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LOOK INSIDE THE BOOK
Here's an excerpt from Parenting the Ephraim's Child.
Do You Have an Ephraim's Child?
How do you know if you have an Ephraim’s Child? Since you have read this far, chances are that you suspect you have one of these special children. The best gauge may be your gut reaction to this list from parents of Ephraim’s Children.
You Might Have an Ephraim’s Child If:
• Upcoming family vacations involving eating out, amusement parks, condos with balconies, plane rides, or car rides give you nightmares. • Silence is a foreshadowing of disaster. • Your child doesn’t cry, he wails. • Taking your child to a movie is more of a workout than going to the gym. • You are already exhausted by the end of breakfast. • You are afraid to program your phone’s memory dial because you know your child will call grandma at 5:30 a.m. when he bounds out of bed. • Your list of instructions to your child takes five minutes. For example: do not hit your brother, or punch him, or kick him, or push him, or head-butt him, or tackle him, do not get off your bed, take off the blankets, throw pillows, toys, or books into your brother’s crib, do not climb on the dresser, pull the clothes out of the drawers, jump on the bed, yell, kick the wall, open the blinds, or take all your clothes off. • Your child’s whole world crashes because you cut her waffle into bite-size pieces and she wanted it whole. • During your child’s 30 minute TV show he has managed to climb all over every piece of furniture in the room—multiple times. • Others look at you, shake their heads and say, “You are in for it.” • You receive parenting books for Christmas.
If you find many of these things a big part of your life you probably have an Ephraim's Child. If you still are unsure, here are some questions:
1. Is your child on the go all day? 2. Is it possible (not that he does it often) for your child to sit for long periods of time when doing something he is interested in? 3. Does/did your child have difficulty going to sleep? From infancy did your child sleep very little, i.e. take very short naps, or have difficulty sleeping through the night? 4. Is your child emotional, with no moderate moods? Does your child's intensity seem to build through the day? 5. Does your child remember things for long periods of time? 6. Does your child have areas where his ability to learn is astounding? 7. Is your child's imagination constantly at work? Does he have a never-ending stream of ideas and projects? 8. Does you child have difficulty with not getting his way? Does telling him "no" bring on abnormal crises or long negotiations? 9. Is your child bossy? Do you have to remind him that you are the parent? 10. Does your child have difficulty transitioning from one activity to another? 11. Do others surprisingly have little or no difficulty with your child?
Temperament We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.
“Temperament generally refers to a child’s inborn behavioral style or innate tendencies to act a certain way. Temperament is reflected in how a child typically approaches, interacts in, and experiences social relationships.” There are distinct differences in how a child responds to the world around him/her. These differences are often due to temperament. There are numerous temperamental traits. A child’s overall temperament is the combination of these individual traits. Temperament is generally considered to be inborn. Many believe that a child’s temperament can be seen in early infancy. You did not do anything to make your Ephraim’s Child a higher maintenance child; it is a result of her temperament. When your child acts in a way that seems completely foreign to you, you might wonder if your child is normal. Ephraim’s Children are normal. They just exhibit certain temperamental traits to a more extreme degree than most people. However, temperament is not rigid or unchanging; it is not fixed. Temperament can be changed and modified depending on how it is managed. Your child’s actual behavior is a function of both her temperament and your parenting. Our job as parents is to work with the plan—our child’s temperament—that nature provided us. You can help your Ephraim’s Child understand his temperament, his strengths, and the potential rough spots. You can emphasize the strengths of your child’s temperament and help him learn to express himself appropriately. For example, your intense child will always care deeply about many things, but with your guidance that intensity can be refined and channeled into motivation and zeal.
It is vital that you understand your child’s temperament. Once you realize that the things he does that just drive you nuts are a product of his temperament, you can begin to work with it. It is liberating to know that your child isn’t acting this way just to get under your skin. He isn’t shrieking to cause a scene; he isn’t acting stubborn to question your authority. There is a reason for some of the baffling behavior. If you know what that reason is, you can begin to parent your child more effectively.
Characteristics of the Ephraim’s Child The defining characteristic of an Ephraim’s Child is more. He is like other children, only more so. “You might have known since pregnancy that this child was different from other kids, normal but different . . . . Or it might not have been until birth, when the nurses in the nursery shook their heads in dismay and wished you luck. It could have been years later. At first you might have thought all kids were like this. Your ‘awakening’ might have come with the birth of a [milder] second child . . . . Or it could have been the birth of your sister-in-law’s child . . . . Your intuition has fought the stares and the indictments brought against you, knowing, believing that this child was tougher to parent, but not quite sure if you were right, and if you were, you didn’t know why.” In our research we found that several authors created nearly the same list of characteristics that a “strong-willed,” “spirited,” or “difficult” child would probably possess. Our experiences with Ephraim’s Children have yielded a very similar list. The first trait—intensity—is present in all Ephraim’s Children. The next four of these characteristics (persistence, adaptability, awareness, and sensitivity) an Ephraim’s Child will almost assuredly exhibit. One or more of another four characteristics (activity, intelligence, control, and independence) are likely to manifest themselves. For each of the nine characteristics there is a varying degree to which they can be displayed. While an Ephraim’s Child will probably not be off the charts in every characteristic she has, she will display enough of them to distinguish her from the average child. Remember, it is not that these traits are in and of themselves extraordinary, it is the degree to which they are demonstrated that sets these kids apart.
