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Adrenarche and Understanding Your Suddenly Sensitive Kid (Ages 6-8)
There are so many perplexing phases in parenthood. There’s the exhausting newborn stage, the messy toddler stage, the hard to navigate preteen stage, and of course, the stage of your child becoming a teenager. If you’re like me, you may have thought that once you make it out of the toddler stage with your child, you’ll have several years of seemingly smooth sailing before you hit the preteen stage. The stage where the tantrums subside, language comes online, and you feel confident that you’ll have 6 or 7 years before the next big developmental phase. However, it turns out that there is a whole other stage of development that happens right after toddlerhood and before preteen-hood. This phase between the ages of 6 to 8 may leave you scratching your head, wondering what to do next. I’m currently in this stage with my son, Kai, and have found an answer to this perplexing phase that blew my mind and is sure to blow yours too. Let’s dive in!
What is Adrenarche?
The developmental phase between the specific ages of 6 and 8 is called adrenarche. I noticed this phase occurring with my son, who is typically pretty even-keeled in his mannerisms. However, his emotional state and his way of communicating suddenly became erratic. It almost felt like I didn’t know this child. I was so confused and wondered what was going on. I started researching and looking for answers, because as someone who has studied child development and supports parents, I wanted answers. I found that there is a window in which our children get initiated into a developmental phase called adrenarche. This phase typically happens around the ages of 6, 7, or 8. Signs of this phase are children being ultrasensitive, having big emotional responses that are not typical, and feeling like you just can’t get through to them.
Adrenarche is a stage of development at which the adrenal glands undergo maturation leading to the capacity of producing increasing amounts of adrenal androgens. Put simply, during this phase, your child is experiencing a pretty big hormonal shift. The adrenal cortex is maturing and they’re getting flooded with a host of hormones.
Day to day, this may look like big emotional shifts, outbursts, unexplained crying fits, or even a change in body odor, especially with boys. This is all completely normal for this phase. What is NOT normal in this stage is changes in testicular sizes, pubic hair, or breast development.
The adrenarche phase of development happens and is marked by at least 2 years before your child enters the pubescent phase. In my research, I learned that the changes in the adrenarche phase are predominantly psychological instead of physical.
How to Support Children Through the Adrenarche Phase.
Now that we understand this phase and what’s happening, it’s time to answer the most important question, which is how do we deal with and support our children as they're entering this developmental phase?
It’s important to remember that this phase is likely taking them by surprise too. They may feel out of control and caught off guard by the shifts in their behavior and emotional development.
As parents, the first thing we need to do is hold compassion, because no matter how perplexing, frustrating, or irritating it is for us as parents to navigate this, it is for our children too. They're feeling these really big emotions that they haven't prepared for, that we likely haven't talked to them about, and they may feel like a stranger in their own body.
I encourage you to foster and practice conscious communication, especially during this stage. Find times during the day where your child is regulated and calm to check in with them and ask them how they are feeling. Ask them what it feels like inside their body. If they need help identifying their emotions, we can support them in that. At this age between 6 and 8, their language skills are pretty advanced and they're able to identify some of those more advanced emotions, such as uneasy, weird, nervous, etc. We can start having conversations about what it feels like to be in their body and ask how we can support them. Let them know the things you notice and ask them how it makes them feel, if they want to talk about it, and if there is something you can do to help them feel more safe and supported.
These conscious conversations are important ways of communicating with your child that helps them map their body and understand tools and ways in which they can regulate themselves and feel more calm and easy in their bodies when these big surges occur. You can even talk to them about the fact that they are in a new stage of growth and that these emotions and feelings are normal and that they happen to every kid. Again, reassuring them that you are there to support them is key.
If you’d love to learn more about this and how you can more deeply support your children as they move through different stages of development as well as support yourself, check out my Rooted in EQ Masterclass. This masterclass will help you understand your emotional range and learn to expand it. Oftentimes, we don’t want to address some of those emotions that occur at the edge of our emotional range, such as anger, sadness, etc. Each of us has a threshold in which we feel comfortable, either feeling the emotion within our body or displaying it to others.
By holding back on our emotions, we are modeling a limited emotional range, unconsciously, for our children. Therefore, we need to consciously expand our own emotional range and step into our full authenticity and power in order to help our children do the same. It starts with us.
The Rooted in EQ Masterclass is going to support you deeply through all the stages of parenthood and give you some reprieve from feeling like it’s one thing after another and like things just keep getting more complex and difficult. It will help you support yourself first so you can support your children going forward. As I add to this masterclass as I move through the different developmental stages with my own children, you'll always have access to it.
A lot of us are suffering behind the scenes because we feel inadequate, like we did something wrong, or like we should have put more effort in. The reality is, a lot of times, there's a biological reason for the challenge we're experiencing with our children. When we open up these types of conversations and allow the broader community to chime in and share their experiences and tips, we can all grow together.
At the end of the day, what's going to change our world are healthy moms and dads raising healthy, soul aligned, authentic, and empowered children. We need to heal our generational line and past traumas to be able to show up fully for motherhood or fatherhood. This will allow us to pass along the best of us and let that continue to evolve and expand over time. Imagine the ripple effect on humanity if we can all work towards that.
If you want to dive deeper into this phase of adrenarche and supporting ourselves and our children through it, check out my Youtube video here.
