A couple instances got me thinking on my parenting. First, my cousin has been dealing with some pretty heavy duty tantrums in her home with her 3 year old and is working hard on parenting solutions. Second, Jen mentioned reading some books about parenting of which I'd never heard. I read some of the baby and one year old books and even "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" (which I loved), but I think it's time to educate myself on the more advanced parenting that is fast approaching with E.
We, as a family, I would say are all 3 highly sensitive people. Hub deals much better and is able to close it down, but I think he still has that empathy as well. This seems to be the biggest stumbling block we have when dealing with other people, daycare, etc with E. I want to educate myself as much as possible so I can provide him with a firm foundation for school and life. We worry a lot about his success in large groups of children.
So I've done some searching and came up with these books. Can anyone tell me if they've read them and like or not like them? It's so difficult with a sensitive child because I read everywhere that it's estimated that only 15% to 20% of the population is like this. That must be why most people think we're either A. Full of crap when we mention it or B. Just want an excuse to baby our wonderful child. Well Eff them.
Here's the list. I appreciate any insights!
The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child: Helping your child thrive in an extroverted world
The Strong Sensitive Boy
The Highly Sensitive Child: Helping Our Children Thrive When the World Overwhelms Them (This title in particularly struck me as accurate)
We, as a family, I would say are all 3 highly sensitive people. Hub deals much better and is able to close it down, but I think he still has that empathy as well. This seems to be the biggest stumbling block we have when dealing with other people, daycare, etc with E. I want to educate myself as much as possible so I can provide him with a firm foundation for school and life. We worry a lot about his success in large groups of children.
So I've done some searching and came up with these books. Can anyone tell me if they've read them and like or not like them? It's so difficult with a sensitive child because I read everywhere that it's estimated that only 15% to 20% of the population is like this. That must be why most people think we're either A. Full of crap when we mention it or B. Just want an excuse to baby our wonderful child. Well Eff them.
Here's the list. I appreciate any insights!
The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child: Helping your child thrive in an extroverted world
The Strong Sensitive Boy
The Highly Sensitive Child: Helping Our Children Thrive When the World Overwhelms Them (This title in particularly struck me as accurate)
5 comments:
Well, the entire world appears to be built to accommodate extroverts, so it can be difficult and you are definitely doing the right thing in thinking about this NOW and not later. School age sneaks up way too quickly. I haven't heard of any of these books (although that last title sounds great -- I could use that one for *myself*), so I can't say much about them. One thing that does occur to me -- and you have probably thought of this as well -- is that believing in his ability to "handle" the world (bad wording, but I'm super tired and I think you get my meaning) and *acting* like you believe in it (i.e. yes, anticipate challenges but also prepare to be pleasantly surprised) will go a long way with his self-confidence which is SO important.
I say this because my parents, bless their hearts, totally approached that wrong with me. They would say things like "you're shy" or "you live more in your head than others" etc etc which was SO not helpful and just made me painfully self-conscious. I *know* they were trying to help and I think it is a super easy thing to do but for me at least, I'd have done better if they had DE-emphasized ways in which I was "different" rather than pointing them out. Yeah, I know we should embrace our uniqueness but I think that is something to tackle with older children, pre-teens and up. Little children, I think, need a slightly different approach.
Take all my advice, as always, with a handful of salt.
My husband's family is extreme introverts and I'm an extrovert. Not sure about our three year old yet. I just ordered "parenting with Love and Logic", so I'll let you know how that goes.
If you get that first one, I want to read it too. Actually, if you get any of them, I want to read them too. :)
I wish I had some sage advice or an opinion on the books, but I am no use here. The only advice I have may be completely wrong, but I have border collie dogs, and the breed, if not trained correctly, will be very timid. To offset that, I made sure to take every possible chance to socialize them. I have trained 10 dogs in my lifetime, but I still took my dogs to dog classes simply for the socialization aspect. I don't know if that would work for introverted children or not. I can see it going either way. Hopefully the books give you some good advice.
I agree Rebecca. I STILL need that from loved ones.
Thanks all!
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