Let Your Child Know What You Expect
Shaping Is More Important than Controlling
chapter 13: how to talk to and listen to the high-need child
Understand Your Child’s Viewpoint
Getting Your Child’s Attention
Holding Your Child’s Attention
Encourage Compliance Before Defiance
Guide Your Child Toward the Conclusion You Want
chapter 14: the payoff – for children and for parents
chapter 15: survivors’ stories
I Knew Something Was Wrong With Him
Balancing a Medical Career and Mothering
Robbed of a Month of My Motherhood
I Snuggled With My Premmie in Bed
A Screaming Bundle of Unhappiness
I Would Not Want Her Any Other Way
a word from dr bill and martha
We want to both congratulate and encourage you on being blessed with a high-need child. Having a challenging child will bring out the best and worst in you; we wish to help this life-changing experience bring out the best.
Parenting a high-need child is like attending a continuous life-enrichment seminar. From the moment these infants exit the womb, in one way or another, they announce, “Hi, Mum and Dad. You’ve been blessed with an above-average child, and I need above-average parenting. If you give it to me, we’re going to get along fine; but if you don’t, we’re going to have a bit of trouble down the road.” And these babies have the persistence required to hold up their end of this bargain. Right from the start these children make it clear they need more! The good news is they also give more to everyone who cares for them.
This book is about children who are challenging and the parents who guide them. Besides insights that we have gained from parenting our own high-need children and from counselling hundreds of parents in our paediatric practice, sprinkled throughout this book you will find testimonies from parents who have survived and thrived with their high-need children – kids you would like. We let the experts speak for themselves.
Parenting a high-need child will be one