Raising the Spirited Child - how is it?

amother

Wed, Mar 05 2008, 10:23 pm

I googled spirited- this is the first thing that came up:

Quote:
Many parents would rather refer to their child as "spirited" rather than ADD or ADHD, which is fine. The only problem that I have with this is the fact that many children are not being diagnosed with their psychological or medical problems. Why is this? Well, they pick up a book on Amazon or at Borders and they think they know it all. The book says that my child is just energetic and spirited. You can almost hear these parents sigh in relief, put the book down to gather dust, and move on to other matters. This worries me.

spirited/add is described as someone that is impulsive, uncontrollably hyperactive, forgetful, indecisive, overly sensitive to stimuli, and prone to behavioral and personality abnormalities,

part of a larger arcticle:

http://www.lessontutor.com/kw9.html

if this is the case then you still need to have the child evaluated.

cassandra

Wed, Mar 05 2008, 10:36 pm

amother wrote:

That's ridiculous. If you can use simple techniques to assuage the problem then why not try that first? If it doesn't work then obviously at some point you will have to be evaluated further. And from the perspective of parenting it is much better to see your child's qualities as positive and help them work within the framework of their own personality rather than just label them and try techniques that are off base, or even worse, just medicate them so that they seem like everyone else. The problem in schools these days is OVER-diagnosis, not UNDER-diagnosis, so I don't think anyone has anything to worry about.

Also, there is so much more to spiritedness than hyperactivity, and if you read the book you will find out that what she calls "energy" is not even an essential component of spiritedness. Of my two spirited kids, one is in OT for hypersensitivity and the other doesn't need it. Neither are hyperactive and neither have attention problems. On the other hand, one of my children isn't "spirited" but IS being evaluated now in school because of attention issues.

Quote:

cassandra...You spirited? Really?
My kids are both spirited ba'h and so am I...I love spirited people...why be boring?
but spirited kids are a challenge to raise, so I have definitely wanted to read this book (and have had it recommended to me...by bystanders watching my son at the park )

Yup. You actually mentioned something about one of your sons a few days ago and I thought to post "he sounds spirited, get this book" but for some reason I didn't. Spirited kids aren't tough if you know how to deal with them the right way. I learned a lot of the techniques in the book on my own through trial and error with my son, but the book completed the picture for me. It also relieved a lot of the guilt I had with the way I parented my son. (For example, she talks a lot about negotiating with your child. I did this with my son because it worked, but felt ideally he should just listen to whatever I said. Now I know that by doing this I'm parenting him the way he needs to be parented.)

smiley:)

Thu, Mar 06 2008, 1:05 am

amother wrote:

I assume this quote abt spirited kids is supposed to be connected to the book. I havent yet read the book but based oin the reviews I read it has nothing to do with a child with ADD/ADHD, though I could see (without yet having read it) spirited being connected to one of my kids. He has zero attention or concentration problems ever.
And if any parent on ANY matter picks up a book, reads it and puts it down with a sigh of relief thinking their problems are solved there is something wrong with the parent. Life isnt about solving our children. It is about helping them. And by giving them labels and thinking we conquered the child I think that sort of defeats the purpose, huh?

And if you read the full title of the book (after the spirited child part), it in no way says a spirited child is "described as someone that is impulsive, uncontrollably hyperactive, forgetful, indecisive, overly sensitive to stimuli, and prone to behavioral and personality abnormalities,".

That having been said, I think there are other ways to deal with ADD/ADHD children than reading a book and heaving a sigh of relief. And though I am not denying ritalin might help, there are other ways also other than heaving a sigh of relief after popping the pill. But that is not my topic for now.

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, Mar 06 2008, 11:26 am

I agree with Smiley.

I do NOT believe my son has ADHD. I know what it is. I have a family member who had a very severe case of it. My son is incredibly focused and can spend quite a bit of time watching or doing complex tasks (by 2 he could spend a good 15 minutes sitting stringing cheerios on a string). He's very busy, very determined, slow to accept change...but these traits are not in and of themselves bad or indicative of a medical problem. ADHD is more than symptoms; it's looking at the whole picture. I could diagnose myself with ADHD by reading a newspaper article which listed symptoms, and honestly, I probably don't have it Wink

So, no, this book doesn't take place over real medical information. But then again, not everyone needs to be diagnosed with ADHD because of some symptoms. This book is understanding your child's personality. And that's what it's aimed for.

For example, my son does not do well in large crowds. He needs time to adjust to many people and has a meltdown if someone tries to speak to him when he's still adapting to the situation. This book shows me this is normal and nothing to worry about because it's part of his personality. Over time, we are teaching him how to be comfortable in social situations, and we are using our common sense and his developmental abilities to help him with this instead of thrusting him and making him deal. So, I'll bring him in, see he gets upset, hold him and take him out for a few minutes, bring him back in, hold him, distract him, and see if he'll go down. He'll then cling to me for a bit till he's comfortable enough walking next to me. I've learned to anticipate that this will happen in almost all scenarios and a lot of times being aware of what is to come makes you able to handle these situations a lot better since you are expecting it and not getting upset. I read this book when he was about a year and a half and realized there was more to his meltdowns than the terrible twos, and it definitely helped since he wasn't talking so much then. He's still learning to verbalize his feelings, so we work on it when we encounter a situation. This way he will learn to anticipate his reaction himself and figure out ways to deal with it as he gets older and won't always have mommy around to help him.
So yes, I recommend this book. I bought it used on amazon.com for fairly cheap since I decided it was a book I wanted to keep to get chizuk and advice down the line, and not just read once in the library.