child, it would look like this. So we want our kid to be typical. And if they're not, we're like, no. No. Let's figure out how we can get them to be typical.

Zia Hassan:
But some kids don't fall into the typical way of living, and especially when you break it down into the different components of of development, like cognitive, social emotion, you know, physical development. In some of those domains, they may be perfectly Typical. And in other ones, they might not be. And this is what I tell my human growth and development students. We actually will do child studies, and we'll say whether or not these behaviors are typical or not. Mhmm. And it often feels sometimes like we're we're kind of throwing a slur, like, either atypical. But by saying atypical, all we're saying is they might need something different mhmm.

Zia Hassan:
Than the mainstream child might need or the typical child might need. What is that thing? We're gonna have to think really carefully about what that thing is. So I don't think it's it's necessary to diagnose them or to say, okay. You are an h HSP. I came to it on my own just because I read the book, and it really struck me. If I was, if my one of my children seemed like they were also an HSP, what I might say is I identify as an HSP because I read this book that really When I read it, I was like, this is me. Mhmm. And I might show them the book, and I might say, here are some of the things that when you think of a highly sensitive person, this these are some of the things that come up.

Zia Hassan:
What do you think, child? Mhmm. And if they're like, that's me. Like, great. We have a connection. And it doesn't mean we have to go on and say, okay. Let's go buy you an HSP t shirt or anything like that. It just

Anouk :
means, oh, okay. So you need some coping mechanisms. And even

Zia Hassan:
if they say, oh, that's me. Some of Sensitivity. Hey. Guess what? You still need some coping mechanisms for whatever it is that your temperament is bringing out in you.

Anouk :
Yeah. Basically, Everybody always need coping mechanism. Yes.

Zia Hassan:
But it might it might be that people who are HSP, need the need type types of coping mechanisms that might Seem unnecessary to someone who doesn't understand what it's like to be in a highly sensitive body.

Anouk :
Yeah. Definitely. And can you Give you gave a few, but can you give other examples of what kind of coping mechanism or how can they help? Like, how how can parents how their children, especially if they're not Highly sensitive, and they have some trouble grasping the level of distress there the kids can be in things that looks like it's nothing for them.

Zia Hassan:
You know, I I have a dad, and therefore, and and Intense our house growing up, we had air conditioning. And therefore, The air conditioning was always set to, was it was always cold in the house. It was always freezing cold in the house. And, I think, you know, me complaining about it, my sister complained about it too. But for me, it was like, I could not, like I couldn't feel, like, safe in my own skin in this temperature. Mhmm. So ways ways to cope with it? Super simple. Look.

Zia Hassan:
I'm wearing an electric blanket right now. I'm sitting in my studio downstairs. You know, it's not super cold outside yet. It's mid September. But I'm wearing this blanket because, I need it in order to regulate my body temperature down here. If I didn't have it, I would be so uncomfortable in this interview that I wouldn't be able to do so I plan I plan for these things. Yeah. It's also it's also why I, like, we have to leave early for places.

Zia Hassan:
If I'm late if I'm if oh, gosh. If you ever see me in the car and I'm running late to something, like, it almost feels like it's the end of the world. And by the time I get there, my voice is gone because I've been screaming. So I haven't I haven't experienced that in years because I always try and get to places about 20 minutes early. And if I get there early, great. I can sit there and read a book. And if I'm on you know, if I end up traffic gets a little in cuts a little into that, then I I'm good. So use.

Zia Hassan:
Couple couple other ways that I cope. Headphones noise canceling headphones are amazing. Yes. I wear those on flights. Flights are, for me, Extremely difficult, because there's a lot of you know, there's turbulence. There's closed spaces. Like, when they bring the food cart through, when the food cart comes next to me and I'm trapped in that space Yeah. Oh my goodness.

Zia Hassan:
I it honestly feels like like, I have been in situations where I've had to, like, do heavy, deep breathing just to get situated on a plane. Someone recommended to me, try noise cancelling headphones. And I bought these. They're called Sony, Sony XM Fives are the current model. And I put them on on my 1st flight, and all of that noise just just disappeared, And it changed everything. It changed everything for me on flights.

Anouk :
Yeah. Yeah. So I think it goes back to what you were saying of, like, what are the needs, be it the adult of the children, what are the needs, and finding coping mechanism that can answer those needs. So if it sounds, then the headphones are a great, great option. If it's, smells, that might be a bit more complicated. I would say essential we used essential oil. My my daughter, complained for, I think, a year and a half that the new car smelled like, a new car, and she didn't like that smell each time she would put foot in the car. Yeah.

