A Kinder Approach to Transition and the "Talkative" Child
I haven't been sending out updates about my business over the past year because I've been working on myself as I transition our youngest of three into public school. I wanted a different, less dragged out, experience from what we had with our eldest.
A lot of the struggles we had with the school came down to my own unresolved wounds. I've always wanted to help parents understand their kids, but because this was coming from a place of what happened to me in childhood, I needed to revisit the beliefs I had that were not serving me. Healing helped me attract better relationships, some people fell away, some people changed, and some people simply stopped triggering me the way that they did before.
Enough about me, because I really want this article to be about how we help kids.
I think the key is: Human Design (how we are built) and Esogetic Medicine (clearing out what has happened to us, so there is less chaos inside, which means we attract fewer problems, which only come to us to give us an opportunity to resolve the conflict that we carry).
Being able to follow our unique design means we collect less trauma/garbage, but there is always conflict between what is right for us and what is expected of us.
The first place that conflict shows up:
People almost need a diagnosis or obvious symptoms to be entitled to help or accommodations, this creates an impossible situation, because a child who is operating in alignment with their Human Design and who does not want to carry excess trauma/chaos is not unhealthy, but their increased need needs to be seen as unhealthy in order to be justified.
I don't want to get into the child who is conforming and what that may be doing to their health because a child who can conform and be ok isn't that what we all want? Isn't it only the sensitive kids who can't do that that we are trying to find a solution for?
If I think of myself, I was silenced, I conformed, and then I became very sick and was not ok. I had to take a long break to find myself again. I fit better than I did before, but not completely, and that is what keeps me safe. We are supposed to diversify, we are supposed to be different, to take different paths, to develop different skills. Just look at a tree, all the branches grow in different directions, if they all grew in the same direction we would think there was something very wrong:
I'm sharing this framework for anyone who has ever felt stuck between protecting a sensitive child and trying to fit them into a system that wasn't built for them.
The first half builds the context. The practical advice for helping a sensitive child through a transition begins at 'Bridging the Gap'.
The History We Are Not Taught In School
Please bear with me as I share something that may be foreign to you, because it gives us important context. The Cross of Planning runs from 1610–2027. The world we built over the past 416 years has been constructed around the assumption that we are all the same, what people still refer to as the 7-centered/chakras being.
The reason we were able to build all these institutions was the strong galactic pull to get us to work together. The tendency to be strategic built our cities, government, food supply chain, and schools. Compliance was expected so that we could build a predictable hierarchy of collective structures.
As the planets shift, the frequency supporting these massive institutions dissolves, and schools feel it the most because they are stuck between a rock and a hard place - the government promises families support that it does not fund schools to deliver. And more and more parents are becoming aware of their kids very valid needs, but they don't yet know how to work with the school to ask for the proper support. Healing needs to be done on so many levels, but few have the time, resources, or awareness that these options exist. Kids with significant and unmanageable needs are entering the school system, leaving kids with manageable needs unsupported.
While there is temptation to blame and many do, we need to understand that humans have evolved to be 9-centered a long time ago. Many of us are not how most people think we all should be. When we say someone has Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), or any other label, what we are truly saying is that they process and see things in a way that doesn't meet what we expect from everyone, but are they disordered?
I would say they are only disordered if they are told that the way they are doing things is wrong and they are forced to try to do things in a way that is more socially acceptable (which is honestly why I do not like models that reward socially appropriate behaviour, the things kids get for conforming should have been theirs from the start – freedom to choose, to take a break, to eat, to go to the bathroom etc.).
Here's the difference between the two systems:
The Expiring 7-Centered Institutional Design:
Built on strategic focus, uniform pacing, centralized authority, and forced cognitive quietude to ensure predictable collective conformity.
Pathologizes when it takes longer for some people to process all the information that they perceive inside and around them, or when they need to talk it out (literally) in order to be able to move forward, which tempts parents into trying to enforce desensitization and compliance, often using medication.
The Emerging 9-Centered Differentiated Reality:
Built on being different, taking the time to process and feel what is right for you, resulting in highly individualized somatic timing for development.
Demands adults start to understand who they are and who they are raising. When everything falls apart, knowing who you are and how to navigate life is going to be the only way any of us can survive, this is not what our schools are able to give our kids, it has to come from home, and then parents have to buffer the gap between home (where needs are met and individuality is allowed) and school (where there are expectations and it is almost tempting to say "my child has special needs" in order to allow them access to both worlds, because the truth is: no one really knows, would everyone have special needs if they were allowed to stay healthy by being true to themselves?).
So, what do we do?
To fully honor our child's development, we need to monitor what is blocked and clear it and honor who they are and what they need. This is not easy when things are out of our hands at public school. But, our kids are meant to venture off into the world to see what they can navigate, how they can grow, what they might find, what they may need help with, who they can meet, how they can work together, etc.
So we have these two mechanisms: know who they are and what they need, see what is blocked and clear it out, so they continue to have the best chance at processing and navigating life.
