Strategies for Parenting Spirited Children

As a Mum blessed with two highly-spirited teenage daughters, I have spent almost two decades being challenged and stretched as a person, meaning I have learnt much about life and myself. Along the way, I have discovered some useful strategies.

Perhaps the most effective strategy my girls have taught me, is to celebrate spirited children; to see parenting them as both an amazing adventure and an awesome privilege. That's not to say it hasn't been incredibly difficult at times. At one point, my advice to anyone with a fourteen year-old quite as 'spirited' as my eldest daughter, would have been, "Grit your teeth and hang on for dear life!"

My daughters are very spirited in very different ways. My youngest is full of physical energy. Even as a baby, she was always wriggling to get down and be off exploring the world. She is the child who comes home with wild hair, muddy clothes and scraped knees. She helps out on a farm at weekends and with the beach ponies in the Summer Holidays, which allows her the space to cherish her spirit in a safe environment. She is a very independent thinker and has a unique sense of style. Where she is non-conforming, her elder sister is outright rebellious.

I raised them both with the belief that they are unique and wonderful individuals. I have actively encouraged them to be adventurous, to question everything, to speak their minds (to make their own minds up), and to be true to themselves, even if I don't always like what they say or do, or think. I did doubt that this was the best policy when my eldest daughter turned fourteen and went totally off the rails. I wondered if I had inadvertently created a monster - rude, aggressive, anarchic, with no respect for others or for herself. But she has matured into a young woman I really respect and admire, and I overheard her telling a friend recently that we have an "excellent relationship."

The rough times were difficult, frustrating, even scary, but along the way we have developed certain strategies which work for us. I think trust, communication and respect are fundamental to the relationships I have with my daughters, and to the relationship they have with each other. I have learned to trust their judgement and they have absolute trust in the fact that I will always have their best interests at heart, and will always support them.

This effects the way we communicate. Both girls have always told me what's happening in their lives; they come to me with problems and with mistakes. We have always been open and honest with each other; I am happy to admit when I am wrong or when I don't know something, and happy to accept that sometimes, they might actually know better than me.

I have also learned how to listen. Properly. I have realized that trying to guide my eldest daughter down a traditional academic path (the choice I truly thought best for her), while she was trying to tell me she would prefer a more vocational pathway, was one of a number of things that sent her into a spin, resulting in exclusion from school and no education at all. Exclusion from school, in a house where there was only one parent to bring in an income, was disastrous in all sorts of ways.

So, when my youngest daughter recently chose her GCSE options, I expressed my opinion when asked, but encouraged her to make her own decision. She was very proud of herself when she returned the form to school. And so she should be. She took time to consider what would be best for herself, she asked for advice and listened carefully, then balancing all she knew, she chose very wisely I think. We are always most successful when we do the things we love doing, so I think she will have a very positive two years at school.

Most of the strategies that help with parenting spirited children are strategies that are useful in life generally. Maintaining a sense of humour is necessary to my sanity. Postive thinking of any kind makes everything easier. I always try and see weaknesses as strengths, problems as challenges, and mistakes as lessons.

I put a positive light on my youngest daughter's first large-scale artistic creation, an amazing mural in coloured crayon, on the kitchen door. I went out and bought some blackboard paint and lots of chalk, and made half her bedroom into a blackboard, explaining that was her studio; her very own place to be creative.

Spirited children are often labelled as "problem" children of some kind, but if we think of certain "negative" characteristics in a different way, we can put a positive spin on them. A child who is "demanding, wilful, defiant, stubborn, impulsive and unruly" becomes one who is "assertive and determined, an independent thinker, full of energy, who understands value and expects the best of life and of themselves, and will never be easily manipulated." These are all important traits to have in order to thrive in the big wide world.

Another strategy that I find works, is not to take things too personally. Whether a teen or a toddler, your child's frustration/anger/resentment will often be directed towards you, but may be nothing to do with you. I find not taking it personally prevents me from fuelling their anger and causing an argument that could easily be avoided.

I try and follow my Mum's advice: "Choose your battles carefully." Some things are worth waging war over, some are most definitely not. I have always had only a few, important rules in the house, which has meant fewer things for the girls to rebel against. I stand my ground on the big stuff and let the small stuff go.

Remind yourself it's just a phase when you hit a bump in the road. Everything changes. Things pass. What seems awful today may well seem very funny when you look back on it.
Maintain your own spirit. This is the foundation upon which I have raised spirited children. I try to be a role model of how to be spirited while also being respectful, considerate, tolerant of other opinions and compassionate. Nurture your spirit and that of your children.

If you're lucky enough to have spirited children, celebrate them. For the first few years of my daughters' lives, we lived next door to a boy with cerebral palsy. He was a beautiful boy with a quick smile, but he was severely disabled, spent his life strapped in a chair, and would never be able to feed himself or get dressed, to walk or talk, to hold a crayon, or an argument.
I tried to remind myself, as one daughter or another ran me ragged, frustrated me, or made me thoroughly cross, that I was lucky to have children who were such bundles of energy, who were able to get into trouble.