Anouk :
So we used essential oils to, like, cover and help with that. So I think there's always an option. It's just sometimes require a bit more thinking maybe.

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. Now the the flip side The flip side of that is that while really pungent smells will trigger me and get me feeling, you know, very prickly, Nice smells? It almost feels like I'm in in heaven or something.

Anouk :
Yeah.

Zia Hassan:
If you put essential oils it's not even like it masks the bad stuff. It's like I feel happy to be alive. It's like it enriches me, in a way that other people, like, oh, it smells nice in here. I'll just be, like, it reminds me of, you know, Some nostalgic memory. And I'll just sit there and just take it in for, like, you know, 5, 10 minutes without saying anything.

Anouk :
Yeah. Love it. It's like because we've been talking about the struggle, but there's also a positive side of being highly sensitive. Right?

Zia Hassan:
Very positive side. Yeah. That's something I thought a lot about. One of the things that I realized is in the work that I do, I'm a professional skills trainer. So I work with people both on hard and soft skills. So I teach them things like Microsoft Excel. When they're freaking out and they're having meltdowns because they can't figure out how this computer works or it's logged them out or whatever, I'm sensitive to that. I can help them.

Zia Hassan:
I can understand them, and I don't shut them down. When one of my students comes to me and says, hey. I didn't come to class yesterday because I needed a little bit of space. I was not feeling myself. Mhmm. I might start coaching them instead of saying, well, you should gotta come to class. It's important. I do that because I do think discipline is important.

Zia Hassan:
But I'll also say, how can I meet your needs? Mhmm. Right? Coming to class is necessary, and how can I support you in getting some of your alone time? Do you need to get up in the class and leave for 5 minutes. You can just give me a little wave and, you know,

Anouk :
take

Zia Hassan:
a little bathroom break even if you don't have don't have to go to the bathroom. That's fine with me. I also taught A, a 3rd grader once who told me she she used to cry a lot and have kind of, you know, quote, unquote, drama with her friends. That's how she put it. She said, yeah. My mom calls me a drama queen. And I said, you know, maybe. Maybe.

Zia Hassan:
But also, it could be that you're like me. And I didn't say highly sensitive, because I don't like to label kids. But I said it could be that you're like me, and it could be that. And I said, do your friends come to you with, like, Their deepest, darkest secrets, and you're the person they trust. And she was like, yeah. And I was like, it could be that that's the superpower that you actually have. Mhmm. And it's not that you're a drama queen.

Zia Hassan:
It's Not that it could be that people look to you for that emotional resilience, that emotional, or may maybe more like emotional awareness. Mhmm. And so for me then as a parent and as a people who coaches parents, I get to put that hat on too of sensitivity. I get to say, okay. So now I get to ask you the questions that are really gonna bring you to the most important realizations of your life. I get to aid you in your transformation. I get to hate you and identity shift. You can't do that unless you're sensitive to people's needs, sensitive to people's body language.

Zia Hassan:
I will do things like if I see someone, you know, say something and they kind of, like, look up, I might even say, hey. I just noticed you looked up. They're like, you noticed that sort of thing? It's like, yeah. That's the sort of thing I noticed as a highly sensitive person. Yeah. I noticed that you looked up. What did that mean? And they're like, I don't know. I guess it means that I feel anxious or scared or whatever it is, or maybe it means nothing.

Zia Hassan:
Right? The point is that It gets them deeper into that emotion, deeper into what they're feeling.

Anouk :
Mhmm. I think also one of the the thing that might be a bit dangerous, though, is that When you are at least instead, you read people more easily, like you were saying. But then sometimes you can assume things that are not truth also.

Zia Hassan:
That is a habit that I have that I had to unlearn.

Anouk :
Yes. I'm the same.

Zia Hassan:
I unlearned that through coach training. In coach training, we Are actively trained out of making assumptions.

Anouk :
Mhmm.

Zia Hassan:
It's very human. I'm not trying to say that I don't make assumptions anymore. I absolutely do. I make assumptions day and night all the time. But the difference now is that I question them. So if I assume something about someone, I say, maybe it's not true. Let me just see. Let me explore.

Zia Hassan:
Let me ask a powerful question. Let me, really understand this person deeply. If I make an assumption, let me try and confirm whether I'm wrong or right. Let me try and understand this person at a human level because it then it helps both of us learn. And if I'm wrong in my assumption, and then they call me out on being wrong, well, guess what? They learn something. I learn something. We all end up better.

Anouk :
Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. And so would you say because I think lots of the time, I don't know if it was your experience, but, lots of highly sensitive kids can be Intense. And I've, like, you said a little, like, meltdown and because they it's just too much. How was it like that for you, or how how did you experience that?

