Moms of High Spirited Kids

[dfelde]

I know there used to be a thread here for Moms of high spirited kids - don't know if it still exists or if it is only in the archives. I am in desperate need of support these days. My DD is 6 and in kindergarten. Her activity levels and inability to slow down when she is doing her school work - and when instructions are given in class - has not yet affected her school work but her teacher told me yesterday that it will as they move forward to meet their standards this year. I'm trying to find out if anyone has found any strategies or ideas for helping their young children slow themselves down? My girl is so smart and has such a great personality and is so much fun. She is active alert as well as high spirited (gets the highest scores on all the survey/tests for high spirited kids in all the books I've read). We've adapted and seem to be on an upward track (although we have daily emotional outbursts - have gone from calling them tantrums to fire storms as they are so emotional and uncontrolled) with the exception of being able to help her slow herself down and catch all of the onsets to her tantrums. I still have to lay down with her to get her to go to sleep at night but I'm figuring whatever works as the otherwise sleep just doesn't happen. DD has slept through the night for 3 nights in a row - this is a record - so I'm praying for that to continue so maybe I can start to recoup all the years of sleep deprivation. Anyone out there that can help or at least commiserate? Thanks.

[Hokulele]

I can definitely commiserate but I have little to offer in terms of advice. I am in desperate need of advice myself. DD is 4.5 years old and some days I feel like we are getting a handle on things but other days I don't.

[circle vortex]

I have the same girl. Mine is 61/2 and in first grade. She does very well with work, just she doesn't take her time . Recently the teacher said she is spending more time on work.

i have a mini trampoline in the house that she uses all the time. I think its important for her to get all of her energy out before starting school work.

[Pixie26]

OOOH! I am so putting my mini trampoline in my sons room. I dont know if he qualifies as "high spirited" or not, but he has tons of energy and when he comes home from school (hes in 2nd grade) he just zooms! Great idea....

[dfelde]

Originally Posted by Hokulele

I can definitely commiserate but I have little to offer in terms of advice. I am in desperate need of advice myself. DD is 4.5 years old and some days I feel like we are getting a handle on things but other days I don't.

+++++++++
It is still a daily struggle for us. Some days are great. Others are tantrum filled. But even the great days are exhausting because DD is so busy all the time ... she runs from one project or one thing to another and expects us to keep up or keep ahead of her. She's just as quick mentally so it's really hard for us to keep up with what she's thinking and she is so busy and intent on everything going on around her she doesn't hear everything we say.

My DH (God bless him) came up with "Stop, Listen, Obey" because unless we could bring her to a complete stop she never caught anything we were trying to get through to her. That helped a lot with pre-school when she started to have attention problems there. Pre-school was a really great thing for her as well. We are reminding her to stop, listen, obey every morning again before kindergarten and have also started to remind her to think through what she is going to do for her school work before she starts.

The other thing that works for us is 1-2-3 giving her some time to transition to what we are trying to get her to do. She is better able now to catch up with us than she was when she was younger. Transitions for her are awful and she always needs extra time and forewarning of what's coming (even if she has a tantrum about it when warned) to be able to transition and move on. She does well in school where the day is totally structured and she knows exactly what will happen all day long. At home we haven't been able to get as structured. My DH and I both work from home and our work schedules are reliant upon any number of things so that we have to make adjustments to our daily schedules sometimes several times a day.

I have pulled out a couple of resources that I am hoping will help my DD - some I came across a few years back - and have gotten them from the library. Taming the Spirited Child - Strategies for Parenting Challenging Children Without Breaking Their Spirits, Michael Popkin, PhD is the one I'm reading right now. The other is Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, Energetic, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka.

When DD was younger it seemed harder to apply what was being said in a lot of the books about spirited children/kids even though she definitely fit the description. It seems to apply more now than it did then for her. She could be the poster child for the high spirited kid as she scores high numbers in all the categories that they discuss as part of the high spirited characteristics.

[dfelde]

Originally Posted by aminasmom

I have the same girl. Mine is 61/2 and in first grade. She does very well with work, just she doesn't take her time . Recently the teacher said she is spending more time on work.

i have a mini trampoline in the house that she uses all the time. I think its important for her to get all of her energy out before starting school work.

+++++++++++
DH and I bought her a mini trampoline as a birthday present for our DD when she turned 3. It was the best present we've ever given her. She will bounce on it until I think she should be exhausted but as long as she is burning energy she seems to be generating more than she is burning. I think maybe I should pull it back out into the livingroom again instead of in her playroom since she hasn't been spending as much time there. Thanks for the reminder!

[zorTerJomma]

Moms of High Spirited Kids

I hope I can make it with one or two friends, I have never been able to make it but would love to be more involved in the events.
Look forward to meeting moms in the area...

