MyParentingSource Learning Hub: Spirited Child

Tips

Please select a link below to see the entire tip.

Always Praise Your Child's Successes (Read more...)

Always Praise Your Child's Successes

When she's able to go against her temperamental difficulty: for example, take a turn, stop a tantrum, be courageous or sharing.

Dr. Ron Taffel, Psy D., Raising Your More Spirited Child, 2000 Cincinnati For the Love of Kids® Parenting Conference.

Seek Active Solutions for Predictable Difficulties Before They Happen (Read more...)

Seek Active Solutions for Predictable Difficulties Before They Happen

Super market meltdowns, morning madness, witching hour, can often be averted if limits are set ahead of time.

Dr. Ron Taffel, Psy D., Raising Your More Spirited Child, 2000 Cincinnati For the Love of Kids® Parenting Conference.

Have Hope (Read more...)

Have Hope

Most spirited children become successes in life.

With the right parenting approaches they can gradually stand out in positive ways.

Dr. Ron Taffel, Psy D., Raising Your More Spirited Child. 2000 Cincinnati For the Love of Kids® Parenting Conference.

Don't Argue With an Angry or Fearful Child (Read more...)

Don't Argue With an Angry or Fearful Child

Create limits or soothe first -- talk and teach later.

Dr. Ron Taffel, Psy D., Raising Your More Spirited Child, 2000 Cincinnati For the Love of Kids® Parenting Conference.

Articles

Spirited Child

Resources: Websites, Tools & Books

Websites

Tools

Great Successes. Teach your children to recognize their own successes. Daily life holds lots of challenges -- from asking another child to play at recess to finishing a project on time. A task that is easy for one child can present a significant hurdle for another. By appreciating children's efforts to surmount their personal hurdles, parents demonstrate respect and acceptance -- and that's how children learn to accept and respect themselves!

HINT: Success and perfection are not the same thing! Part of building resilience and self esteem is teaching children to feel pride in progress toward a goal rather than withholding celebration until perfection is achieved.
I Found Out Something About Myself Today. Children strive throughout childhood and adolescence to develop a strong sense of self. It starts with the discover in infancy that they are separate from their parents and, moving into their second year, that they can disagree with them! Children who have a strong sense of who they are, what they believe, what values they hold are less vulnerable to peer pressure and have less of a need to rebel in adolescence. Demonstrate your respect for your child's process of self-discovery by offering this tool.

HINT: If your child is curious, it can be fun to look at what you've learned about him, using the PARENTING COMPASS, next to his conclusions about himself. Just listen and share. Don't be insistent about your point of view. If he says he likes red and you think he prefers purple, that's okay! What is important is to communicate your enjoyment of his process of self-discovery.

Bookshelf

General

Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, Energetic, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, Harper Paperbacks, 1998.
In this best-selling book, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka re-defines the “difficult child” as the "spirited" child -- a child that is MORE. Kurcinka, a nationally and internationally noted family educator, provides tools for understanding your own temperament as well as your child's, and strategies based on this understanding to positively parent your spirited child.

Since authoring this book, she has introduced another book called, Kids, Parents and Power Struggles that provides further insight and strategies for parents of spirited children.
Setting Limits with Your Strong-Willed Child: Eliminating Conflict by Establishing Clear, Firm, and Respectful Boundaries, Robert J. MacKenzie, Ed.D., Three Rivers Press, 2001.
MacKenzie is an educational psychologist and family therapist who founded the Setting Limits program. He’s the author of Setting Limits and Setting Limits in the Classroom.

This book has ideas for parents of strong-willed children that can be used for other children as well. It gives parents tools to use in challenging situations and offers tips to help parents be firm and respectful at the same time.
Living With the Active Alert Child: Groundbreaking Strategies for Parents, Linda S. Budd, Parenting Press, 1993.
Budd is a psychologist who has spent three decades studying active alert children, her term for the spirited child. Budd focuses on the positive aspects of these children. She helps parents identify areas of their child's learning style and personal interactions that may need more coaching, and to teach the child strategies to cope with her temperament.
Parenting the Strong-Willed Child, Revised and Updated Edition: The Clinically Proven Five-Week Program for Parents of Two- to Six-Year-Olds, Rex Forehand and Nicholas Long, Contemporary Books, 1996.
The authors base this book on their collaborative behavioral research. Their program is based on strategies that have worked for them. Some of the strategies fit better into the strengths based approach to practical parenting than others.

Previous: Ages & Stages