High energy people can be the most productive, most creative, most curious, highly intellectual people you know. As children, they can be exhausting, ever playing, constantly questioning, persistently moving, never yielding, excessively dramatic, ready to run, dance, yell, and essentially, celebrate being alive. High energy children are filled with potential and challenge. What is to be done with these mixed blessings particularly if they’re imprisoned by today’s Coronavirus Order?
For us, there was a time when we absolutely loved but didn’t much like our daughter. That is very hard to admit, particularly in this venue. But it’s true. Shelli was a very strong-willed child whose energy usually exceeded our understanding and often our patience. Her high energy, though, wasn’t hyperactive, just very strong willed and curious. Our youngest, Kevin, was also high energy, not hyperactive, but just had to use his body – period. Both of them, we are proud to say, have survived into adulthood and are thriving. Looking back, there are things we did well and things we’d do differently. Here are some thoughts.
1. Teaching self-control: Recently, we were at dinner near a large party consisting of 2 or 3 families. There were 5 young girls who looked to be under the age of 10 playing with each other. One little girl did a cartwheel in the restaurant. They were loud, in constant little girl motion, and fairly obnoxious to everyone sitting nearby. They were out of control. The parents never said a single word to the kids. The essence of it appeared that the parents wanted some ‘friend time’ and let the kids just be kids. However, our view is that the long-term consequences of allowing uncontrolled behavior and ignoring society’s ‘mild disapproval’ sends your child a clear message: a) You are free to be childish and we don’t care; b) You are the center of the universe; c) You are apart from us.
We believe these families are in for trouble ahead. Children should be under the governance of parental awareness and control until such time as they demonstrate the ability to self-control. We have received countless stories from teachers describing the interactions with children who lack self-control. The correlation between self-control, self-discipline, and academic achievement is clear. How your child behaves in a restaurant is related to school success.(Previous Letter on Self-Control).
2. Teaching focus: With today’s constant ping of electronics, distraction is the enemy of focus. The addictive dopamine hits from games and phones is something each of us understands all too well. For young developing brains screen time severely hampers disciplining the mind to focus. When your high-energy child wants to play an electronic game and you’re thinking that you need a break from the child’s antics for an hour or so, just be aware of the tradeoffs. Games don’t teach focus. Being quiet and engaged in the game provides a false sense of focus because that type of concentration is not transferable to other endeavors. Brain focus is practiced self-discipline to withstand the call of chasing rabbits down a thousand holes. Games don’t teach that. They are the rabbit.
Instead, balance electronic time with reading or playing unstructured games. Every screen hour would require 2 hours of reading, homework, or just playing. For high energy kids (really every child), develop something they find interesting to explore and help them achieve a mastery of the topic. Teach them to be interested in the outside world. For super high energy kids, try having them sit on a bouncy ball when reading; or like our daughter did, walk around while doing homework; or like our son who jumped on the trampoline or threw a ball between study sessions.
3. Playing instead of training: Disciplines can be a by-product of playing just like from training. However, playing is more fun. You can learn skills by playing. You can repeat lessons through playing. You can enjoy learning from playing. One technique we used for learning math tables was bouncing on the trampoline where every bounce equated to the next number (“ok, count by 7’s”). When they got it wrong, they’d give up the trampoline and it was the next child’s turn. In other areas, the mistake we made with Kevin was trying to develop an adult-like training at an age where he just wanted to play. By taking the approach we did, all we accomplished was taking the fun and motivation out of the sport. Our first-born had a different learning style than our third child. We just assumed the two boys would be the same. Our encouragement to you is, as always, to study your child and learn their temperament and unique personality and make adjustments accordingly. We should have modified our approach and played with Kev more. Although we did lose out on seeing him thrive in sports, he did well enough to be happy and is a very well-balanced young man today.
Teaching self-control begins with setting reasonable boundaries and then helping your child gain self-understanding within those boundaries. Being sensitive to the child’s temperament and helping them find the techniques that allow them to develop the skill of focus is a critical element of growing up. And finding a creative way to modify the formula for harnessing their personal energy into reading, memorizing, calculating, brainstorming, and focusing helps them gain confidence in intellectual endeavors.
It cannot be overstated that high energy children are a fountain of joy and blessing. However, helping them direct the flow of God’s gift into productive activity is infinitely better than drugging them or diverting them into electronic distraction. The challenge is substantial, but the rewards are immense.
Lis and Dave Marr