The Challenging Child: Understanding, Raising, and Enjoying the Five "Difficult" Types of Children

by Stanley I. Greenspan

The book that helps parents match the child care to the child





Most children fall into five basic personality types that stem from inborn physical characteristics: the sensitive child, the self-absorbed child, the defiant child, the inattentive child, and the active/aggressive child. For each of these, there are parenting patterns to avoid and those that help the most. The Challenging Child reassures parents that they do not simply have to "live with" their child's temperament but can fit their parenting style to their child's unique personality and help each child build on strengths, master weaknesses, and embrace life with confidence and skills.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Childrens, Education, Psychology

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stanley Greenspan (June 1, 1941 – April 27, 2010)[1] was an American child psychiatrist and clinical professor of Psychiatry, Behavioral Science, and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School. He was best known for developing the floortime approach for attempting to treat children with autistic spectrum disorders and developmental disabilities.[2]

He was Chairman of the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders and also a Supervising Child Psychoanalyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Medical School,[2] Greenspan was the founding president of Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health's Clinical Infant Developmental Program and Mental Health Study Center.[3]

Reviews

[Lesli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very long and boring, I thought it should have been half as long. But it was extremely helpful and informative. It was one of the few helpful parenting books in my opinion, and I've read a lot of parenting books. It has five different personalities, and explains how to help those personalities become more well-adjusted. It was great to read because it turns out my daughter is Highly Sensitive child, and boy is she hard to care for because everything results in screaming. We can do no right in her life, everything we do makes her upset. She often reacts with screaming, drooling, pulling her clothes, and complete jello state of melted toddler on the floor. It was such a relief to read the chapter about the Highly Sensitive child, and start implementing some action plans. My son is the self absorbed child, and now after reading that chapter, I'm relieved to know he is actually very well adjusted for his age. Although you shouldn't compare your children to others, after watching him in correspondence to other kids his age, is doing well with his imagination and his communication. Since we moved last year to a neighborhood with lots of kids, he has made great progress from a weird quiet self absorbed child, to one who interacts well with others, one who explores a vibrant imagination, and one who for his age is good at diffusing problems with friends. With all that said, I should do better about giving him 30 minutes of "floor time". I give my daughter that time, but I'm not as good with unstructured time with my son. My husband and I are both inattentive children, and it was helpful to read that chapter to understand better some of our different quirks. For example my husband was in the gifted program in elementary school, and since then has appeared "lazy" in college and high school. Apparently that is a extremely normal. He isn't lazy the education system just makes a switch in between those years. While I still need to work at closing conversations, and completing thoughts. (We are both inattentive children but in different ways.)
After I read this book, I have to give my parents and in laws props. As I read the book, some of the personalities were very much like some of my siblings (myself included), and my parents seemed to do a good job of teaching us to be well adjusted and less challenging. While my in laws are extremely good at teaching kids to complete thoughts, questions why they complain, and have a full conversation that closes the complete thought. I now realize after reading the book, that my husband (taught by his parents) has done a very good job of getting me to complete a conversation, especially when we were dating. Which has helped me be less inattentive.

[Beth Trapani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very helpful. While my own child didn't fit most of the 'types' laid out in this book, I could see elements of his strong personality in some of the types. What made this book so helpful was the way Greenspan used a case study for each type, laying out specifics of how he encouraged the parents to work with the child to change behaviors. From that I could glean a lot of tips to use with my own son. He was very direct yet encouraging and offered reassurance that your challenging child has potential for a great future. He drew analogies to his own life/personality and also offered suggestions for how to address each personality type at different ages/stages -- something that most books like this do not do. The almost companion book to this one, "The Spirited Child" seems to rank high on internet hits and is more widely distributed and popular. I felt that Greenspan's book (which The Spirited Child references) was actually more helpful in some ways. Read them together and you've got a winner.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greenspan is one of my heroes. He's done some amazing, groundbreaking work on autism and PDDs, and this book is a remarkable guide to understanding kids who might not get a diagnosis, or may get many conflicting diagnoses. He has such a human approach to kids that others have often wanted to treat as rats to be trained with the right system of rewards and punishments. How can you go wrong with a guy who suggests that humor is a crucial tool to work with explosive kids? He has boundless empathy not only for kids who find the world hard to navigate, but also for parents who are understandably at their wits' end with these kids. Sometimes it's hard not to want to take sides.

