Raising Your Spirited Child
Product Description
The spirited child–often called “difficult” or “strong-willed”–
can easily overwhelm parents, leaving them feeling frustrated and inadequate.Spirited kids are, in fact, simply “more”–by temperament, they are more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent, and uncomfortable with change than the average child. Through vivid examples and a refreshingly positive viewpoint, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka offers parents emotional support and proven strategies for handling their spirited child. Raising Your Spirited Child will help you:
- Understand your child’s–and your own–temperamental traits
- Plan for success with a simple four-step program
- Discover the power of positive–rather than negative–labels
- Cope with tantrums and blowups when they do occur
- Develop strategies for handling mealtimes, bedtimes, holidays, school and many other situations
Filled with personal insight and authorative advice, Raising Your Spirited Child can help make parenting the joy it should be, rather than the trial it can be.
Amazon.com Review
Recently, temperament traits have come to the forefront of child development theory. In Raising Your Spirited Child, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka’s first contribution is to redefine the “difficult child” as the “spirited” child, a child that is, as she says, MORE. Many people are leery about books that are too quick to “type” kids, but Kurcinka, a parent of a spirited child herself and a parent educator for 20 years, doesn’t fall into that trap. Instead, she provides tools to understanding your own temperament as well as your child’s. When you understand your temperamental matches–and your mismatches–you can better understand, work, live, socialize, and enjoy spirit in your child. By reframing challenging temperamental qualities in a positive way, and by giving readers specific tools to work with these qualities, Kurcinka has provided a book that will help all parents, especially the parents of spirited children, understand and better parent their children.
Anonymous said,
Wrote on May 10, 2010 @ 10:24 am
How many times had I heard, “yup, he’s all boy” or “he sure is active”, or “he just needs a good spanking”…but I always felt that no one truly understood what I was going through with my “spirited” child. I read “The Strong Willed Child” by Dobson, I read “The Dicipline Book” by Dr. Sears, still nothing seemed to explain the problems I was having with my child. I had just about decided that I must have done something wrong to make him behave the way he does, when I found this book. What a relief! It isn’t anything I have done to make my son the way he is. But the book gave me such practical and effective advice on how to work with his personality instead of against it.
Any parent of a spirited child will tell you that traditional discipline techniques don’t work. Time outs? Are you kidding? I’dd have to tie my kid into a chair or lock him in his room! Now I realize what sets him off and I can often avoid the “naughty” behavior. No more quick trips to the bank or grocery store after preschool. He is totally tapped out by the time he gets home, and it is time for quiet/alone time in his room so he can recharge and be sociable again.
My parents kept telling me he should be sleeping through the night, when at age 2 he still was waking up during the night. In their eyes, he was just spoiled. “Let him cry” they would say. What they didn’t understand, was that a spirited child does not cry themselves to sleep like other children, they cry themselves awake! Sometimes to the point of vomiting because they get so worked up!
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is, this book truly saved my sanity. I feel like a better parent as a result of it and I know my relationship with my son has improved dramatically.
Rating: 5 / 5
Anonymous said,
Wrote on May 10, 2010 @ 12:03 pm
OK, so I was totally flabbergasted and flummoxed with rearing my first-born. He was a joy and a gift, but with energy beyond other children (and adults!!) and a stubborn streak a mile wide.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to read childrearing books with titles that made my son sound horrible (I wasn’t raising a difficult child, I was having difficulty raising my child).
Then, a real gift — Mary Sheedy Kurcinka’s RAISING YOUR SPIRITED CHILD. Ms Kurcinka is a professional and a parent, and she understands that parents need a)help, and b)humor. Her positive attitude about children, and her down to earth discussions of the needs of parents, children and families were a welcome relief.
If you think that your child is more energetic and/or sensitive and/or persistant than other kids, you are right; and if you think others don’t understand your frustrations, you are also right. Ms. Kurcinka explains that “spirited” children _are_ different than most others, and need different approaches. She guides the reader to understand what makes these special children tick, and why parents react the way they do to their children.
She also urges a positive, rather than a negative, view of these childrens’ differences. From the feelings we have to our kids to the words we use to describe them, we shape who they are and how we treat them. Ms. Kurcinka shows how to enjoy and celebrate the energy and talents of children whose temperaments are outside the norm.
