Do you have a high maintenance child?

“Thank God my second child wasn’t born first. I would have stopped at a boy if it was my first,” said a mother at a recent parenting seminar.

Many parents can identify with this sentiment. Nature has a way of evening the score for parents. If you have an easy firstborn, hold on to your hat because the second, third, or fourth child is likely to bring you back to reality.

Most families have one child who takes up more of the parent’s time, energy, and mental space than others. These high-maintenance children engage in all kinds of misbehaviors to keep their parents busy or at their service. They may complain or whine to get their way. You may be interrupted just as you’ve started a conversation or settled down to chat on the phone. They may even embarrass you in front of your friends or start pulling the cat’s tail right when you decide to nurse a younger sibling. They can be whiny, self-indulgent, argumentative, bossy, and just plain stubborn.

And even worse, they are often just high-maintenance kids to their parents. Take them to daycare, preschool or school and attention demands are drastically reduced. “How was she today?” you ask when you pick up your child at the end of the day. You feel crestfallen when the adult in charge responds, “No problem. She was great!” But even worse, you know that when you get home the demands on your time and attention will begin and won’t stop until she (or you) falls asleep.

High-maintenance kids are demanding, infuriating, and exhausting. They also take up your time and energy that you would like to devote to your other children. You’d love to spend more time with Perfect Pete, but Turbo Terry, Argumentative Aaron, or Whining Willemina keep doing those things that they do so well.

So what is the solution? What is the cure? That is hard. There is no magic pill for parents. Yes, some children diagnosed with ADHD are regularly given a pill in the form of Ritoline. These little pills have become very popular over the last decade as the number of children diagnosed with ADHD has increased dramatically. Only recently, as a community, have we begun to question the wisdom of keeping a supply of this medication for children. None of my children have had ADHD, so I wouldn’t dare point a finger at any parent who has to live with a child with full-blown Grade A ADHD. Hats off to his dedication and persistence as he must develop this if he wants to live with such a child.

But most high-maintenance kids don’t fall into this category. Many just need to be removed from their parents’ care. We become so adept at responding to these children’s misbehaviors that attending to them becomes routine. So try to break the habit of paying attention when they misbehave. That is hard. When they want your attention, do something completely different. But be prepared for his attention-seeking stuff to escalate. it always does. Ignore the whining and it will get louder. Ignore a child’s constant interruptions while you’re on the phone, and be prepared for an ear-splitting scream to deal with or even a mess to clean up. It is the parents who usually experience the consequences of a high maintenance child’s behavior. That’s the way of the high-maintenance kids.

But you have to change your own way of reacting so your child doesn’t enjoy keeping you busy with him or her. Most parents never do this because the reactionary habit is ingrained and the behavior will escalate, so we will give in to more and more bad behavior. Bad behavior will usually get worse before it gets better. It’s the norm when it comes to high-maintenance kids. That is why they are so difficult to breed. Alternatively, you can continue to give them plenty of B-grade attention when they’re less than perfect and I have a hunch they’ll still grow up to be well-adjusted adults. It is only you as a parent who is struggling in the meantime.

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