Spirited Child

As most of you know, I gave birth to a very energetic child. He has been this way since birth. Every now and then, I get put down for his energy and it is blamed on my parenting skills. As all parents know, that can really put a dent in your self-esteem. Last week was one of those weeks and it had me down for days. This week, I was reading yet another parenting book trying to figure out how to tame my wild child (who is actually a great kid but has a ton of energy) when a paragraph jumped out of the page at me. I've considered keeping a copy and handing it out to anyone who challenges my parenting but I doubt that will happen. Here it is, from "Happiest Toddler on the Block":

"Many parents of easy kids falsely believe that the tantrums they see in other kids are the result of poor parenting. Yet often exactly the opposite is true. Parents of spirited toddlers are often the best parents. But they have a super tough job."

He says the majority of children fall into 3 categories: easy, cautious, and spirited. I definitely have a spirited child and this paragraph made me feel better because most of the time I am put down, it comes from a parent of an easy child. I challenge them to keep Samuel for one day and they will change their tune.

Just to give you an idea of how spirited he is, it isn't even 7:30 am and my child has already spilled a glass of water and decided to play in it, spread peanut butter all over him, the remote control, and the couch, dumped a bowl of Kix and spread it all over the floor, and thrown a tantrum because daddy rebuilt the plexiglass childproofing Samuel broke that goes around the DVD player and Dish box (which means Samuel's two days of playing with buttons is now over). Anyone care to join me today in the adventure? Luckily, it is park day with my Sunday School class so hopefully he can run off some of his energy.