[34me]

My spirited kiddo is now 13. We figured out a lot a long the way and he has been able to self regulate better as he's gotten older. The first is (structured) physical activity. Even though he started soccer at 4 and we always made time for plenty of time
at the park it wasn't until he started playing hockey that he could sit and eat more
than 2 bites of food at a time. Having him sit on the outskirts of a classroom so he could stand and do what I've always called thehoochie dance whlie not disturbing any one else. An exercise ball could accomplish the same thing

[lauren]

Mom of an almost 15 year old spirited child here.... we still have our days! Reading your posts brought me back to when he was younger. Hang in there!!!!!

[shayinme]

I need to join this tribe. I have 2 kids, my son is 18 and my dd is 4. My son was so mellow that ending up with a really high spirited child for number 2 especially with the the huge age gap has been really hard to handle.

OP, the way you describe your dd is pretty much the path I see happening with dd. She is in PS now and even when she was in daycare, she is mellow enough there that her energy levels are not an issue yet. I am scared though about when she starts school this fall and whether the energy and spirit are going to be an issue.

Right now I am really struggling with the fact that she is so energetic, nothing is simple. Even taking a bath is like a negotiating, it really drains us. I am also struggling with the fact that its winter so she is not getting as much physical activity as she needs. We have noticed the link between when she gets unstructured outside play it mellows her out but we are in Maine and this time of year its just not possible on a regular basis.

Its also hard when you go to an gathering and yours is the kid who is amazingly verbal but when she gets wound up, watch out...the tantrum starts. Ugh...Anyway I am subbing as I need support. There have been times I thought is there something wrong with her? Yet none of her teachers or anyone thinks so, I finally ready Sheedy's book and recognized my dd 100%, so that has helped a great deal. Problem is in day to day life she is the only kid I know like this.

Shay

[lauren]

Check out Extreme pogo for an additional self-regulation activity for when the trampoline is not an option, or for more of an outdoor activity. Many versions of high powered pogo sticks. My son manages his energy a great deal doing this activity. Lots of samples on the Flybar homepage.

http://www.flybar.com/pages/home.html

[dfelde]

Lauren - thanks for the pogo link. DD has been asking for one. We are looking for other activities but honestly we can't afford the fees everyone wants to charge so we are thinking of going to school tracks when it's nice out and letting her run the track (there's a local track club but they charge so much to join) and keeping an eye on any other activities. Where I grew up there were community centers that offered dance and trampoline and all kinds of after school activities free of charge but they don't have anything like that here.

[dfelde]

Shay - I had the same worries about my DD when she was in preschool but she's done well in school so far - again the concern is that she may start having problems in first grade if we can't come up with a way to slow her down. I'm working with her by playing games I'm making up - like the sentence game where we start with one word and create a sentence taking turns thinking of the next word - to get her to slow down and think through a sentence so that it makes sense. She is so competitive that she tries to be the first finished so we are trying to redirect her competitiveness to having the most perfect letters to try and, again, get her to take a bit more time. Any of you with older spirited kids who've gone through this have any other ideas?
Diana

[Kidzaplenty]

[almadianna]

Hello mamas. This thread makes more sense in parenting so I am moving it there.

Thanks!

[dfelde]

Thanks almadianna!

[dfelde]

Bumps along the way ...

I haven't posted much the last 2 weeks ... we've had some big bumps and some little ones and some really good days as well. DD is now having some problems at school. Her teacher separated her from the other kids as punishment (DH and I are still discussing this as we were not too happy about that type of punishment after we'd taken measures at home but that's another subject). The teacher tells her she can go back and rejoin the other kids at their table and she doesn't want to ... turns out she's doing much better with her school work and during class with her own work space. Not sure if we should ask the teacher to move her back or not. We don't want her to feel singled out (whether for good or bad) nor do we want her to start getting a "loner" kind of label or a desire to work off on her own. At the same time it is helping her concentrate better at school. Anyone been here before?

[Barefoot~Baker]

So glad I found this thread!

I haven't been on MDC much lately so I was browsing around and I'm so glad I found this thread. I was actually thinking of posting about my dd...

My 4yo dd is soooooooo energetic, she is makes my head spin, and she gets my 6yo riled up too. I like the "stop, listen, obey" suggestion - I need some kind of key word that will grab their attention so that they'll stop. I'm a newly single mom too which adds stress! I used to be able to call for back-up sometimes and I can't anymore!

[staceychev]

My 4.5 year old is like this. Very energetic, constantly talking (very rough on introverted mama), constantly needing activity... and then there are the tantrums. I posted here a couple of weeks ago about anger, and have cut dramatically down on her sugar and processed food intake. Even though she's still having some sugar, I can absolutely see a difference. I also agree with the physical activity thing.

[mom23kidsinutah]

My DS is like this. He is 4 1/2. I am going to use the mini trampoline suggestion, and the lowering the sugar content intake, seems like a good idea.