The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child (18 page)

Making Up One Mind at a Time

“
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.” —Mark Twain

“Let me think about it,” is the innie mantra. Innies can’t make instant decisions like outies can. Their longer brain pathway requires time to combine and formulate lots of information before they are ready to reach a decision. Usually they need a quiet environment, time, and space to percolate. In fact, introverted children can become overwhelmed when asked to make on-the-spot decisions. Yet decisions, no matter how small, crop up all the time. Remind your child that it’s okay to take some time to decide. Teach her that decisions need not be so overwhelming. Once you break them down into a few steps, they become more manageable. Also tell her that, like most things, decision making gets easier with practice. Plus each decision, even a seemingly trivial one, presents the chance to make a choice, take a stand, or resolve a problem.

Discuss the issue at hand with your innie and over the course of the conversation, gently ask, “What are you torn about? What are the positives and negatives of each possible choice? What is your ‘gut’ feeling? Are there any past decisions that could serve as a useful model? Are there mistakes you want to avoid making again?” Acknowledge her struggle by saying something like, “It’s hard to make a choice, I know.” In most instances, you can sleep on the decision; things often look clearer in the morning. Then it’s time to decide and make a plan. Ask her to think back on a decision she made that turned out well. Remind your child that there are no perfect decisions. There are simply the best choices one can make with the information available. Also, reassure her that few decisions are cast in stone.

How to Help Your Innie Make Up His Mind

Innies can become good decision makers. Role-playing the steps to make a decision is a good way to practice:

• Ask your child what makes the decision difficult for him.

“
I want to go to the camp, but I am afraid
.”

• Tell him to write down the pros and cons.

Pros
:

• It might be fun.

– Caleb and Nathan are going.

– There are horses and campfires.

Cons
:

• I’ve never been there before.

• It’s a whole week away from home.

• It might not be fun.

• There might be bullies there.

• Ask what possible solutions he sees. Throw out a few if he can’t think of any.

– I could talk with Nathan’s brother, who went last year, and get a better sense of what it’s like.

– I could plan to talk on the phone or write home.

– I could see if my friends could be in the same cabin as me.

– I could take some special things from home.

– I can tell the counselor or my friends if someone bullies me.

– It might have some fun and some not-so-fun activities, and I can deal with that.

– If it turns out to be really awful, Mom and Dad could come get me.

• Let him sleep on it.

• Encourage him to make a preliminary decision and see how it feels. He can discuss further concerns or ideas that arise.

• Make a plan. Congratulate him on his choice.

The Art of Relaxing (and Revving Up)

Every day, introverted children face frustrating, anxiety-producing, and potentially disappointing situations, such as new developmental tasks, school pressures, and uncertainties in friendships. As parents, we need to balance teaching our children to ask for assistance and helping them learn to manage frustration by themselves. The good news is innies can learn to calm themselves down, which is important because they can’t resolve a problem without first calming down. The earlier children learn to soothe themselves, the better they will be able to tackle whatever comes their way.

Start early to reinforce your child’s self-soothing abilities. When a child gets frustrated, it’s tempting to try to fix the problem yourself rather than reinforcing her ability to calm herself. Instead, give her a little room to try to handle things. When she figures out a way to remedy the situation, or makes another attempt despite getting discouraged, you can pat her on the back and say something like, “You got yourself on top of this. Good for you,” or “Boy, those word problems were difficult. I’m glad you stuck it out.”

Armchair Traveling

Here’s an exercise that will teach your child how to take a mini-vacation in her mind and come back relaxed and refreshed. Have her sit in a comfortable position. Suggest that she imagine a peaceful scene, such as a sunny, flower-filled meadow, the beach, or wherever she feels most relaxed. Tell her to focus on the scene for a few minutes and start to pretend that she’s really there. Remind her to feel the sun, the breeze, the temperature of the air, and to hear the waves or the wind moving through the grass. Have her practice this a few times. Let her know that this place is always there for her. When she is tense, she can take a short relaxation trip to it.

Quick and Easy Stress Busters

• Hum (anything).

• Buy lip balm in peppermint or another scent your child likes—sniffing it will make her more alert.

• Shake like a wet dog.

• Kick a ball (outside) or throw Nerf balls.

• Rip up paper or a magazine (what you would recycle anyway).

• Put on lively music and dance any which way.

• Pet or play with an animal.

Since innies tend to be anxious before attempting something new, help your child develop the tools to manage anxiety. Teach him to anticipate what could happen and practice how to respond. This will calm him and give him confidence. It will also streamline that let-me-think-about-it-before-I-say-or-do-anything process. Practice various ways the situation might go and keep rewriting the possibilities of what could happen. This will help your child recognize that
life does surprise us at times—but he needn’t fear those surprises. Help him to hone the tools needed to handle the unexpected. When you do something assertive, discuss it with your child. You can say, “I was a little nervous when I had to ask the dry cleaner to re-clean my coat. How do you think it went?” Innies need to know that we all face doubt in our dealings with others. Such discussions will instill a positive internal voice: “I can manage like Mom.”

