Low Medium High
Now, check off what you regard as your child’s other strengths:
Artistic ability
Scientific ability
Skill at mental games
Athletic ability
Patience
Empathy
Conscientiousness
Great sense of humor
Spiritual interests
Intelligence
Kindness
Concern for social justice
Others _______________________________________________________
Your child’s problem areas (in your opinion). Some examples might be:
Trouble with coordination or playing sports
Shyness, often afraid of being rejected
Negative mood or behavior
Stubbornness
Rudeness, selfishness, lack of consideration
“Too good”
Not able to make “small talk”
Spends too much time at computer or ____________
Anger
Too noisy, boisterous
Rejected by others for being aggressive
Rejected by others for being too passive
Slow learner
Learning disability
Attention deficit disorder
Others _______________________________________________________
Would the above problem areas be a problem for any parent, or are they things that particularly bother you? (Could you imagine this problem being “no problem” in another family?)
Major events can shape your child’s life; beside each that applies, write what you think has been the effect:
Move
Divorce
Illness
Death in family
Death of a close friend, including beloved pet
Illness in family, mental or physical
Past abuse, physical or sexual
Persistent poverty
Prejudice
Unusual successes, awards, accomplishments
Public notice
Acquiring a very close friend
A special mentor (including a close grandparent, teacher, etc.)
Trips or other experiences that made a lasting impression
Lessons (musical, athletics, etc.)
Consistent activities—soccer, Scouts, etc.
Unusual living environment (big city, inner city, country, a farm, etc.)
Religious training
Cultural resources (gets to see many plays, is taken to concerts, scientists or writers often visiting family)
Others ___________________________________________________________
Now, write a page or two about your child, based on the above—a kind of summary, as if you were explaining him to someone.
Begin with his sensitivity, then the other temperament traits he has.
List all of your child’s strengths.
Then mention the problems, in your opinion.
How are these problems affected by your view of them (would someone else find them “no problem”)?
Write something about how these strengths and weaknesses have been increased or decreased by your child’s history.
Finally, looking back at your child’s sensitivity, how has it contributed to your child’s strengths?
How has it contributed to the problems?
How has it contributed to your child overcoming her problem areas?
How has your child’s sensitivity been interwoven with her major life experiences? Did it increase their impact in some cases? Decrease it in some cases?
Go back and underline what you have learned that you did not know before. How do you think this will change how you treat your child?
Keep these pages—you may find a time when it would be useful to give them to a teacher, long-term caregiver, doctor, or interested family member.
Chapter Two
Fasten Your Seat Belts
The Challenges of Raising an Exceptional Child
In this chapter you learn why skilled parenting helps HSCs even more than other children, and why the skills are different with HSCs. We discuss the six qualities of HSCs that present the greatest challenges, and you will begin to learn how to respond effectively when they arise. We will also take note of all the joys that come with raising an HSC.
In the last chapter I mentioned Maria, a “typical” HSC who graduated summa cum laude from Harvard. But it did not happen without skilled parenting.
Maria’s parents did not have all the advantages that you might imagine come with the family of a Harvard graduate. Estelle, Maria’s mother, has had a difficult life, starting with her own childhood. She was an HSC in a troubled family that made her the scapegoat because she was different from the rest of them. As she expressed it, “At least I knew what hurts a sensitive child.”
When Maria was born, Estelle and her young husband were living below the poverty line and neither family was helpful. Indeed, Estelle felt she had to protect her new baby from the meddlers and disturbed people in both families. Her intuition was apparently right—one of Maria’s grandfathers was later convicted of child molesting. These were not easy circumstances in which to raise a child, much less
