posted October 19, 2007 07:01 AM         

You've seen us at the market: we're the ones whose kids are screaming, climbing on shopping carts, begging for candy or a toy. You've seen us at restaurants: our kids hardly eat. Instead, they run around or pop up and stare at other diners. You've seen us at the playground: our kids run, jump, climb, slide, and change activities with blinding speed. You've heard about us: our kids are described as "handfuls." We're the ones who are often asked, "Are you sure he's not hyperactive?" We're the parents everyone has advice for: take a parenting class; be stricter; be more lenient; spank; have tested. But despite all your experience with us, you don't really know us. We are the parents of "spirited" kids. And through Postpartum Education for Parent's Spirited Children Support Group we are learning more about our special kids and how to manage them. Our children are normal but hard-to-raise. Difficult. Challenging. And certainly a handful.

My own introduction to the world of spirited children came from a book catalog. In its description of "Raising Your Spirited Child" it told the story of a child who had a tantrum because his sandwich was cut into rectangles instead of triangles. I was floored -- I'd had that fight with my child! Up to that point I'd thought I was just not cut out to be a parent. I wondered what was wrong with my child and asked her pediatrician several times if she was hyperactive. Of course, I ran right out and bought the book. I discovered that it wasn't my lack of parenting skills -- I was actually doing a lot of things right. The problem was my lack of knowledge about my daughter's spirited temperament.

In 1956, Drs. Alexander Thomas, Stella Chess and Herbert Birch began the ground-breaking New York Longitudinal Study, following 133 people from infancy to adulthood. Their goal was to define temperamental characteristics of children as they matured. Nine traits were defined, which we all have in some degree. It's that degree which determines whether a child will be mellow or spirited. The work done by these researchers has been expanded by two authors, Stanley Turecki, M.D. in "The Difficult Child," and Mary Sheedy Kurcinka in "Raising Your Spirited Child."

Using Kurcinka's terms, the nine traits are:

Intensity -- strength of emotional reactions. People often remark how "alert" an intense baby is or how much "personality" she has. While average kids will giggle at something funny, intense children burst into peals of laughter. When they are happy, they are always smiling, laughing, singing. When sad or upset, they are desolate, inconsolable. Intense children are very easily overstimulated. When too wound up they lose their impulse control and often hit, bite, pinch or kick for no apparent reason.
Persistence -- we value persistence in our society, and spirited kids have it -- they will stick to something for a long time. But they also have the negative kind, stubbornness. They "lock in" to ideas and have trouble unlocking. They can never take "no" for an answer; they'll ask for the same thing 20 times in a row if allowed.
Sensitivity -- low sensory threshold for noise, lights, emotions, temperatures, tastes, smells, clothing. Spirited kids are physically sensitive to environmental factors. Lights can't be too bright, noises too loud, clothing too tight or scratchy. Dressing a sensitive child is a special challenge: shirts have itchy tags, pants have elastic waistbands, and socks are full of lint and other booby traps (Kurcinka asks, "How do you deal with a child who can feel the 'seams' in tube socks...?").
Perceptiveness -- Perceptive kids notice everything around them. The smallest detail seldom escapes them. However, these details provide distractions which make completing other tasks difficult. Perceptive kids are often accused of not listening, when in reality, their attention is simply focused elsewhere. Adults have learned to screen out stimuli which are not important -- for example, we often drive on "auto pilot," not paying attention to anything around us except the other cars. Yet, we complete our task without mishap. Perceptive children have not learned to screen out extraneous stimuli, nor have they learned which stimuli are more important to attend to than others.
Adaptability -- to transitions, surprises, changes in schedule or routine. This is the trait that causes a child to melt down about a sandwich. She can't handle getting rectangles when she was expecting triangles. She's not being picky or demanding, she just doesn't adjust well to changes or surprises.
Regularity -- of eating, sleeping and bowel habits. Spirited kids often have irregular body rhythms. As new parents we are told that we will soon learn to distinguish between our baby's various cries. But for the parents of spirited kids, this is not always the case, since the child's eating, sleeping and elimination patterns are not regular. My own daughter, now 4-1/2, still has some problems sleeping through the night, and usually gets up before the sun. Nothing we have tried improves her sleeping patterns -- that's just how she is, and we have learned to adjust.
Energy -- activity level. Most (but not all) spirited kids have limitless energy. From morning until night they are moving. My daughter tap danced all through my pregnancy. When I had an ultrasound at 17 weeks the technician said, "I'm having trouble getting a good picture because the fetus keeps moving too much." Nothing has changed since then!
First Reaction -- to new people, places or experiences. Take a spirited kid into a new situation and they will turn shy and clingy. They need a few minutes to warm up. Ask a spirited kid a "yes/no" question and the first answer will most certainly be a resounding "no!" With a little encouragement and patience, these kids will try something new -- we just have to wait until they're ready.
Mood -- While some spirited kids have generally happy or sunny personalities, others tend to be serious, analytical and cranky. They are not trying to be difficult, this is their disposition, which is directly linked to brain patterns. These kids tend to see what's wrong with things instead of what's right. They don't display their emotions easily, so determining when they are happy is hard. There are no management techniques for moody kids; parents learn to cope by realizing that their kids can't help how they view the world.