[Courtney Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though I couldn't fit my (current) difficult child into any of his groupings I found it helpful to reframe the entire situation as a "teaching moment". Which I suppose was in itself worth the read. And I'll admit my perfectly typecast "Sensitive child" was hit right on, and I wish I had read it when I was still learning to navigate HIM.

I'll suggest if you have a kiddo that you feel will really fit one of these 5 types, but if you have a kinda innatentive, kinda over-active, kinda defiant child I'm not sure the very specific examples in the book will be all that helpful and you'd be better served by a more general parenting guide.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"As we grow with our children through the daily trials, tribulations, joys, and pleasures of life, we can only make one simple demand of ourselves: to learn from our experiences. We need to recognize that our powerful emotions, which are the basis of many of our mistakes, are, at the same time, also the foundation of our triumphs."

[Catherine Mikkelsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book annoying. First off, I just didn't like the types. My child didn't fit into any of the types, and I found the categories to be a bit simplistic. If you read my book or my reviews, you'll realize that my child had some learning differences and was a classic "spiky profile" kid (some very high scores and some very low scores) when tested. Kids like that often slip through the cracks (ridiculously enough), and find themselves without learning support, and without the ability to achieve. This can lead to feelings of "I'm stupid," "I'm a terrible person," and of course "This isn't fair and I'm furious."

So if 1 in 8 kids in our country have learning differences, why isn't that layered into a book like this? Each of these categories might well be caused by layers of physical, developmental, or related social challenges. I submit that it's a rare child who is *really* inattentive as a character flaw. Perhaps they're inattentive because they have ADHD, or inattentive because they have auditory processing disorder and cannot really understand things that are said to them.

So I reject and find annoying the entire premise and structure of the book. Ahem.

That said, there is gold in this book. One of the things that I have found, from reading many, many professionals, is that they are steeped in the wisdom of observations. Sometimes, the smallest little paragraph in a chapter can contain some wisdom that absolutely pertains to your child and your child's situation.

One of the reviewers said that the book was "boring." Well, like a lot of these books, this one is too long and could use some editing. But what it might do is give you some insight from a very experienced clinician about some of the children who fit into these categories.

To summarize: I found the categories of children in this to be annoying and useless. If your child is defiant (for example), start by getting a hearing, speech, allergy, learning disability, and social skills evaluation. If your child has huge trouble with transitions, that's not just defiance. Sometimes it's an indicator for Asperger's. Don't just pigeonhole your little kid into an adult-style "personality type" when they might be beset by huge invisible challenges. HOWEVER, within the categories, the advice and observations were great.

[Solveig Singleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is likely to be of help to parents generally, not just parents of little horrors.

[Alyssa]

I got a couple takeaways from this book
which is really all that you can expect - as every child is different.

[Ruth Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practical, helpful, and encouraging! This book helps you understand your child's difficult behavior and gives concrete suggestions on changing your own parenting behaviors to provide a nurturing, healing environment. First come to understand the behavior and what message the child is trying to convey. Only then will you know how to proceed.

[chippyvale · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd borrowed this book from the library in hopes that it will be applicable to my work scope as a teacher, and I wasn't disappointed. I tried out some tactics on a passive/aggressive student and he's now slowly opening up his heart to me. It is an amazing and helpful book; I strongly encourage parents/parents-to-be/teachers to give this book a try :)

[Jude · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this an immensely helpful book to read for work, although it's aimed more at parents than teachers. I wish a knew a paediatrician as thoughtful and thorough as this man to refer to in Melbourne! His recommendations for floor work with both parents and the child were very illuminating.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

my daughter has traits of 4 out of 5 of these "difficult" types...still learning.

[Stacy Thorson]

Attributes most behaviors to the sensory way the child experiences the world. Good suggestions for play and discipline.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this parenting book helpful!

[Lisa]

The Challenging Child: Understanding, Raising, and Enjoying the Five "Difficult" Types of Children by Stanley I. Greenspan (1996)

[Jessica Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made a huge difference in how I parented my "challenging" child.

[K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish I could find a therapist like him in Virginia.... Becoming desperate. But this provided specific and useful information and insight that will definitely be applied in my household.

[Annette Gagliardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was informative and easy reading.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

By the author of the Floortime model for autism therapy.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful, so far, in dealing with my daughter's new behaviour.