Like emptying their lunchbox at the end of each day and wiping it out. We don't keep shoving new food in and never clear the garbage. It is almost ironic, or kismet that schools send garbage home as part of their initiative to produce less garbage. It is us, the parents, who bear the burden to clear it out, not just of their bags, but of their bodies and minds.
This is what Kirlian Photography and Esogetic Medicine do for us. We use Human Design to validate their difference, Kirlian Photography to validate the impact, and Esogetic Medicine to clear the blocks. For some kids it feels never ending, because they are so sensitive, always collecting more chaos than they are able to process, and still going in for more. Without help, they may start refusing to go to school.
I am lucky to have the tools to know, watch, and address, so that my kids keep feeling like "yes, I can go in and collect more" – this is the resilience they don't tell you about in school. They say resilience is to keep trying even when you can't. True resilience is to keep emptying so that you have room for more. We grow by processing our conflicts. That to me is what school is about, more than learning to read, do math, or learn the government curriculum.
Reframing the "Talkative" Child - Speech as a Primary Bio-Regulatory Mechanism
Let me give you a concrete example: My kid needs to talk, not to be disruptive, but because the things that happen that bother her keep bothering her until she is able to share them with a trusted adult. She behaves better in class than most kids, she is honest, but sometimes she has a different perspective which we can learn from. Other kids seem to talk about nothing or misbehave. They may have similar needs to my child, but nowhere to put it, so it comes out in ways that leave teachers looking for ways to manage the interruptions. Recess isn't a good outlet, because it is often where a lot of the problems set in for these kids, when their trusted adults take a break and they don't know who to turn to to help them navigate the complex immature social dynamics of many kids with unidentified/unmet needs.
When I looked for ways to help my own child hold onto what she wants to tell me until she can say it to a trusted adult, nearly everything I found online was about stopping a child from talking and a little bit about sensory processing disorder. I found almost nothing for the child who has too much to say and needs somewhere safe to put it. Teachers have a primary goal to get the kids to excel in the curriculum, some also want to be a safe haven for their students, but this gets messy when you ask "a safe haven from what?".
Talking things out is literally how we help kids (of all ages) process what has happened to them, so that their experience can be stored away as having been dealt with, instead of scattered as traumatic memory that is constantly retriggered and hard to resolve (unless you have Esogetic Medicine to help piece it back together – releasing it from the physical tissue of the body, where it has been stored).
People don't think like this, and this is why we have so many problems. But, somatic practitioners exist because they know trauma is stored in the body and we would feel better and have a more enjoyable life if we could find a way to release it.
Kids are further disadvantaged if they don't know how to write notes to themselves on what they need to share with somebody they trust later. And even if they could record it in some way, there's the fear that someone will find their hidden thoughts and make life worse for them.
It is ok for a child to say "I like this person, but I don't like their face" what they are saying is "there is something about this situation that I can not fully trust yet" they are not commenting on who is good looking or not. They are seeing more than we can see, and they need us to hold onto this perception for them because it feels important and they don't want it to get lost.
Without getting into the science of how this gets stored in our body, and how this leads us to become ill: when a child is forced to suppress and stay silent, it creates emotional stress and autonomic arousal that they cannot discharge, and that is what gets stored in their body, making them sicker (physically, emotionally, behaviorally, mentally) and harder to help.
All behaviour (illness and injury) is a sign of where help is needed. But we get so offended, as adults dealing with children, who seem to have so many problems, when we ourselves also have an agenda that we are trying to push through with our own problems. Forced silence and suppression make us sick; spontaneous speech allows connections to be made that keep us healthy and coherent (order on the inside allows for order on the outside, the room must become a disaster before we can put everything away, and kids are only learning this, they need as much time to acquire this skill as they do for any other).
Chronic suppression halts movement. Anything that moves is healthy, anything that stagnates is sick.
Unique Human Design – A Brief Lesson On Open Centers
Of the 9-centers I mentioned earlier, anywhere that a person is open, they feel and amplify the energy of others. This is meant to be wisdom, allowing us to understand others, but when we are not taught this, we think it is us, and others think it is us, and we get medicated for being bothered by something that is in someone else. People with more openness are sampling more of the room, and can be easily overwhelmed. We don't value people who sample things deeper than we want them to, but that doesn't protect anyone from them being able to do this. They know more than we want them to know, and punishing them for it is human, but not fair.
Certain Designs Really Struggle With Transitions
In addition to centers being open or closed, we also carry what is called "line numbers" based on what specific slice of a slice in the sky each planet sat in when we were born. Again, I know this kind of logic loses people because of the limitation of what we have been taught. But, physics, in a way, what all of this is, is fascinating to very smart people for a reason, and most of us don't understand it beyond "something in motion stays in motion unless it is opposed" etc.