These nine traits do not each exist in a vacuum. They also interact. An energetic, intense child may turn into a whirling dervish in an exciting situation, as she becomes more and more overstimulated. An irregular child who is starting to lose it due to hunger may reject offers of food, because of his automatic first reaction, then may continue the rejection due to persistence (persistence seems to interact with all the traits).

Statistically, 10 to 15 percent of all children have enough of these traits to be challenging. And, because of their temperamental makeup, traditional discipline techniques don't always work. Often, we are told to ignore behavior we don't like -- it will go away. But how do you ignore a child who is more persistent than the you are?

The key to the spirited child is understanding why he is doing what he is doing. Spirited kids don't usually have the manipulative tantrums that most kids do -- the "I'm going to hold my breath till I turn blue unless you buy me that candy" type. Spirited kids have what Kurcinka calls "spill-over tantrums." They become swamped by their emotions, pushed beyond their temperamental ability to cope. The parents of spirited kids become masters of prevention -- we learn what triggers these melt downs and try to stop them before they start. Since some spirited kids have little awareness of their hunger or fatigue, we have to learn to read the cues and feed them or enforce a rest time before they reach the critical point. When they are becoming overstimulated, we have to remove them until they can calm down. We cut tags out of clothes, which are always selected for comfort. But, unfortunately, we are not perfect! Life is unpredictable, and we sometimes end up in situations we can't control. A spirited kid can be fine one second and flooding the next. A perfectly nice family outing can turn when the unforeseen occurs: a change of plans, a loud noise, sudden hunger or fatigue.

Life with a spirited child is exciting, maddening, frustrating and exhilarating. As a cartoon on my refrigerator says, "I know she'll be a wonderful adult; it's just a matter of getting through childhood." Our kids have many wonderful qualities. They're creative, loving and vivacious. As adults, they will take the world by storm. I often wonder what some famous people were like as children. Imagine Robin Williams as a kid. Think of the trials Thomas Edison's mother went through -- he must have been forever taking things apart! And Leonard Bernstein, on a recording of St. Saens' "Carnival of the Animals" talks about playing music with water-filled glasses at the dinner table ("I used to do it all the time ... which didn't please my mother too much.").

So, the next time you see our kids melting down in the market, or in a restaurant or park, step back and try to see what's really happening. We're not bad parents, we just have spirited kids, and we're doing the best we can.
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Deborah Shafritz is a volunteer for PEP: Postpartum Education for Parents. PEP primarily provides support services for postpartum distress.

posted October 20, 2007 12:09 AM         

My older son exhibited a few of those traits,my newest son is so far a delight, and he has regular patterns already but my daughter?

ALL OF THEM!

I'll bet you remember a few years ago, and all throughout my LL days the occasional post about my daughter and her challenges....
I need more effective tools to deal with her and love her and refresh my verve.
I am going to go buy this book.

posted October 20, 2007 09:47 AM         

******

I love you, too, pixie. I actually do remember your posts about your daughter. I also think you're a really great mom and, from what I've read, have been very good about raising your kids specifically for their needs.

I'll admit that before I had a baby I sometimes thought that these children suffered from bad parenting or something similar. Wake up call. Children are just all different and there's no one way that's going to be right for all of them. I also don't think that "spirited" children should automatically be labeled as problematic or as having something "wrong" with them, much less medicated for our convenience. I'm putting this book on my wish list, too. I think it will be very useful as we plan on having more kids someday. Odds are some will be more spirited than others and our little guy sure has some of the traits already. I was very happy to find this article because it puts some things in perspective for me and I realize there isn't anything "wrong" with either of us ... just trying to view things from someone else's perspective of what things *should* be like was wrong.