Revving Up

Sometimes innies need to be reminded to rev up. Give your innie a nudge from time to time so that he’ll get his muscles moving. When he’s playing quietly in his room, the thought of physical activity may not look so appealing. You may need to jog his memory in order to realize that he does, in fact, like doing things like riding his bike, playing catch with his sister, or taking a brisk walk with the dog. Have him write “What I Like to Do” on colored three-by-five cards (color is always more invigorating than plain white). If he can’t think of what to do, he can look through the cards. You can also get him in the habit of picturing what he wants to do before he embarks on doing it. This can serve as a motivator, a way of priming the pleasure center.

Quick and Easy Engine Revvers

• Be a windmill. Show your child how to shake her hands and feet and swing her arms around to increase circulation and boost her energy level.

• Invite your innie to sing with you at the top of her lungs, or suggest she blast a few notes in the shower if she prefers private crooning.

• Put on some music and dance around the room with or beside your innie. Or ask him to teach you the latest steps.

• Be silly and laugh together. Watch an old comedy film like the Marx Brothers’
Monkey Business
—laughter is the greatest energizer.

•
Have your innie swing, spin, or jump on a small trampoline. Bike riding and skating are great; innies love the freedom. Ping-Pong or badminton are good revver-uppers, too.

The Heart of the Matter

•
Play is an energy-saving way for innies to test new skills
.

•
Innies need time to mull over complex input before making decisions
.

•
Daily chat time helps innies make sense of their experiences
.

PART III
Family Variations

“
Having children is a lot like making a movie. There are a lot of the same worries. Will it have legs? Will it go wide? How will it do domestically? What if it goes foreign?” —Meryl Streep

CHAPTER 7
The Family Temperament Tango

Increase Family Harmony by Validating and Appreciating Each Member’s Footwork

“
Children have never been good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” —James Baldwin

Introverted children are strong family people—they want to have good relationships with their families. Arguably, they have more at stake than most: Because their social circle is often smaller, they may focus more on their families. I have often noticed that innies, even children, are their family’s behind-the-scenes “go to” people—the undeclared hub that the family revolves around and whose opinions hold added weight. In their own, often subtle, way, they support and encourage family members and attempt to smooth out conflicts. They come to be depended upon for their observations, their loyalty, and their sense of what’s right.

The family inner circle serves as a training ground for your introverted child to become comfortable in relationships. Children watch
how adults interact. They learn from you. Strong, positive relationships boost your innie’s belief that relating is worth the energy outlay.

Encourage family members to take the Temperament Quiz on
page 16
in
Chapter 1
. See what people say about their scores. What do they think about other family members’ results? Do the scores reflect how people act in the family? Assessing the whole family’s temperament could be fun and enlightening. Kids—especially innies—can observe and say the darndest things.…

The Range of Family Temperaments

“
I believe that basically people are people, it’s our differences that charm, delight, and frighten us.” —Agnes Newton Keith

I have a friend, a fellow introverted psychologist, who is married to another introverted psychologist. They spawned two introverted daughters. Randy laughs about their favorite family outing: They trek over to their preferred bookstore and each selects a book. They then grab a quick bite and go home and read by the fire. Pretty exciting, eh? It is unusual for everyone in the family to be an introvert with such similar interests. But it certainly streamlines those discussions of what to do on a free night!

When people share temperaments, they enjoy a special understanding that comes from seeing the world in similar ways. This leads to an environment that is predictable, congenial, and easily creates a sense of belonging. A child and a parent who are alike may develop a special bond. Their goals mesh and they communicate easily. Too many similarities, however, can become constricting, reinforce weaknesses, or create rigid patterns. People who are alike can also step on each other’s toes; alas, similarities sometimes breed contempt.

The truth is that looking at our kids and seeing ourselves in them
or
seeing traits alien to us can push our buttons in different ways. A family that I see in therapy has three children who are outies and one son who is a classic innie. They are very active and frequently travel. When they enter a new hotel room or visit a site, the introverted son hangs back. He doesn’t race around, expressing his excitement with his siblings. His parents conclude that he doesn’t appreciate the trip. Sometimes his folks feel frustrated and think he’s spoiled. His mother asks me, “Why isn’t he excited? Why doesn’t he join in?” Needless to say, this prompted a conversation about temperament. Now they know that his way of exploring may not look like theirs.

Adjust your child-rearing expectations to your child’s temperament. Remember, too, that you and your spouse have temperaments that will have an affect on your child. Keep an eye out for temperament-based stumbling blocks in your relationships with your children, innie and outie.

Innie Parents with Innie Kids

An innie parent and an innie child can enjoy simple pleasures like lazing around and watching a video, reading books side by side on the couch, or kicking back together and drawing all afternoon while they listen to the rain tapping on the roof. They easily fall into sync. They may value and share each other’s interests and know each other well. But this cozy congeniality can have a downside: Sometimes they may have trouble getting themselves up and out of the house and can get stuck in a rut. Then they don’t expand their social circle or stretch themselves in unfamiliar experiences.

Some parents recall feeling isolated as innie children themselves. As a result, they may be concerned that their children are introverts and may attempt to change them. Here is how one introverted dad describes it: “I worry that Jordon is too much like me. I know he keeps a lot inside. I try to give him space to talk. Maybe I should push him to be more outgoing. Every time I think that, I remember how shut down I felt when my parents pressured me as a kid. I try to let him know it’s okay to be introverted, that I know what it’s like.”