Great Kids (1 of 2 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
Great Kids by Stanley I. Greenspan M.D.. Copyright2007 by Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D.
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.

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GREAT KIDS
Helping Your Baby and Child Develop the Ten Essential Qualities for a Happy, Healthy Life

Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D.

This book is dedicated to all the children of the world. They all have within them the potential to be great kids. It's our job to create a great world where this potential can flourish.

PREFACE
http://www.dailylit.com/books/great-kids/preface

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
http://www.dailylit.com/books/great-kids/acknowledgments


INTRODUCTION: GROWING GREAT KIDS

You know who they are. They're the fourth-grade boys who dash out to be first to greet their teacher and help her unload her car. They're the sixteen-year-old girls who invite a new classmate to sit with them at lunch. They're the toddlers who take turns and shout with glee at the slide, and the infants who gaze lovingly into their mothers' eyes.

They're great kids. How many times have you said, "That Josh is a great kid" or "I like my daughter's soccer teammates. They're great kids." We hear the phrase often, and we know what we mean when we say it. We're not talking about kids who get 1600s on their combined SATs or tennis champions or music prodigies--although of course those kids, too, can be great kids. We're talking about the lively, independent, friendly, and optimistic young people so many of us are lucky to know. Despite all the bad news about children today that seems to clog the airwaves, anyone who lives or works with kids knows that there's good news, too.

"Great kids" are emotionally and intellectually healthy people. "Great" doesn't refer to a specific temperamental quality, such as boldness; nor does it depend on athletic skills or on musical or mathematical or artistic talent. Great kids come in all varieties. And, given the right nurturing and encouragement, all kids can be great kids.

Emotional and intellectual health involves some fundamental abilities and traits that underlie the skills and talents children may eventually develop. These abilities and traits have to do with how children (and adults) relate to one another and to the outside world. They begin to form in infancy and make possible the pursuit of success, wisdom, and rich relationships at every stage of life.

Engagement and empathy, for instance, begin with the first parent/infant exchanges and continue to fuel our understanding of, and caring for, the community and world we live in. Curiosity and logical thinking are the foundations of any kind of academic study, innovation, and organizational leadership. And without building the crucial abilities of self-awareness, emotional balance, and discipline, the potential of even the most gifted child will be at risk.

These qualities, and others that I'll describe in this book, are the source of children's future achievements and happiness. As we shall see, they all take root in early emotional experience, and parents can do a lot to offer such experience. Whatever children's degree of physical, intellectual, or artistic talent, these qualities expand the possibilities for their future.

The ten crucial traits described here comprise a child's intellectual and mental health. When all ten are present and fully functioning in a child, that's when we're likely to hear parents and other adults say, "Alicia (or Andy) is such a great kid." In fact, when we hear an adult described as "a great person," it's almost certainly because these ten skills are there.

Perhaps the most important point about these traits is that they are not wired in our genes--we aren't born with them. They come from experience, which means that each and every child--even those with challenges--can strive to acquire them, with the help of caring adults. In this book, I'll unbraid the strands of great kids' intellectual, emotional, and social selves to find out how these traits develop. We will see in detail the kinds of nurturing that encourage each trait. We will also see how emotional and intellectual development are dynamically intertwined throughout a child's development.

What do most parents want for their children? I believe there are three essentials: Parents want their children to have happy and fulfilled lives, raise healthy families of their own, and contribute to society in a meaningful way. The characteristics of great kids identified here represent the skills needed to accomplish each of these goals. It's a long journey from infancy through toddlerhood and the early school years, then on through adolescence to the cusp of adulthood. A "great kid" moves through identifiable intellectual and emotional landscapes and past important landmarks along the way.

With each step toward selfhood, children learn new cognitive skills. As we shall see, these are built upon their emotional experiences. As they grow, children move through the full range of emotions--joy, sadness, anger, love, triumph, and loss. The traits that we describe grow through such emotional experiences and along clear developmental stages.

Before I begin, let's look at the developmental roadmap that I'll be referring to in each chapter as I discuss the ten characteristics of "great kids" in detail. A child must reach certain landmarks on the road to adulthood. We all traveled this road; now our children are embarking on it. Before we look closely at the specific pathways to empathy and curiosity and emotional balance and all the other characteristics, let's look at the stages through which they will develop.

Awakening to the World. Beginning at birth, we learn how to be calm and regulated and to take an interest in the world and all its sensations of touch, sound, smell, and taste.

Engaging and Relating. As we become part of relationships with our parents and caregivers and the others who love us, we, in turn, fall in love with the world.

Communicating. The long process of learning how to communicate with those we love starts with the simplest of purposeful gestures: smiles, head nods, frowns, angry grimaces, deliberate pointing. Most important, we learn how to respond to our caregivers' gestures with gestures of our own.

Problem Solving and a Sense of Self. Long before we learn to use words to any degree, we learn to use gestures to solve problems. We figure out that we can take a parent by the hand and walk to the toy or cookie that we want. We make gurgling sounds to show that it's this one, not that one, as the parent questions us about our preference. This continuous flow of gesturing with others helps us use our senses of hearing, vision, touch, and movement as a well-orchestrated team. We feel ourselves acting on the world and, through social interactions, we learn about our parents' values and the norms of our culture. All this happens before we can speak.

Language and Ideas. Now, we learn to connect and use emotional ideas. They guide our pretend play. Words now make it possible for us to let others know how we feel and what we want them to do for us.

Logic. Once we learn to share our ideas, we take another huge leap and begin to build bridges between them. We begin to think logically. We can explain why we're happy or sad. We also learn to refrain from something not just because we'll be punished for it but because it's "wrong." Our feelings about ourselves begin to be based on our own evaluation of whether we've done the right or wrong thing.

Once we've crossed into the world of logical thinking and connecting our emotions and ideas together, we can master higher and higher levels of emotional and intellectual development. As we grow into adulthood, we move through other predictable stages, more sophisticated kinds of thinking, and self-reflection.

In this journey that we all make, we will see how the key traits that we've identified continue to expand and enhance the lives of great kids. By nurturing them, we can help our children build close relationships, productive careers, strong families, and a deepening sense of the meaning they choose to give to their lives.

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