A Parenting Book Made for Me and Evan

Some of you already know that a book I put on hold at the library awhile ago finally came in this week (because I've already started to talk your ear off about it!) and it's called "Raising Your Spirited Child: a guide for parents whose child is more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent and energetic." I first heard about this book on my friend Tristan's blog. She has a child that fits this description too and talked about how this book was immensely helpful to her so that's when I immediately put it on hold because I said "hmm, this sounds like me and Evan!". If you are wondering "what is a spirited child?" "do I need to read this book?" then my answer would be nope! you probably don't need to read it! If you have a spirited child, there's no need to wonder about it, you KNOW it. lol!
The really interesting thing is when I'm reading this book it's like I'm finding all the answers to my concerns with how to deal with Evan answered (I feel like this book is reading my mind!) that I've been wondering about for forever, but I'm also finding out things about ME that I never knew how to deal with before. I know Evan and I are a lot alike. I was a very spirited child and there's a lot of things, as a now spirited adult, I'm able to manage well, but there's always been things about my personality I've never understood or knew how to manage. And it's really worried me that I'm supposed to teach my child how to manage something I can't manage in myself. My parents did a great job raising me and helped me out in a lot of ways, but I was really, really hard to deal with as a small child and some of those things carried over as an adult. It's like, if you don't learn how to manage some things as a child, you grow up and still don't know how to manage them. One of those things is my intense temper. I've struggled for years with my blowups, and having a child just like me with the same tendency really gets things crazy around here sometimes. And the book talks about intensity and how not to be afraid of it and how to watch for cues when things are getting too intense and how one needs to get out of the situation and go do a calming activity. So, this morning for instance, we were all in the same room and the baby was starting to cry and fuss and Evan was getting whiny and demanding and Steven wasn't engaging the situation like I was hoping he would and I could feel myself getting steamed and overwhelmed. Then, I realized these cues in myself that I needed to get out of the situation before I blew, so I picked the baby up, and went downstairs to have breakfast. And it worked! I didn't blow up and I could feel myself immediately calming down. In the past, I would have picked a fight with Steve to get him to help which would have made the children even more agitated and then blown up when my "plan" to defuse the situation backfired. Instead, the baby and I got breakfast and Steve dealt with Evan in my absence like I sensed he would. And these same tactics work for Evan. I really could go on and on, but it's amazing how finding the right book has suddenly given me the tools I've been formerly lacking in my life to deal with so many things so much better. It's a true blessing!! One which I can tell I'll probably blog about several more times! Lucky!!
here's a link to copy and paste that leads to a really good article that sums up the book and what spirited children are very well: http://parenting.ivillage.com/gs/gsbehavior/0,,45pv,00.html