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. I I would have meltdowns. I would have, crying fits. I And and my experience of that is that I was the the response to that was negative, and here's why, I think. I think that my my mom and And I love my mom. My mom's great. But this goes for many moms, honestly. They really don't like it when their kids cry.

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. They really don't like it.

Anouk :
It hurts.

Zia Hassan:
It hurts. And and it hurts at almost a maternal, like, biological level. Right? Yeah. Because They've been with that child since they were a newborn. And when that newborn cried, the newborn was communicating they needed something. You have to go and fix it. You want a newborn to stop crying because They're crying because they need something, so you wanna figure out what they need. As we get older, though, we communicate in different ways, and so crying then becomes an emotional response.

Zia Hassan:
It's actually a good thing. So I tell my kids, the at least my my 5 year old now, when he's crying, I he knows this now. I don't have to say it anymore. I will say cry until all of it is out. Your body will tell you when all of it is out. That's it. We're gonna stop crying at some point. It's not gonna go on forever.

Zia Hassan:
It never does. But if you're sitting there Briere, like, stop crying. Stop it. Oh, look at this thing. Let me distract you. Look at the bright Briere, or let me try and reframe it for you. All of that doesn't work because when we are in that state of we've lost our minds and I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean, we've we've

Anouk :
lost access

Zia Hassan:
Right. We've lost access to that prefrontal cortex, if you wanna think about it scientifically. We've lost access to that. The only language we understand is that primitive language of touch, of soothing sounds? It's almost like we're a newborn again. Mhmm. And it's almost like the only thing we're gonna understand is comfort Food and being cuddled and Yeah. You know, soft music and all of that. So, well, I guess the point I'm making is that if you're a parent And you have that reaction to somebody, like, they're crying and you want them to stop crying, my my, My plea to you, my suggestion, my request is to let them cry until it's all out.

Zia Hassan:
Let them cry until it's all out because it's like airplane turbulence. You can't do anything about it. You can try. You can white knuckle the seats. You can pretend like you're in control of the plane like some people do. Right? But, ultimately, you have to wait it out, And you'll be better for it because that is how we process emotions. You hear a lot about how, we really want boys to process the emotions rather than Bottling it all up. Mhmm.

Zia Hassan:
And we really, really want them to to do that. And so the way we process emotions one way we process emotions is through crying. So if you see your child crying, you might wanna think to yourself, they're having a healthy Emotionally response. Let me give them the gift of letting them have it. Needs. You can comfort them using some of the things that I talked about earlier. You can rub their back. You can give them a hug.

Zia Hassan:
Even if the thing that they're melting down about is an argument that you've had, You kinda have to detach yourself from that argument for a minute and realize this logical, rational thing you're trying to do with them is done for now. Oh, yeah. It is done. Until they find themselves again, all your words have no input at all.

Anouk :
Mhmm. Mhmm.

Zia Hassan:
I often say that you still at all rather.

Anouk :
Yeah. At that point, it's like No. Anything you say just isn't heard at all. So you're talking in the void.

Zia Hassan:
That's right. Exactly. Exactly.

Anouk :
So you're better to do like, you can talk if you want, but it's more the tone of voice or and your body language that the will be understood. Because as you said, it's like we're going back. It's a primitive response. It's an like, it's an instinct, so we understand that level. We don't understand the cognitive level.

Zia Hassan:
And I didn't really get this before I became a parent, honestly, because I would see things in the like, let's say, I was in a doctor's office and some kid was building some tower, and the the they were doing something, like, That might knock it down. The parent was, like, you're gonna knock it down. You're gonna knock it down. And they knock it down, and then they go absolutely mental. They start crying and tantrum Anouk everything. And then you see the parent go, I told you. I told you you shouldn't have been doing that, because you knew it was gonna happen. You should've listened to me blah blah blah blah.

Zia Hassan:
And so this is that that logical Emotionally mind while the kid is completely out of their mind. They can't understand any of that. All they're hearing is they're hearing you guys. They're just hearing this harsh language. So if you see somebody, respond with even if they were, like, I they you were I was telling you that. They might respond by saying it's okay and rubbing their back. And it almost seems like we're Coddling. I know, like, a lot of people are like, we don't wanna coddle our kids, but we're not.

Zia Hassan:
What we're doing is we're connecting with them in the in where they are Cognitively in that moment and helping them get back to status quo, back to homeostasis. And then maybe once they're there, perhaps we can then talk about what are some ways we could handle that differently next time. And then we as parents get to manage our emotions too, because that parent who's going, oh, yeah. You should've listened to me. They're losing their mind too a little bit. They just have words. That's the only difference.

