Customer Reviews

The Difficult Child

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The biggest thing this book did for me was to make me realize that I wasn't going crazy. I went into counseling thinking I couldn't cope as a wife/mother. I was blaming it all on my husband. Meanwhile my 3 yr old son was constantly hitting, kicking and throwing and not responding to any form of discipline. The pediatrician's office recommended this book. I saw my child in the pages...sensory sensitivity, moodiness, etc. And I saw myself...an overwhelmed, depressed Mom. This book gave me HOPE. We are finding out that there are "un-obvious" developmental reasons behind my son's behavior so the book is not totally applicable. However, the HOPE that this book gave me, made it a very worthwhile investment.

This is an excellent book for ALL parents, not just parents of "difficult children." The title might scare or offend some parents who are in denial, thinking that their child is not difficult. But ALL kids are difficult from time to time. This book give great, real-life examples - extremely helpful tips telling us what to do. And all this is to be done under a firm, but very loving manner. This definitely is one of the best parenting books out there. A must-read for ALL parents.

I can not even begin to express how much this book has helped our family. My son was difficult from the momement he came out of the womb. We had read numerous articles, lost tons of sleep, and felt that no one really understood our son or our issues.

This book pretty much nailed the types of behavior we were facing. Wild tantrums, obstence, etc. We read the book and started applying the techniques. Being frist time parents we were a little inconsistent with our applicatoin of the system and were having some mixed results and starting to doubt our ability to be successful parents. However, my wife and I were convienced that this was the only book that we had found that really dealt with the behavior issues we were facing.

After some discussion, we eventually called Turecki directly, spent an hour with him on the phone. Discussed our son, and Turecki's program. The results were amazing!!! Within a week we felt like were back on top of things and in control of our lives.

Our son is still a challenge but we've learned the diffence between temperment and tantrums. How to recognize them and how to effectively deal with them. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is having trouble understanding why their child is acting up and needs insight into potential methods of dealing with them.

The Difficult Child (2002) is a self-help book for the parents of children with difficult temperaments. While all children have characteristic behavioral quirks, temperaments are so deep-seated that they manifest in infancy and are usually retained for a lifetime. Since temperaments can be inherited, they are probably linked to specific genes. In fact, one behavioral trait -- high activity level -- in mice seems to be associated with a specific gene (along with other characteristics), but such traits have not yet been genetically identified in humans.

This book concentrates on nine particularly difficult temperaments: high activity level, distractibility, high intensity, irregularity, negative persistence, low sensory threshold, initial withdrawal, poor adaptability, and negative mood. A child who exhibits some or all of these temperamental characteristics is usually not the child that the parents expected and therefore can be difficult to handle properly.

High activity level is obviously wearisome for the parents, babysitters and other caretakers. Distractibility is often irritating since the child can't stay with one thing very long. High intensity refers to habitual loudness, which causes its own problems. Irregularity refers to confused circadian rhythms, which means the child is often not ready to eat or sleep at any fixed time. Negative persistence refers to lengthy whines and tantrums, drawing out every disagreement to the point of absurdity. Low sensory threshold refers to physical sensitivity to clothing, noises, colors, tastes and other sensory stimuli, leading to definite likes and dislikes. Initial withdrawal refers to timid reactions at first to new things. Poor adaptability refers to difficultly changing activities, clothing, or even locations. Negative mood refers to grumpiness, showing little or no cheerfulness.

These temperamental types are particularly difficult for parents to understand or manage. At first the parents believe something is wrong with the child, particularly when the child cries at odd times, stays up late, and so forth. When their pediatrician states that nothing is wrong with the child, except maybe a little colic, the parents are mystified when this behavior continues for months and years.

First, these temperaments are normal, although not extremely common. They do not indicate any defect or disease in the baby, just different ways of responding to the world. Once these differences are identified, they can be managed. Moreover, the child can be trained to control these traits to some extent by learning good habits. However, these temperaments are part of the child and so the child would be more comfortable in surroundings where these temperaments are known, expected, and allowed a certain amount of free rein.

Of course, there are various ailments that can produce similar behavior patterns. Some of the more common are touched on within this book. However, the authors assume that you will have already had your child examined by a qualified pediatrician, will continue to take your child for regularly scheduled checkups, and will bring any subsequent problems to his attention. If you always keep him informed, you can let the doctor worry about such things.

Read this book. Even if none of this sounds like your child, read the first chapter of the book; you will learn a lot about your own child, despite their lack of difficult temperament. However, if any of these temperaments fits your child, read the whole book and have your spouse do so also. If nothing else, this book will give you some of the right questions to ask your pediatrician the next time you corner him in his office.

