The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child (17 page)

Children do better with toys and activities that offer them the freedom to explore, imagine, build, and observe. To this end, I suggest choosing open-ended playthings and activities, such as blocks and other construction toys, dolls, and art supplies. The great outdoors also offers children myriad opportunities to use their imagination—rocks, sticks, leaves, and flowers can all be turned into toys, and kids can derive hours of pleasure from watching bugs and animals. Most innies find that nature restores their energy, and they tend to seek it out. It can be slow-paced and a nourishing and subtle teacher. I remember a valuable lesson I learned about life when my friend Sharon and I built a fort out of bamboo and old chunks of wood in the river bottom near our homes. We had a terrific rainstorm and, when Sharon and I went to check on the fort, we saw that every last stick had been swept away. I remember feeling awed by the power of nature. We lamented our loss and then rebuilt our fort on higher ground. As I have mentioned, innies’ brains flash back and rewind their experiences. During this review, innies can apply the lessons learned. I never forgot the destructive power and the resilience nature showed me in that river bottom. Remembering this helped me later in life to rebuild after losing homes in two major earthquakes and a fire.

Playing with Your Child

When you play with your child, you are strengthening your emotional bond. It’s a good way to spend time together. But not all play styles are equal. Researchers have found that children demonstrate less creativity when parents direct the play or make the rules. Children, especially innies, act out their internal lives when given room to play spontaneously. They’ll be thrilled to have your company, but they don’t need you to do everything for them!

DO:

• Offer some guidance on which materials to use. “Shall we see what we can do with the blocks now?”

• Ask open-ended questions. “Your building looks cool. What are you making?”

• Allow your child to direct the play. Follow his lead.

DON’T
:

• Make specific suggestions, like: “Let’s use those blocks to make a bridge.”

• Guess what she is making; she may feel judged or pressured.

• Give orders or take charge of the play.

Play provides a fresh viewpoint, which develops a child’s social and cognitive skills. Play also provides room to succeed or fail in safety. With play, innies are protected from consequences as they practice for real life. Innies like to be prepared; they don’t like to be caught unawares. An innie’s preplanning part of the brain thinks through and imagines alternatives. Rehearsing uses less energy
and
prepares a child for action in the real world.

An Innie Playbook

Tailoring play for innies develops their unique talents. Innies can be overwhelmed by too many supplies, toys, or playmates. On the other hand, they can be underwhelmed by toys that don’t require thinking, creativity, or problem solving. Here are a few tips:

• Keep some toys in the closet and rotate them so that there are always new things to try but never too many at once.

• Select basic toys, such as stuffed animals, Legos, tea sets, trucks, Play-Doh, crayons, and paper that leave room for the imagination. Innies tend to be creative, and abstract thinking comes easily to them. Innies can use these basic toys, such as building blocks, to replicate in the real world any idea they come up with internally.

•
Innies like one-on-one play. Provide your child with opportunities for playing with another child or an adult with whom he’s comfortable.

• Encourage her observing skills. The natural ability to perceive what others don’t notice is one of the greatest advantages innies possess. Later in life many innies will use this ability in their careers as writers, scientists, psychologists, or teachers, to name but a few jobs requiring observation skills. Give your child a disposable camera or spy toys, and play games like charades and Guess Who?

• Innies find water play soothing. Give your child plenty of bath toys, funnels, sponges, pitchers, pouring cups, and tub appliqués. Finger paints and watercolors are also favorites.

• Find toys that fit your innie’s particular interests, whether animals, soldiers, woodworking, music, or dolls.

• Acting in plays, writing songs and stories, artwork, ceramics, and doing craft projects are ways tweens and teens play. Learning card, and other, games teaches valuable social skills such as winning and losing and playing by the rules.

Those Electronic Houseguests

“
I find TV very educational. Every time someone switches it on, I go into another room and read a book.” —Groucho Marx

There are several things to consider when thinking about children and the media. (By media I mean any TV programs, DVDs, videos, radio, newspapers, magazines, video games, computer games, or the Internet.) One is the content, another is the medium itself, and a third is what your child is missing out on while she is involved with the media. You needn’t be fearful of the media. It’s part of our world, and there is a place for what it offers. Innies can use the media to get out of their own heads. It affords them new input and gives them a break from their active minds for a while. They find most forms of media relaxing for this reason. Many innies listen to the radio or music, or watch TV to help them go to sleep. Innies, unlike many outies, actually learn through using the media. They like the science, animal, and history channels, for instance. Often they do research on the Internet. Most innies (including adults) love to be read to, so they enjoy books on tape.

Screens, Screens Everywhere

Parents these days are concerned about electronic media’s influence on their kids, particularly since it seems to be everywhere. While it certainly has some downsides, there are some upsides as well. The key is to limit screen time and to make sure your kids discuss what they are seeing with you. For instance, encourage them to use their judgment skills to assess how advertisers try to manipulate them.

Negative Aspects of Electronic Media
:

• It’s mesmerizing, addictive, and overstimulating.

• It reduces imagination and creativity.

• It shortens one’s attention span.

• It reduces time for reading and other activities.

Positive Aspects of Electronic Media
:

• It takes innies out of their active minds.

• It relaxes them.

• It sometimes depicts other countries, other interests, and other ways to live.