We were fortunate to read this book when our spirited son was two — and doubly grateful when his spirited sister arrived a year later!! If you are frustrated with the books available about children, or if you want a positive, practical book about extraordinary kids, this is the one.
Rating: 5 / 5
Jocelyn L. Smith said,
Wrote on May 10, 2010 @ 1:56 pm
This book is a real lifesaver. Upon purchasing it, I tore through it in one night and then settled down for a more in-depth study. All I can say is, it’s really amazing! It helps parents of what are traditionally called “strong-willed” children to redefine their children as “spirited.”
This is not to say the book advocates letting your child rule the roost. In fact, careful reading will reveal that the objective for parents of a spirited kid is to help him learn to cope with the world he lives in with socially acceptable behavior (obeying house rules, for example) without having to change the personality he was born with. It really helps the parent learn about their child’s weaknesses and strengths and gives the parent many techniques that have proven to be effective.
The author is herself the mother of two, one of whom is “spirited” and is now in his twenties. I found her sympathetic writing style to be extremely readable and the use of a hypothetical class (based on real-life classes the author has taught for many years) of parents to make the assimilation of information much easier than it might have been otherwise.
Especially helpful were the sections on sleeping, coping with difficult school situations, and social strategies. Readers who might be turned off by “Parenting the Fussy Baby and High Need Child” author William Sears’ recurrent advocation of Attachment Parenting will find most principles here have nothing to do with that parenting style (although the author does say not to be afraid to take the baby in bed with you if you all sleep better that way). Those who do Attachment Parent will find nothing here to contradict their childrearing beliefs. It is a happy medium between “Parenting the Fussy Baby and High Need Child” and Dobson’s “The Strong-Willed Child.”
I do feel one caveat should be added–since I originally read the book, my son has been diagnosed with Sensory Integration Dysfunction. Many of the spirited child characteristics are shared (in spades) by children with this disorder. Parents should be careful not to allow the information in this book to lull them into a false sense of well-being if their gut (or their pediatrician, or their child’s teacher) tells them that something is really wrong.
Rating: 5 / 5
Veronica Canfield said,
Wrote on May 10, 2010 @ 4:53 pm
I have my master’s degree in education and I thought I knew it all when it came to children and how to handle their behaviors. I even worked in a residential treatment center for 8 years, specifically dealing with emotionally disturbed and ODD (oppositional defiant disorder) children. I was the perfect parent- until I had a spirited child of my own. He is now three and I use to shake my head and read my old grad. texts to discover where I was going wrong. I questioned therapist at the hospital I worked at and early childhood educators that also worked with challenging behaviors. I read “How to Talk so your Children will Listen and how to Listen so your Children will Talk”, “Positive Parenting”, “8 Weeks to Well Behaved Child” and many more. They simply did not cover how to deal with a really bright, stubborn, perfectionist preschooler. This is a kid who watched “Chicken Little” once and promptly showed me how to burp from a-h (they do that particular bit of humor in the movie). He had just turned three a couple of weeks before and we had not even introduced him to the ABC’s. He is a whirling dervish of energy with a continual need to find out and try on his own. Think ferret meets Dexter (really smart cartoon kid) from Dexter’s Laboratory. The other books applied to regular kids, like my daughter.
I previously use to think, “Hey, what’s your problem, can’t you control your own kid?” Now I know the answer can sometimes be “No, not with the tools I was given for the standard kid package most people bring home from the hospital. Heck, I’m just trying to stay on step ahead of him.”
This book helps to make me see my child in a new light and change how I deal with his behaviors. Once we understood each other, things began to fall in line. Knowing how he thinks helps me to apply the correct methods to see results. We are no longer fighting each other for control. I also do not feel the need to glare at my mother when she mentions that I need to spank him more. That does not work for him. I would have to literally abuse him in order for physical intimidation to become effective. I don’t believe in beating my children, I’m just funny that way (read- sarcasm).
Leave the other books for the parents of the regular “out of control” child. This is for the “exceptional out of control” child. If you have one you know it. If this review makes no sense to you, try 123 Magic.
