EVERYTHING
FOR YOUR FAMILY
KID
QUIPS
During last July’s 5.8 earthquake, 3-year-old Bronwyn told her 1-year-old sister, “We’re going for a wiggle.” READ MORE
feature story
|
||||
|
He is, it seems, the only one. The epic dramaturgy of modern parenting is overly full of books and of names, beginning, of course, with those “Name Your Baby” books but quickly graduating to any number of intriguing, scary, comforting monikers describing your own special or troubled or wondrous progeny: The Colicky Baby, The Single Child, The Gifted Child, The Special Needs Child, the Disciplined Child, The Thinking Child. In an effort to educate myself on the topic, I took a quick online self-study course in the language of what is variously called “disciplining” or “parenting” of one particular category of children who are called, variously, “strong-willed” or “spirited.” I am pretty sure, by the way, that the Bard’s boy Hamlet was one of these. My own pitch for a new book: “To Be or Not to Be: Raising the Shakespearean Child.” On the upside of this variety of flimsy web research, there’s the ubiquitous and helpfully instructive “popular searches” box pointing the curious parent in all different directions, and all at the same time. On the downside, there’s the obligation of following all those directions simultaneously and trying to figure out where to start or, perhaps when to stop. But parents of the so-called “strong-willed” child are often especially motivated to locate reassuring literature and to embrace some kind of strategy. Defining the term A little history might help. “Strong-willed child” seems to be a phrase invented, or at least embraced (and certainly marketed) by one Reverend James Dobson, he of the “Focus on the Family” media-religious-political empire and a founder of its lobbying wing, the conservative Family Research Council. Dobson offers daily advice to millions on the radio and through books and videos, so I guess he has a right to give his own name to a problem – if it is a problem, and I guess it is – that has been around since Cain strong-willed Abel and then lied about it. Today the “strong-willed” kid phenomenon is so omnipresent as to be routinely abbreviated in books, on websites and blogs, in promotional materials, in reviews and even professional journals. The “strong-willed child” becomes an “SWC.” Then there is this term, “spirited child.” This careful if slightly self-conscious label strikes me as delightfully ironic. “Spirited,” indeed. It’s as awkwardly euphemistic as “strong-willed.” There’s no reason, of course, to turn this into a secular vs. sacred thing, conservative vs. liberal except that, indeed, what might be generously called a conversation about how to raise children involves adults, not children. Me? I’m happy to learn from both sides, a little bit country and a little bit rock ’n’ roll, to sing along with Donny and Marie. And, besides, nobody I’ve read on the topic disagrees that it is hard to raise kids you choose to call either “strong-willed” or “spirited” or “difficult” or, if you still don’t know what I’m talking about, “stubborn.” Some more history. I knew a lot of SWCs kids once. I wasn’t one, not really, at least not until I grew into the enduringly popular synonym for “strong-willed”: teenager. As a timid preschooler, I watched my parents and teachers stand around shaking their heads and clucking in disappointment and disdain at SWCs, and then clucking and disdaining and rolling their eyes at, yes, those kids’ shamed parents. Now I am a parent myself and I confess that among the very few moments of my own embarrassment or disappointment (mostly in myself) are those involving my own child’s inexplicable (of course, completely explicable) moments of operatically scary screaming, fussing, crying, falling down, throwing a fit. These almost never happen at home, but instead when we are in the most urgent public situations and over what is, every other day of the week, the simplest request. We’ve learned to put on our shoes and pack a lunch and write our name, but with an amphitheater of grown-ups around, the scene turns Shakespearean, and I don’t mean one of the comedies. The situation strikes me, however uselessly, as completely normal. Learning to handle it Most pediatricians, researchers and parenting educators, and the “spirited” crowd, don’t seem too alarmed by it. They are into management and “understanding.” Three-year-olds, they remind us, can’t reconcile the difference in their cognitive development and emotional development, and grown-ups might be expected to see that. But here’s when you begin to think there’s something a bit disingenuous about the language surrounding both sides of this argument, for example, in the title, “The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children.” I am sure the book is terrific, but reading the title, I can’t help thinking about Violet Beauregarde, the little girl who blows herself up in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. On a journey for information, advice, perspective or even facts on your kid, you might be advised to embrace both skepticism and amusement, and to recall that in Roald Dahl’s wonderful kid novel, all the children, including Charley himself, were SWC. You can see that there’s a possibility for plenty of self-diagnosis and, probably, misdiagnosis here. Where to go Though it may be all about what you call this particular behavior, consulting the medical and academic community couldn’t hurt. The University of Michigan’s Parenting Resources site seems both representative and pretty darn smart (www.med.umich.edu). Instead of talking about strong “will,” these medical pros discuss “temperament.” UM defines it as “your child’s unique style of interacting and of coping with challenges” and advises that “some children handle stress without any trouble; others are easily upset. Often it’s just their temperament and not the cause of parenting. But parents can help “balance” their child’s nature. When you understand your child’s temperament, you can help them improve their coping abilities and reach their potential.” If you like this kind of language, which includes “healthy self-esteem” and “positive relationships,” you’ll like Thomas W. Phelan and Elizabeth Cary on discipline techniques that work. And Dr. Stanley Turecki, author of “The Difficult Child” (for an excerpt: www.enotalone.com/article/4563.html). And you’ll run out now and buy a book by the czarina of the whole progressive parenting territory, Mary Sheedy Kucinka, author of “Raising Your Spirited Child.” She’s an Early Childhood Ed expert and inspiration for the kind of “coping strategies” other experts offer, including “modeling” problem-solving strategies, teaching limits, projecting confidence and maybe taking a class yourself. An important resource “The ultimate goal is a child who expects and is determined to succeed, in spite of his difficulties.” –Dr. Berry Brazelton One book on nearly everybody’s list, and kept close at our house, is Dr. Berry Brazelton’s classic, “Touchpoints” (for recommendations on this and other books on raising children, go to: www.drgreene.com/50.html). Dr. Brazelton weighs in on Hypersensitivity and Hyperactivity (Chapter 26) in a confidently clinical way, but also helpfully includes the following: “The challenge for parents is to overcome their natural over-concern. This is compounded by the guilt parents feel about ‘why’ their baby is so sensitive. We usually don’t have answers. But we do know that, over time, many of these hypersensitive infants can learn to manage better and better, if their environment can be protective. The ultimate goal is a child who expects and is determined to succeed, in spite of his difficulties.” There also, in this realm of strong-willed child and spiritedness, the inevitable-seeming clinical diagnosis: ADD/ADHD. This is a whole story in itself, so the suggestion here is to talk with your pediatrician first. (For our most recently story in ADHD, please go to our March 2004 report by Managing Editor Sandy Bennett: www.ocfamily.com/archives/ocfamily_2004/ocfamily0304/feature_0304.html) Andrew Tonkovich is an Orange County-based writer and adjunct professor at UC Irvine. |
||||
RSS Subscribe
Digg This ArticleSEARCH THE SITE
