Highly sensitive children are wired to process and react to their experiences in the world more deeply than other children. A highly sensitive child is sensitive to their environment, relationships, and expectations.
A child's high sensitivity is about their temperament. Temperament describes how children approach the world; it's really the why of their behavior. We're all born with our temperament; it's not something children choose or that parents create.
Parents tend to describe highly sensitive children as either ecstatic or enraged no middle register. In fact, they're sometimes referred to as "hot house flowers" or "orchids", because they are affected by and reactive to even minor changes in their environment.
But that intensity means they're often misunderstood by those around them. Even parents may struggle to understand a highly sensitive child.