Once you have read this book, you will want to find out more about temperament and human differences. This book is only the first step in the rest of your career as parents. And as grandparents.

-Bill Jordin

This book saved my relationship with my son. I read it when it first came out in '89 when my son was 2. He is now 12 and we still use the strategies in the book. I am excited to see that it has been revised. I work in a clinic for developmentally challenged kids and often recommend it to families when their child presents with termpermental and behavioral difficulties. It is a great resource and the stories are funny and heart warming. Parents will see themselves with these kids and know there is hope and help. Thanks!

This book should provide some relief for parents struggling with a challengeng child. The temperamental traits which make a child difficult are well explained with advice on how to cope. Some might be put off because it seems to be directed mainly stay at home moms and the way that a typical family is presented. What I liked is that it teaches parents to become assertive and authorative resisting the temptation to reason or over explain family rules and requests. What helped us with our child was to establish firm consistant limits and boundaries which enabled him to develop and grow. On the other hand I disagreed with the use of rewards or punishment to change behaviour. Also I had doubts about the notion of always trying to separate temeramental behaviour from normal misbehaviour as the critical factor in how you deal with it. Overall the book is very authorative and insightful covering many areas of interrest to parents including medications. I still would recommend reading the book "The Manipulative Child: How to Regain Control and Raise Resilient, Resourceful and Independant Kids" for further understanding of difficult behaviour.

My sister-in-law had the library hold this book for me and it has saved me! Three weeks ago, I was to the point where I could no longer stand to be around my 5 year old daughter. I was upset about her behavior and my reactions to her behavior 24 hours a day. It didn't matter if I was with her or not. I dreamt of running away and even leaving my husband if necessary to get relief from her! We were having MAJOR battles everday. Screaming and yelling and no forms of discipline were working. I had to call a crisis team once and had to have my husband come home from work a few times to 'save her life". He came home on Jan. 23 and I went right to the library. I got the difficult Child and the Explosive Child. I am almost done with the difficult child and my life has changed! We are in counseling and I talked to her pre-k teacher and between the 3, I have learned many new techniques and realize that pinishment just dosen't work with my child and I had to let it go. you definitely need to be willing to change how you think and deal with to make changes within yourself to help to change your child. I have realized through Dr. Turecki that my child can't help alot of these behaviors and I understand her so much better now! i don't take it personally and I try to look at it from the outside. It is still a challenge but I am more willing to understand and help her and redirect her than I ever was before. I find it so helpful the way he taught me to say to her, " I know it's hard for you to pay attention right now but......." instead of "what is wrong with you?" like I had been been doing. I was feeling like a failure as a mother and like I couldn't take her anywhere and now I feel empowered with new tools to use and like I really can help her and myself! Thank god for this book, this man and all others whoo work hard to help us parents! Right now this book is my bible and I'm not even done with it. I love to be around my daughter again and can hardly beleive how miserable I was just a few short weeks ago! We are on defintely on the right path now and I will always refer back to this book! i'll review the explosive child after I read that one!

I was given a copy of this book in 1989 when my daughter was 3 years old and 3 years into what I thought was a rampage. Born quickly (4 hours) and weighing a healthy 9lbs, she was on the go from the moment she was born. Now she's in college studying archaeology and language -- reading being the major thing the professionals said she would never do or at least never do well. The social worker who showed up at my door with this book after I'd banged down the door of social services threatening to drop her off if they didn't help me (they said they didn't usually help parents with unruly kids, just abused kids of unruly parents) was the most angelic sight for my very sore eyes.
We've been through some upturned, out-of-control, oh-my-god moments over the years, but this book was the beginning of the very best steps I could've taken in raising this outstanding example of a human being.
Raising these kids is no easy task and it's not for the weak of heart. As such, the books that address their issues shouldn't be either.
I still have the book I was given, covered in dents, marks, and scratches from where my child got ahold of it one fine day. I've since placed it in her baby box.
Thank god for that social worker (whose home vists saved me and my daughter from each other and who helped us create the foundation of a lasting bond) and thank god for Stanley Turecki.