P.S. Another post simply blasted the book by asking the question, “Is it that your child is spirited or just a pain in the rear?” After reading her review I questioned if she even read the book or had children. After checking her other reviews it seemed a good many of them were on expecting a child and breastfeeding. Ha! Is she in for a surprise when she finds out children do not always act like they are described in a book. Real life and books are two total different things. After all, I was the perfect parent until I had kids to prove me wrong!
*Update: I have now added “Setting Limits on Your Strong-Willed Child” to my arsenal. Understanding these kinds of kids is just the first step. Working with their personality is the next. My kiddo really needed structure and to ALWAYS know the limits and the consequences involved. “Setting Limits” really helped with this. I am now incorporating a bit of both into my elementary classroom of three severely emotionally disturbed boys. Yes, I only have three kids in my classroom (with the help of a male assistant), but outside of residential treatment we provide the most restrictive setting there is.
Rating: 5 / 5
A reader said,
Wrote on May 10, 2010 @ 6:25 pm
A lifesaver
Certainly this shouldn’t be the first or only parenting book you read and you will have to pick and choose those suggestions that seem suited to the challenges your child’s temperament poses. But if many of the approaches suggested in conventional parenting books seem ineffective because they don’t account for the temperament of your spirited child, you should definitely read this book, as well as “The Difficult Child” by Stanley Turecki.
After I’d read about a dozen parenting books, I was still tearing out my hair with my first. I knew from when he was in utero, as he tried to kick his way out forcefully, that my first child was a force to be reckoned with. He was the loudest baby in the hospital and continued in this vein–emotionally intense, loud, physically active. He was always in motion, in a hurry to get to the “next” thing rather than being a happy, content baby and toddler, a perfectionist, mad as hell if anything or anyone got in his way or if he didn’t perform some skill perfectly the first time. He walked at nine months and immediately became an indefatigable explorer: he figured how out to undo the first type of locks we installed on the toilets and systematically identified any drawer or cabinet that was not equipped with the most stringent child safety protection. At 18 months, he scrambled up our 8 foot stone retaining wall, clinging to the top and proudly proclaiming “mommy, I climb” before I could snatch him. At about age two he tried to climb over the second floor balcony railing, so we extended all of the railings vertically with 3 feet of lucite. We had people come over and laugh at the extent to which we’d been forced to ‘babyproof’ our house and he still ended up at the ER 3 times before his third birthday. I only half-jokingly referred to him as Evil Kneivel. And, when his blood sugar was low, he hadn’t slept well, it was 4-6PM (the “witching hour” of the day), or given any other small trigger, his meltdowns could astonish other parents, who’d never seen anything like it from their own children. They were louder, longer, more intense, often impossible to predict or to manage once they’d started. Learning to manage a kid with this temperament (even to keep him safe) and, more importantly, teaching him to eventually manage his own spirited temperament has been keenly frustrating at times. One has to always see ahead to what is going to trigger the next meltdown and help an often defiant kid to recognize that they are tired, hungry, should go on to a new activity instead of blowing up over not being able to immediately do something perfectly, etc.
However, two years after having begun to use (in an integrated way) the information in this book, the other book mentioned above and conventional parenting books, I have a wonderful, interesting, basically socially well-adjusted kid. He’s gone from where I worried that he’d be labeled the problem child in any classroom to where he’s learned enough self-management that his intensity can finally shine through as determination, curiosity, energy–his friends and teachers can finally see the wonderful, spirited kid that was buried all along under all of that oppositional behavior. He will never have a laid-back, easy going personality, but I now can actively hope to see his intensity take him as far as he wants to go.
This book truly helped me to get beyond the non-productive feelings of “why is my kid so much tougher than other people’s, how on earth do I handle this, why do many problem-solving approaches in typical parenting books seem inadequate or just plain wrong for dealing with my child. There are lots of suggestions for how to productively handle particular aspects of your “spirited” child’s personality that makes him or her tough to manage. And perhaps more importantly, this book helps one to remain positive through the challenges that such kids pose, to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Although it took a lot more consistency and patience to curb my son’s impulsive behavior, to teach him to treat his friends and parents with respect, and to teach him how to manage his own spirit, it is a lifetime investment.
Rating: 4 / 5