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Home › Articles › Your Children › A Sixth Sense?

A Sixth Sense?

The World of Highly Intuitive Children

By Carma Haley Shoemaker

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Separation anxiety or intuition? Sometimes, they may be one and the same. "Often an infant becomes upset when a mother, [father] or caretaker, without giving any outward signal, plans to leave for a few hours later in the day," says Burns. "The child may cling to her without explanation or demand more of his or her attention and time."

Another example of a child's intuitiveness is the often-misunderstood connections they may make. For example, at a family reunion, an intuitive child is drawn to the one person that no one would expect to give him or her comfort – the old grumpy uncle, the timid adolescent, the uninterested cousin or the preoccupied aunt. "Every family has such stories," says Burns. "Stories of a baby or small child snuggling in the lap of the relative none of the others can stand, like the cat who rubs lovingly against the legs of the one person who 'hates cats.' Why does this happen? Without the intrusion of mental thoughts or defenses, the child intuitively 'senses' the deeper loving of the person and trusts it, while adults may not."

Family Ties
A 2-year-old girl begins to cry in frustration after pointing to her new shoes and saying, "Foot. Foot." Her mother believes she is in pain, removes her shoe, examines her foot to find nothing wrong and begins to replace the shoe on her daughter's foot. The girl cries more loudly, and the mother puts down the shoe in fear of hurting her daughter. Suddenly, the little girl's older brother enters the room. He asks his little sister what she wants. Looking up at her big brother, the little girl continues to cry. Without saying a word, her brother walks to her closet, takes out her old shoes and begins putting them on his little sister. Instantly, the little girl's tears stop.

Burns says that, like the previous example, a telepathic communication between siblings is very common. In fact, it takes on the role of being their way to stay in communication with each other without adult intrusion. "Like foreign interpreters, older siblings become translators of nonverbal communication between younger siblings and the adult world," says Burns. "Understanding the younger child on an intuitive level, the brother or sister can sense the deep needs and feelings that the child [may not] yet be able to verbalize. Many adults will automatically ask an older sibling to explain to them what a younger child wants or needs."

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