4th line beings operate through social grounding and established trust. Before stepping into an unfamiliar space, a 4th line personality needs to establish a friendly social anchor or "sounding board." If they have a lot of open centers (or they also possess a 6th line), they need to take in their surroundings to see what is being triggered today and who is in charge, so they can talk about it before they go in. There may be enough time for this if they are trying to enter something that lasts a full day, but there is rarely enough time for this for something that lasts only 30-45 minutes.
Other aspects of our Human Design, which is only one aspect of our Unique Psychology, also weigh in to make us more or less likely to dig in and do it our way, or give in and make things easier for others. Neither is wrong, it is about understanding why a person is the way they are so we can meet their need, so that the need doesn't get bigger than it needs to be.
Bridging the Gap
School (or extra curricular programs) are not wrong, per se, for approaching things the way that they do. But we can offer them a bit more understanding about what is going on for our unique child. When our kids approach the transition from us to these environments, they are triggered with a rapid influx of information (cues of danger and safety) which causes hesitation. We can help our kids process the major red flags, so that they can go in and collect all the minor white flags to be talked about at the end of the day (for what is remembered) and the beginning of the next day (for what was forgotten but is now retriggered). How well you are able to do this depends on how much healing you have done on yourself, because someone who holds more chaos is going to be met with more difficulty and someone who holds more resolved order is going to be met with more leniency and trust. Sometimes the person allowing the leniency attracts additional pressure that falls on you to navigate too. Just keep healing. Everything is an invitation for you to heal, because you have zero control over the problems other people are carrying.
Honor the small details of who your child is, and what makes certain things hard. Validate them, without the need for a diagnosis, these things that make them sweet, and courageous, as a little person navigating problems bigger than most adults dare to tackle. Your child chose you as their parent for a reason, because you would give them exactly what they needed, just like my parents gave me exactly what I needed to become who I am meant to be. Good and bad, we grow. Especially if we have the tools to understand, address, and know how.
Practical Advice
Arriving early doesn't always help because our kids need the action in order to read the room. Before the transition, get all their needs met, reduce anything that would make the transition hard, don't say more than you need to. If you can find your child a safe person, a buddy, someone they can share what comes up for them throughout the day or class, that can really help. But kids aren't great at supporting each other, because they have their own needs too. Know that your child is not infantile for having difficulty separating from you, and that it is worth it to wait for the right support to come around, don't settle on someone who is going to end up hurting your sensitive child even more. Trust when your kid says "that person is not a good fit" they are in the room, not you.
Adults Are The Child's External Prefrontal Cortex
This is not about telling on kids or getting justice for what happens to our kids when we are not around, it is about our kids operating with a brain that is not complete. Kids age 6–9 are alpha dominant - processing environmental stress through non-linear emotional and somatic alarm loops. Because the child's prefrontal cortex is structurally immature, their nervous system cannot down-regulate the acute emotional-somatic alarm without your help.
When an adult is able to maintain a grounded, unhurried, receptive, non-judgmental presence, the child feels safe, which allows many parts of their emotional brain and social processing to organize and calm down. It is not telling someone to calm down or do better that does the trick, it's allowing them to get it out, so they can go in, with less unresolved issues (a burden to carry).
Rapid Acoustic Touch-Points
In sitting in my daughter's dance class, I notice she often runs to me to share:
"I said this because..." — translates rapid mental pressure into immediate explicit logic, allowing the active brain to settle because the information has somewhere to be held
"I noticed that..." — allows what they see to be registered so it no longer has to function as a constant cue for danger or safety
"I just need to tell you..." — gets something they are holding out, so that they are more able to take other things in
She wants me in the room not because she wants to make other kids jealous, but because having me in the room means she misses out on less dance time. I know we can not fill the class with parents who are collecting all the things that their kids need to say, and yet, trying to explain this to my child who knows what she needs in order to be able to participate doesn't help her understand, it just makes her more demanding of what she really needs, because this outside pressure makes her feel even more unsafe.
We need to give these kids room to breathe, opportunities to see their needs are met, and then, when they trust the process, they will dismiss us on their own
Parents Need To Figure Out What Works and Offer Teachers Zero-Effort Solutions
For this to work, parents need to act as curators of information: what works, what doesn't, what is true for your kid. Translating the complexity of Human Design and Esogetics, into something the school (or extra curricular program) can do to make things a little bit easier for your kid.
The right school (or program) will be grateful and will recognize that this is a lot easier than adding another high needs kid to their roster, who may need more each year as needs go unmet. It is a collaboration between home and school/program, where home does the heavy lifting but school/program needs to be open to collaborate.
And if you are attracting staff who won't help you out, heal yourself and then they will fall away or change. The universe is perfect in how we attract exactly what we need, based on what we are carrying inside of us, that still needs to be healed.
Every tough experience is an opportunity for healing. Taking these opportunities on is how we foster long-term resilience, authentic self-expression, and lasting health.
We give everyone an opportunity to do better when we operate from a place of understanding ourselves and our child and do the work to be aware of and clear as much of the chaos as possible.
If you are ready to take this on for yourself or your child, book a free 15-minute consultation.
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