Week 4, Wednesday (thoughts on quiet children)

For a long time I've been meaning to write something about a book that I read over the summer.  It's called "Quiet" and it is written by Susan Cain.  Another parent who has children at the American School of Barcelona lent me the book as we were talking about our children and their difficulties with school.  The subtitle of the book says: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking.

At first glance, I figured that the book would relate more to Nathan (my eldest son) who has always been extremely quiet.  In fact his middle name is Kiyoshi, which in Japanese mean quiet or peaceful child.   But after just a couple of pages, I realized that this book was really about Ciara.  In fact I had never thought of Ciara as an introvert, but she displays pretty much all the characteristics.  After reading this book I really felt as though I had misdiagnosed Ciara's behaviour all these years.

The first part that really caught my attention was the study by Jerome Kagan, a developmental psychologist, who studied 500 four month old babies to see how they reacted to new experiences.  Kagan found that infants who reacted strongly to new sights, sounds and smells had a good chance of becoming future introverts.  Anyone who knew Ciara when she was a baby, knew that she was a highly reactive baby.  We didn't know why, but everything used to upset her.  At the time, we could only define it as colic, that mysterious, unexplainable constant crying.  We used to have to wrap her up as tight as we could, put her in pitch darkness and make sure that there was absolutely no outside noise in order for her to sleep.

According to Jay Belsky, a psychologist and child care expert, the nervous systems of high reactive children are quickly overwhelmed by childhood adversity, but also benefit from a nurturing environment more than other children do.  Kagan found that a quarter of the high-reactive kids he studied suffered from "social anxiety disorder," a disabling form of shyness.

I have never thought of Ciara as shy, because at times she seems bolder than most kids, but it's the crippling social anxiety that makes her seem shy to others.  This is why Ciara has always  seemed like such a paradox to me.   On one hand, she can be very expressive, outgoing, determined and adventurous but when she is in an uncertain or challenging situation, like school, she shuts down and has problems even speaking.

So I highly recommend you read "Quiet" if you are or live with someone who is introverted.  It was really an enlightening book and helped me to realize that homeschool for Ciara really made sense.