beth_leonard

I remember some time ago one of my friends posting in their blog that they were the extroverted child of introverted parents, in the Myers-Briggs, "where do you get your energy?" sense of the words. Now I can't remember who it was who said this. If it was you, I'd love some tips for the introverted parent of an extroverted toddler. What does he need most? How can I meet those needs without going insane?

He's wonderful for about the first hour or two that I'm watching him, and then I just need to recharge, but he keeps wanting more Mommy time and attention. We have "family play time" from after family dinner at 6 until bed time at 8pm where both parents focus on the kids, but during the long afternoons I'd like to find a way to have some time not directly interacting with him while still meeting his needs.

--Beth

I've recently finished Siblings Without Rivalry" by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Someone on LJ recommended it to me as a comment in another friend's blog.

I highly reccomend it if you have even one child, although it's almost a must for people with two. I'd also recommend it for anyone who had siblings themselves if your adult sibling relationship isn't what you wish it were.

I found the chapters on putting children into roles, even positive roles, very enlightening. I've noticed that I've already put Peter into roles -- He's verbal. He's clingy. He's a terrible sleeper. He's a good eater. He's extra frightened. Until reading the book I hadn't realized how over time that can negatively affect him, even the "good" roles. What if my verbal child doesn't feel like singing "ba ba black sheep" for the complete stranger in the grocery store today? What if my good eater just isn't hungry? The negative effects of telling other people he's clingy or a scardy-cat in front of others are obvious. I try to avoid it, but sometimes I don't/can't. I'll be trying harder in the future. (Of course, it's hard to talk to other people when he's not around because he's so clingy ;-)

The roles issue becomes more dramatic with 2 or more children in the home -- this one's musical, that one's academic, etc. But what if the non-musical one still enjoys playing music badly? Are lessons a child wants a waste of money because the other one is better at it?

The book had many good things to say about understanding how parents can help or hinder a relationship. I think it can help those who had poor relationships with their siblings try to understand their sibling's position, at least the book gives many examples of adults doing this.

It's a quick read. Jon skimmed it and claimed that it's all common sense stuff really, but I don't think that some of that sense is really all that common. One of the examples was competitivness -- a father always had two twins race each other to finish getting dressed etc. in order to speed things up in the morning. Yes it works, but setting the two up against each other as combattents in multiple situations daily was not good for their relationship. Racing against the clock to see if both kids could get ready in under 5 minutes is a much better strategy.

A minor negative I happened to notice was the role of fathers in the book. While the examples of what "good" parents do were drawn from fathers and mothers, nearly all of the bad examples and devil's advocates to the authors' positions were fathers. The authors may not have realized they were doing it, but that type of book can get annoying to read in depth for fathers over time. This book does address the role of fathers much more than many others on parenting I've read however.

I remember my Large Scale Software Development book in college drove me batty because every single example had all-male participants except for one. In that one the woman was a complete air-head and bad example of how to code. That type of gender stereotyping can get on some people's nerves sometimes.

A second negative is that it doesn't cover very young children. In the expanded and revised edition, there is a short chapter on toddlers, but I can always use more examples.

--Beth