Anouk :
Yeah. They're they're just expressing it differently, but, basically, the reaction is the same inside.

Zia Hassan:
Exactly. Exactly.

Anouk :
Yeah. Thank you. Is there anything else that we didn't touch on that you wanted to say or share?

Zia Hassan:
I would say the the one thing I would say is that being highly sensitive is in some ways a superpower. It is a way to connect with people at a at a level and and a way to connect with the world around you at a level that many people don't get to experience. Many of us HSPs end up being mystics just by the nature of being highly sensitive because we connect. Because I can I talk to trees? I talk to the Skye. Like, to me, these are Yeah. Living things. Right? Even though they're they're sort of part of nature. Right? Mhmm.

Zia Hassan:
The deep the deepest parts of the cosmos I feel connected to. That's That's what it feels like sometimes to be me, to have all of that reverberating through me. So if you have a child that's highly sensitive, think of it as how can I teach them to use this superpower for good? Because it can also be used for things that are not so good. Mhmm. Especially if we don't let the children process these emotions.

Anouk :
Yeah. It can definitely lead to anxiety or depression even if it's not, yeah, if it's not supporting, but can also And it can also be our window as parents to those things. Like

Zia Hassan:
That's right.

Anouk :
I I can totally see. Like, my daughter is like, can see things that I will just pass, because I don't I don't have as much as she has that awareness of everything and appreciation. Like, I think some of Some of highly sensitive people can definitely do mindfulness instinctively to some extent too. Like, the the part of appreciation and, like, gratitude gratitude for what's around them, I think, and we have lots to learn from that too.

Zia Hassan:
Yeah. The Zen Buddhism was something I discovered at age 15, and it was the first kind of semireligious thing that ever spoke to me. I grew up in a house that we we were we're Muslim, but we weren't, like, super strictly religious, But I never connected to Islam in any way. The minute that I found Zen Buddhism and I don't consider myself a Buddhist now, but it was the first thing that really was like, Oh, this makes sense. This Mhmm. Aligns. And the other thing you were saying about that deep appreciation, it's what makes us sometimes good artists. Yeah.

Zia Hassan:
I'm I I have, 2 books of poetry. I've got, you know, 3 studio albums and tons of music that I've written for the last, you know, 30 years or whatever it is. Mhmm. All of that and my way of seeing the world, anytime you listen to my music and you feel like, oh, that it it it warms your heart, That is due to my superpower of sensitivity. So if you have a child who's sensitive, another way to think about their strength is how are they expressing it? What's their expression of that sensitivity? Is it just that they're they're upset, or or is there a way that they can use that sensitivity to help other people see the world in a new way? Mhmm.

Anouk :
And I think that's a very great way to cope with it. Also, I I'm not even sure cope is the right word here. No.

Zia Hassan:
It's a joy. Absolutely. Yes. Oh, yeah. I love that reframe. Yeah. Absolutely. It's Absolutely.

Zia Hassan:
It's it's a coping mechanism. I thought of it as a coping mechanism, but it is. It's it is a it is a way of enjoying the world around you and not being overwhelmed by it Because you have a way of expressing those Emotionally. Processing, just like crying. I love it. Yeah. Yeah.

Anouk :
I love that. I think, like, creativity is a very quite great way. And it we see, like, it's used in therapy. So why not use it that way? Really love it. So is there any resource that was helpful for you in your process as a parent?

Zia Hassan:
Yes. I discovered a a TV show in the pandemic called Bluey. Do you know the show Bluey?

Anouk :
Yeah. Yeah. A little. Not not a lot weirdly.

Zia Hassan:
I guess your kids are slight are slightly older, so they may not have

Anouk :
I have a 4 year old. But Oh,

Zia Hassan:
okay. Okay. Yeah. Well I don't

Anouk :
know. Never caught here for some reason.

Zia Hassan:
Oh, okay. Okay. Well, I'm part of a, dad's group on Facebook, and it's called the Bandit the ban the it's a Bluey group, and it's it's based on the dad in Bluey. The dad in Bluey is a guy named Bandit or a dog named Bandit. And He the the we don't get great representation as dads on TV and in books and stuff. We're always there's the deadbeat dad. There's the dad who leaves the family. There's The Homer Simpson dad who's a total idiot.

Zia Hassan:
You know, there's even Phil Dunphy on Modern Family is a slightly better than than, than, than Homer Simpson, but He still doesn't, like, know where the forks are. You know? So, like, not great representation. Then you have this character, Bandit, who is a phenomenal dad and still a dad. He's still a dad. Very much, like, fitting the dad trope, but he's a caring dad. He's an attentive dad. He's an engaged dad. He's a creative dad.

