Another Monday, another Montessori morning. This morning's PTP was not successful, to say the least. H was not interested in going, took thirty minutes to walk the few hundred metres to the school and started up with the willful behaviour the moment we walked in the door. I could just *feel* her mood and was not looking forward to the next two hours, which unfolded exactly as I'd predicted so let's not go into it.
Most of the other parents at the class are lovely, some more understanding than others when it comes to managing a high energy child. The amazing thing to come out of today was that I struck up a conversation with another Mum who told me that H reminds her exactly of her eldest daughter, now five. She explained how the behaviours and personality were exactly the same, and that her daughter is a very smart, funny and loving child who also wants what she wants when she wants it, and will let nothing stand in her way.
Sounds familiar.
Anyway, this Mum a) Made me feel so much better about my morning and b) Gave me lots of amazing advice and encouragement. She spoke about her daughter's feisty and determined nature and her ways of managing it, as well as her frustration that 90% of people have not had a child like this and thus don't know how to address such a child's behaviours.
I completely empathised with this because SO often I see people (strangers, friends, sometimes even family) try to step in with H when her head is just a thunderstorm and I know it will only make it worse. It doesn't bother me as such as I know the intentions are right and they are only reacting to what I understand is unacceptable behaviour, but I just have to sigh when it happens as being her mother I know it's ineffective. There are ways of calming her and soliciting good behaviour that don't involve punishment and stern words (which trust me, I WISH she would respond to but she doesn't) and simply require a little time and patience.
So, we are going to meet for coffee in a couple of weeks so she can tell me more about this little firecracker daughter of hers, and also fill me in on the situation with her German au pair - an arrangement I would love to be able to look at down the road instead of daycare. In the meantime, she gave me the name of a book that she said was pretty much life changing for her.
Taming The Spirited Child is written by American parenting expert Michael Popkin and looks at ways to manage the traditionally labelled "challenging" child. After doing some research I bought two copies so that J and I can read it separately at the same time (not sure that makes sense!). Two things I love about it from the outset is that it recognises that some children are simply "spirited" and that this can be an amazing thing, and that Popkin actually had to use his own techniques on his son, which he admitted to finding difficult but incredibly beneficial.
I am aware also that H is only two, an age which has clearly been branded "terrible" for a reason, and I'm not going to pigeonhole her as exceptionally difficult just yet. But one thing's for sure - the kid's got spirit. Bucket loads of it. So if I can look into taming and channeling that, why not?
Z x
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