You may not agree with this post but here’s how I feel today - curmudgeon. I remember when spirit meant how loudly you could cheer at your high school pep rally. These days it’s a label we are supposed to give to our children who, when I was a kid would have been labeled oh, I don’t know, say spoiled brats. I can say that because I’ve got one.
Now I’m the kind of person who always thinks there is a solution to every problem if you research it enough so I’ve read all the books and I’ve watched Mr. Rogers. My copies of Positive Discipline and Raising your Spirited Child have so many stickies hanging out they look like fringe blankets. Neither of them was really that helpful for me. I really felt like Spirited Child will be helpful once we make it through the preschool years but that still feels a long ways off, even though we are fast-approaching 5. That is the when one of the sleep therapists I spoke with early on told me he would start to mellow out so I have hope that if these books don’t help then simply waiting it out will.
The book that helped me the most was called Living with the Active Alert Child by Linda S. Budd. It seemed more real to me, more down-to-earth and more applicable for the illogical world of the temperamental toddler even though it goes through the school years as well. Spirited Child covered a large range of kids - most of them seem to have spirit. Active Alert Child for the most part nailed Chicken Little. The very beginning of the book contains a short questionnaire:
Does your child have seemingly unending energy?
Can your child attend to a task?
Does your child wake up a lot at night or have difficulty getting to sleep?
Does your child seem to need very little sleep as an infant or toddler?
Would the last word from your child’s mouth be “I’m tired”?
Does your child seem to “wind up” over the course of a day; that is, the energy seems to build upon itself?
Does your child’s memory of details amaze you?
Is your child quick or bright in certain areas of learning?
Does your child have an unending fount of “good ideas”?
Does your child want his way most of the time and have difficulty accepting a “no” answer?
Does it seem as if your child tries to be the “boss” of your family or her friends?
Did you miss the “terrible twos” in your child’s development because you never experienced anything else?
In new situations is your child more uncertain or fearful than others?
Is your child intensely emotional - very happy or very sad- with little in between?
Does your child experience a pattern of moods - from positive to negative and back again - that seem hard for him to control?
Is it difficult for your child to play alone, especially up to age six or seven?
Is it difficult for your child to determine how to be a good friend, that is, she either sits and watches others or tries to be the boss?
Does your child think he is just terrific or totally stupid with little ability to believe that he might be just average or okay?
Do other people say they have no difficulty with your child?
Do you sometimes wonder if your child has “read your mind”?
If you answered yes to the majority of these questions you probably have an Active Alert child. The fact that your child has spirit is a given. The fact that you have spent up until now pulling your hair out, struggling to be the parent you want to be and considering different punishment methods is also a given. You win the Active Alert Child award! Double points if you have not eaten the child yet.
What I like best about Linda (I feel like I can call her Linda since I bought her book) is that she acknowledges how difficult the strain is on the entire family and treats the family like a unit. She is still very warm and fuzzy (”your child is not difficult, parenting them is”) where I say call a spade a spade but the book is dedicated to practical strategies to help you cope with your active alert at the same time understanding you also may work full time outside the home, have other siblings who also need your attention, and need to primp your active alert for the real world.
Spirited Child does some of this as well and I don’t mean to knock it by any means - I know it’s saved the family lives of millions of children. It just didn’t resonate with me in the way that Active Alert did. Linda described my then toddler to a “T” and had I read it while he was a baby it would have described him then too. Spirited Child focused more on older preschool and school-age kids and presented a wide range of spirited personalities. It was more like reading a general horoscope in the newspaper. You can see some things may apply to you but so many of them either didn’t or were just too general they didn’t apply at all.
What got me thinking about this book was looking at a picture I snapped of Chicken Little yesterday at Grandma’s. Didn’t your grandmother have motorized riding toys for you to play on? No? I was thrilled to death my Grandmother always had a peppermint lifesaver for me when I visited but times have changed dear readers…As I looked at this picture it struck me how rarely I see anything but either incredible joy, deepest sorrow or darkest anger on this sweet face.
I’ve been very frustrated with Chicken Little lately - my 4.5 year old son who not only still has colic (only when awake), is allergic to sleep, and cried and screamed so much we not only missed the terrible twos but never knew when he was teething. I know people with teenagers say this is nothing yet - but they have reprieves during school hours and as my husband points out, they are that much closer to college.
I guess it’s time for me to re-read Linda again and maybe give Spirited Child another shot. I’m not yet the parent I want to be but I’m trying!
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