Zia Hassan:
He's playful. He's in some ways the perfect dad. And so a lot of dads watch the show, and they're like, it's great, but it's, like, there's a lot to live up to. So the reason why I bring this up as a resource is because every single Episode of Bluey, in my opinion, is a masterclass in parenting. It's kids love the show. Kids are really into the show, and it's got something for them. To me, it is a love letter to parents, and it is a love letter to parents about how to handle children In ways that are creative and playful. It's getting into the mind of a child.

Zia Hassan:
And if you watch this show, you will become a better parent just by osmosis. I guarantee it. I actually have a There's a podcast episode that I recorded. It's on my it's a older one from a few years ago, on my podcast called Gently Down the Stream, Where I break down from a developmental perspective an episode of Bluey with a friend of mine. So if you're interested in that, Yeah.

Anouk :
Yeah. Send me the link for that. We'll football. Show those definitely. Bluey is an easy link. I honestly, I think it's not available in French.

Zia Hassan:
Oh, okay.

Anouk :
I think that's why my my daughter never really, cut but I'm not sure. I would have to double check that. And sometimes it's not, and then it gets available. Like, the it becomes available in French. I but I think when we first check-in was not, and that's why she didn't really, caught on it.

Zia Hassan:
Well, I hope it it's becoming more popular. So, hopefully, they they have a French overdub Yeah.

Anouk :
I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna take a double look for sure.

Zia Hassan:
Okay. Okay. Highly recommend it. Just, if you if you do watch it, There's an episode called Sleepy Time.

Anouk :
Mhmm.

Zia Hassan:
Sleepy Time is about, the younger daughter on the show. Her name is Bingo, Bingo Heeler, Is, constantly getting out of her bed at night to go to her parents' bed, something we're very a lot of us as parents are very familiar with. Right? And, the way that it's handled and the way that it's expressed in this episode, I don't wanna ruin it for anyone. So please just it's like it's like 7 minutes long. It's it's it's a masterpiece. It's a masterpiece. And at the end, if you're not in tears, I would be very surprised. It is it is incredible.

Zia Hassan:
Maybe I'm in tears because I'm an HSP. People. Like but regardless, watch the show if you want a a master class in parenting.

Anouk :
Why? I I mean, we always listen to those episodes that that Our children are looking at again and again and again and again and again. Right.

Zia Hassan:
So Right.

Anouk :
It's perfect if at the same time, we're learning.

Zia Hassan:
That's right. It's a great show to just watch over and over, You're you're picking up nuances that weren't picked up on before. Yeah.

Anouk :
That's great. And where do people can find you if they wanna learn more or work with you?

Zia Hassan:
So I quickly many ways that you can learn. Yeah. So I coach dads, and, I have a program for new dads. And I'm guessing that if they listen to your So they, are probably not new dads or expecting dads, but I also coach dads that are, that have kids. It doesn't they don't you don't have to be somebody who is Who is a new dad. And so the website to find that program and my info about coaching there is first steps dad dot coach. And on there, you can book a 15 minute call where I explain kinda what I do. And don't worry if you're somebody who already has kids.

Zia Hassan:
The the program is sort of geared toward the 1st time dad, but I coach all people and, all all dads and, really, all parents. If you are someone who wants a career transition, you can find me at ziahassan.coach. But ultimately, the best place to go you wanna just understand me more is my blog, which is ziahassan dot blog. And, there you can read about all the stuff that I I think and write about. I'm on YouTube. I'm I have a podcast called Gently Down the Stream that I know you'll link to. Yes. So whatever your method is, you I'm also on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Zia Hassan:
So Whatever your method is of following people and getting their Intense, there's a chance that I'm there. Maybe not not Twitter or x or whatever it is. That's the one that we're not on. But everything else and the threads I'm on. So, yeah, I'll give you all the links, and you can Yeah.

Anouk :
Sure. We'll put all of those link in the show notes so people can find you no matter what they do wanna do. So thank you very much for being here today. It was very interesting, and love all the nuances and, lived experience that you shared.

Zia Hassan:
Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure to be here.

Anouk :
I'm so glad you joined me today and took that time out of your intense life to focus on finding a new way to parent that works for you and your kids. To get the episodes at So That They Drop, make sure to subscribe to the podcast, and please leave a rating in review so other parents can find it too. Also, check out all the free resources on my website at family moments dot ca so you can take action on what's the most important for you right now. And take a deep breath. Keep going. We're all in this together.