“Raising Your Spirited Child” is not a new book. Some things just have value as time goes on. The subtitle is “A Guide for Parents Whose Child is MORE Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent or Energetic”. The author, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka is a teacher and wrote a book that has specific, useful strategies for daily life skills with young children that really work. Her advice is most successful, in my opinion, with children that are cognitively older than 4 years old. That may mean that a younger child with special needs might not able to respond to all of her strategies, but her perspective on temperament and adapting the environment will almost certainly apply. Her ideas definitely get people thinking about what could work for their family.
She gives special chapters to mealtime, bedtime, dressing, socializing and holiday/vacation periods. Issues like autism, developmental delay and sensory processing disorder may require some adaptations. But the author has a positive attitude, a loving approach, and sympathy for both the child and the parent of a spirited child as they navigate daily life.