Adrenarche and Understanding Your Suddenly Sensitive Kid (Ages 6-8)
There are so many perplexing phases in parenthood. There’s the exhausting newborn stage, the messy toddler stage, the hard to navigate preteen stage, and of course, the stage of your child becoming a teenager. If you’re like me, you may have thought that once you make it out of the toddler stage with your child, you’ll have several years of seemingly smooth sailing before you hit the preteen stage. The stage where the tantrums subside, language comes online, and you feel confident that you’ll have 6 or 7 years before the next big developmental phase. However, it turns out that there is a whole other stage of development that happens right after toddlerhood and before preteen-hood. This phase between the ages of 6 to 8 may leave you scratching your head, wondering what to do next. I’m currently in this stage with my son, Kai, and have found an answer to this perplexing phase that blew my mind and is sure to blow yours too. Let’s dive in!
What is Adrenarche?
The developmental phase between the specific ages of 6 and 8 is called adrenarche. I noticed this phase occurring with my son, who is typically pretty even-keeled in his mannerisms. However, his emotional state and his way of communicating suddenly became erratic. It almost felt like I didn’t know this child. I was so confused and wondered what was going on. I started researching and looking for answers, because as someone who has studied child development and supports parents, I wanted answers. I found that there is a window in which our children get initiated into a developmental phase called adrenarche. This phase typically happens around the ages of 6, 7, or 8. Signs of this phase are children being ultrasensitive, having big emotional responses that are not typical, and feeling like you just can’t get through to them.
Adrenarche is a stage of development at which the adrenal glands undergo maturation leading to the capacity of producing increasing amounts of adrenal androgens. Put simply, during this phase, your child is experiencing a pretty big hormonal shift. The adrenal cortex is maturing and they’re getting flooded with a host of hormones.
Day to day, this may look like big emotional shifts, outbursts, unexplained crying fits, or even a change in body odor, especially with boys. This is all completely normal for this phase. What is NOT normal in this stage is changes in testicular sizes, pubic hair, or breast development.
The adrenarche phase of development happens and is marked by at least 2 years before your child enters the pubescent phase. In my research, I learned that the changes in the adrenarche phase are predominantly psychological instead of physical.
How to Support Children Through the Adrenarche Phase.
Now that we understand this phase and what’s happening, it’s time to answer the most important question, which is how do we deal with and support our children as they're entering this developmental phase?
It’s important to remember that this phase is likely taking them by surprise too. They may feel out of control and caught off guard by the shifts in their behavior and emotional development.
As parents, the first thing we need to do is hold compassion, because no matter how perplexing, frustrating, or irritating it is for us as parents to navigate this, it is for our children too. They're feeling these really big emotions that they haven't prepared for, that we likely haven't talked to them about, and they may feel like a stranger in their own body.
I encourage you to foster and practice conscious communication, especially during this stage. Find times during the day where your child is regulated and calm to check in with them and ask them how they are feeling. Ask them what it feels like inside their body. If they need help identifying their emotions, we can support them in that. At this age between 6 and 8, their language skills are pretty advanced and they're able to identify some of those more advanced emotions, such as uneasy, weird, nervous, etc. We can start having conversations about what it feels like to be in their body and ask how we can support them. Let them know the things you notice and ask them how it makes them feel, if they want to talk about it, and if there is something you can do to help them feel more safe and supported.
These conscious conversations are important ways of communicating with your child that helps them map their body and understand tools and ways in which they can regulate themselves and feel more calm and easy in their bodies when these big surges occur. You can even talk to them about the fact that they are in a new stage of growth and that these emotions and feelings are normal and that they happen to every kid. Again, reassuring them that you are there to support them is key.
If you’d love to learn more about this and how you can more deeply support your children as they move through different stages of development as well as support yourself, check out my Rooted in EQ Masterclass. This masterclass will help you understand your emotional range and learn to expand it. Oftentimes, we don’t want to address some of those emotions that occur at the edge of our emotional range, such as anger, sadness, etc. Each of us has a threshold in which we feel comfortable, either feeling the emotion within our body or displaying it to others.
By holding back on our emotions, we are modeling a limited emotional range, unconsciously, for our children. Therefore, we need to consciously expand our own emotional range and step into our full authenticity and power in order to help our children do the same. It starts with us.
The Rooted in EQ Masterclass is going to support you deeply through all the stages of parenthood and give you some reprieve from feeling like it’s one thing after another and like things just keep getting more complex and difficult. It will help you support yourself first so you can support your children going forward. As I add to this masterclass as I move through the different developmental stages with my own children, you'll always have access to it.
A lot of us are suffering behind the scenes because we feel inadequate, like we did something wrong, or like we should have put more effort in. The reality is, a lot of times, there's a biological reason for the challenge we're experiencing with our children. When we open up these types of conversations and allow the broader community to chime in and share their experiences and tips, we can all grow together.
At the end of the day, what's going to change our world are healthy moms and dads raising healthy, soul aligned, authentic, and empowered children. We need to heal our generational line and past traumas to be able to show up fully for motherhood or fatherhood. This will allow us to pass along the best of us and let that continue to evolve and expand over time. Imagine the ripple effect on humanity if we can all work towards that.
If you want to dive deeper into this phase of adrenarche and supporting ourselves and our children through it, check out my Youtube video here.