Often I find that the universe seems to hand me just the book I need when I need it most, and this would be case in point. By the time my daughter was two, I'd worked my way through stacks: the high-need stuff, the strong-willed stuff, the highly-sensitive, the challenging, the high-I.Q., the out-of-synch, the spirited--so much, yet I stopped short of reading "The Difficult Child" because I decided, after reading a couple nasty-spirited books, that I wouldn't read anything with a negative title; semantics mattered, and "challenging" was OK, but "difficult" was not. Ironic, of course, given the fact that Turecki's approach is admirably complex and quite brilliant on temperament, compassionate, humanistic , and attuned to children as individuals. So I was stuck with the marshmallow fluff of "Spirited Child" instead of this meaty one, which of all the books I've read, seems best to "get it" in a wholistic sense. Turecki gets it! He gets that temperament is present at birth; most books on discipline refuse to discuss the child under six, which mystifies me, because if you have a truly challenging child, you're desperate before they turn 6 months. He understands the social isolation, the family complexities, the ever-augmenting dimensions of irony and complexity and difficulty, the maternal and marital pressure. So why did I finally pick up this book? Upon the birth of a second child, I no longer had the leisure of my idealism; if there had been a book titled "Coping With Your Spawn of Satan" I would have picked it up--if I'd had time to read.

Here's why this book is a real "dragon-slayer": Even the most un-neurotic, level-headed, intelligent parent--who knows better!--will at times question whether her robust yet difficult-to-raise child is perhaps brain-damaged (that glass of Champagne I drank at my cousin's wedding during the first trimester! Heavens!), suffering from an undiagnosed mood disorder, in need of special education or therapy or medication or acupuncture. Turecki begins his book with a quiz based on the following tempermant traits: high-activity level, impulsivity, distractibility, high-intensity, irregularity, negative persistence, low sensory threshold, initial withdrawal, poor adaptability, negative mood. I rated my daughter as moderate to extremely high in all categories, which would make her a mother-killer, and that's not including something Turecki leaves out--intellectual giftedness--which adds another dimension.

Here's why I'm glad I didn't read Turecki's book when she was a baby: I adopted an "attachment parenting" philosophy in reaction to her extreme difficulty, including co-sleeping, extended and on-demand breastfeeding, complete access to my person (in six years, I've not been apart from my daughter for an over-night or even more than a few hours). I got into it; it expanded my consciousness, you know, John Holt saying, "Listen to your child as you yourself were not listened to," and the idea that meeting the deepest needs of babies with a YES means their deepest needs are met for a lifetime. I was deeply transformed as a person and mother; if I'd had tools to maintain control--Ha!-- perhaps that wouldn't have happened. And here's what happened: it worked! Attachment parenting worked so well, in fact, that rather ironically, my daughter's difficulty was masked from all but those closest to her, which in a way added to the insanity of the situation my husband and I found ourselves in, as we were worn ragged meeting the needs of our sensitive tyrant, who just seemed shy and sweet to others. Turecki's book is divided into two parts, the theory of temperament (my favorite) and The Plan, which I would have hated when my daughter was a toddler; I'd probably have thrown the book across the room. Though Turecki tries to remain neutral, he's clearly baffled by the "attachment" folks. I still believe in that stuff, but I also believe in change--children grow, and new ways of relating need to come into being in response.

My daughter recently started elementary school in an accelerated public school classroom, which is highly-structured, disciplined and small. I didn't hope for much and saw it as the least bad of bad choices...but my daughter...loves it...and seems to be thriving. I'm baffled, especially as preschool was a nightmare of separation anxiety, topped off by a round of observations by our local special ed program, as the teacher wondered if my intense, creative, brilliant child, who refused to make eye contact with her or speak to her, might be autistic. So, I'll explore Turecki's methods, which are behavioral, tempered with knowledge of temperament, and which emphasize the importance of structure for the child with a difficult temperament. Here is my point: implementing such structure simply would not have worked when my daughter was a baby. I found Turecki's chapter on infants laughable, though I think he's right that colic is temperamental in origin. I likewise found his scenarios/profiles demonstrating how to implement consistent, effective response a bit simplistic. But I am inspired about the possibilities of regaining authority, maintaining neutrality and distancing myself from negative patterns.
(*) I'm going to add a comment almost a year after writing this review. My daughter was recently diagnosed with asthma and off-the-chart allergies to wheat, dairy & eggs, and my naturopathic physician says that in her experience, this trio of allergies corresponds to neurological symptoms, such as anxiety, ADHD, schizophrenia, autism. I'm hopeful that avoidance of allergens for a year, combined with herbal support drops, probiotics, etc. will help abate obsessive thinking, anxiety, etc. There is a deep history of allergies and neuroloigcal symptoms on my husband's side, and I also find it interesting that giftedness is sometimes linked with allergies and asthma. For what it's worth...such topics are not addressed in the book and may be at the root of the matter.

I learned more from this book than the many other parenting books I've read. Dr. Turecki's link between temperment and behavior has given me a totally new perspective on handling my daughter. His ideas and suggestions are innovative and very practical. I recommend this book to everyone I know who has a difficult child. Excellent!