• It sometimes teaches about history, nature, science, and culture.

• It may expand imagination and storytelling ability, if discussed with others.

What You Can Do
:

• Limit screen time to one or two hours a day.

• Play a video game with your kids, making it an interactive experience rather than just electronic solitaire.

• Discuss the differences between real life and TV.

• Talk to your child about violence on TV, explaining that it is make-believe rather than a reflection of real life.

• Talk to your child about commercials on TV, explaining that you don’t have to buy something simply because it looks cool or because someone else says you should have it.

• Finally, ask your child what he has seen related to particular issues or events. Children often know more than you think they do about world events. It’s important that they are able to discuss their knowledge and ideas with someone close to them.

But media intake has to be monitored. When it comes to TV, kids are bombarded with crass, often manipulative, commercials targeted right at them. And, while there are some good shows on television, it’s also rife with crude, violent, and frightening images and disturbing story lines. Children need adults to watch with them so they can intervene, if needed, and respond to any questions their kids might have. It’s important to discuss with your innie the shows, games, and other media they interact with—they need help to digest all the data they have taken in.

Remember, introverted children are very perceptive. Sometimes they’ve only picked up fragments of information. This can be more confusing and upsetting than having all the facts before them. The
problem is that they might not know how to introduce the topic or to know what questions to ask.

I met with the family of a six-year-old boy soon after the attacks of September 11, 2001. I asked the parents whether they had talked about these events with their son. They said, “Oh, he doesn’t know much about it. We keep the TV news off.” I said, “You’d probably be surprised by what he
does
know.” Sure enough, they were stunned to discover his familiarity with terms like
terrorist, suicide
, and
hijack
. Once he started talking about it, he asked questions about how the pieces of the story that he knew so far all fit together.

Children need to have the chance to talk about these things with parents. Knowledge about the problems in the world can weigh heavily on a small child, especially a quiet, insightful introvert. She needs to be able to ask questions and to have her view corrected or enlarged. Otherwise, she’ll mull it over in her busy little head, ad infinitum. And that’s a lot for a child to deal with.

The Importance of Chat Time

“
It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.” —From the film
Alice in Wonderland

Talk for at least fifteen minutes each day with your innie. Chatting is a powerful linking tool with innies, showing that you are a partner and affirming their place on the family team. It gives your child “hap hits” and develops her trust in you and her understanding of her mind. Listen to what she says, mull it over, and respond with an open attitude. Ask questions with curiosity. “What happened at recess?” “What did you learn today that you never knew before?” “Why do you think Susie likes to play with you?” Don’t interrogate, judge, or attempt to fix the child’s problems or feelings. Ask what she thinks she can do to solve her own problems. Try playful role-playing: “If you had that to do over again, what would you do?”

Chat Crafters

Sometimes it’s hard to get a conversation started or, once you begin, to keep it going. Here are a few tips for getting your innie to open up.

• Avoid yes and no questions—Ask the “w” questions: why, where, what, or who?

• Ask for specifics—What was the most fun thing you did at school today?

• Ask for details—How did your butterfly presentation go?

When you listen to your innie, it helps him practice sharing his inner world with others. He needs you to engage in conversation and discuss what’s on both your minds. It draws him out and reduces the possibility that he will get stuck in his head. With daily chats, innies learn they have interesting things to say. He needs a safe interaction, in which you listen without discounting his thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and questions. He will learn, “My ideas are worth listening to.” Dialogue is a powerful strategy to affirm, broaden, and encourage even very young innies.

Chat time is a good time to snuggle. Relaxing together during bath time, bedtime, or just lazing around is a good time for an innie to surprise you with what’s on his mind. Casual talking, asking questions without pressure, and thinking about something together free him up. Learn what kinds of topics pull him out—sometimes if you share something, he’ll open up.

One of my clients just started up a fifteen-minute chat time with her seven-year-old daughter, Elise. The two are both innies and have a prickly relationship. The mother doesn’t like to play, and she expects Elise to be an adult. After much urging on my part and dangling the carrot of reduced spats, the mom finally instituted a chat time. So every night before lights out, they rest on Elise’s bed and muse about their days. It’s a time of casual unhurried conversation. The mother is surprised that her daughter will now casually say, “We can talk about that tonight during chat time.” Elise is sharing more about her life with her mom and even asking for advice. Their tiffs are fewer.

Book It

Most innies love to read. In an online survey of introverts, when asked what they remembered as their favorite childhood pastime, they listed reading first. They enjoyed going on imaginary adventures and getting to know the characters in the stories.

Use your innie’s love of reading as a means of getting closer. One way to do this is to read the same book and discuss it together. Or ask your child to tell you about what he is reading. Why does he like this book and not that one? Discuss books you have enjoyed.

The touching film
One True Thing
portrays the gulf between an outie mother (housewife) and an innie daughter (writer) played by Meryl Streep and Renée Zellweger, respectively. The mother suggests that she and her daughter form a book club—just the two of them. Through discussing the books together, the daughter’s eyes are opened to a new view of her mother’s interior world.

Innies love to be read to—many tell me it’s their most pleasant memory from their childhood. Choose a book you’ll both love, and round out your chat time with a story or a chapter of a novel. Discuss the plotline and the characters. When you encounter something in your daily life that reminds you of the book, mention it.