Big Reactors: Practical Strategies for Parenting Highly Sensitive Children

An invaluable, practical guide that shows parents how to help their highly sensitive child learn to manage their big emotions and thrive.

Highly sensitive children (HSCs) process and react to experiences more deeply than other children. They are sometimes called "spirited," "deeply feeling," or "big reactors." These children are amazing-fierce and feisty, persistent and passionate, insightful and empathetic-but are also prone to more intense and frequent meltdowns. Parenting a big reactor can be challenging and exhausting, but it doesn't have to be.

In Big Reactors: Practical Strategies for Parenting Highly Sensitive Children, child development specialist Claire Lerner helps parents develop the tools to support their HSC's strengths while also showing them how to cope with everyday challenges. She details the key traits of HSCs, describes the science behind the traits, and shows how parents and other caregivers can help them thrive. Through detailed case descriptions from her decades of work in the trenches, Lerner reveals the process she guides parents through to understand the root cause of their child's challenges and come up with sensitive, effective strategies that work in real life, not just in theory.

Importantly, Big Reactors shows parents how they can be supportive and loving while also setting the limits their fierce and feisty kids need to develop self-regulation and build resilience. This approach helps parents bring out the best in their passionate, creative, wonderful, sensitive child and creates more peace and joy for the entire family.

Author: Claire Lerner
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 10/02/2025
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.60w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9798881802820

About the Author
Claire Lerner, MSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and child development specialist. She has been a practicing clinician for more than 35 years, provides training and consultation to preschools and pediatric residents at Children's National Medical Center, and served as the Director of Parenting Resources at ZERO TO THREE for 18 years. She is the author of Why Is My Child In Charge? A Roadmap to Ending Power Struggles, Increasing Cooperation, and Finding Joy in Parenting Young Children. Claire is the mother of two very spirited children and lives in Bethany Beach, Delaware. Learn more at lernerchilddevelopment.com.