Maybe the kid just needs a little help.

Parenting is my favorite career so far. I have had two others: one in sales and the other in education. Teaching offered job satisfaction closer to parenting but there's nothing like being a mom. I have two boys who are 3 1/2 years apart in age but worlds apart in how they have developed to date. My 7 1/2 year old boy is precocious and his 4 year old brother is immature. They are both within the normal range of abilities with one exception each. My older boy was tested at 5 with a series of tests normed for 6 year olds and scored off the charts on cognition. My younger son has multi-sensory integration deficits and at 3 1/2 was a year or two behind on some skills including speech. My focus at this point is still to maintain their self-esteem, help them bond as family members, and teach them the basics of decision making. I simply need to go about it in completely different ways. Therein lies the art of parenting and teaching: make sure they get the information and can use it independently while protecting their self-image and fostering the best of their innate personality.

You have to know your kids strengths and weaknesses. You cannot put blinders on toward the latter. Knowing their weaknesses and how to compensate will make all the difference in the future. Fostering their strenghts will help them find purpose and direction in their lives. Be an honest, loving parent and you will do a good job. I live by it. I have gotten both my kids the help they needed as soon as I saw that my husband and I couldn't do it alone.

My older boy is a type-A personality. He stresses himself out about things, loses his temper easily, and always has to be doing something. When his little brother was born he got angry at me for the time I had to spend with the baby and for replacing him with another baby. He regressed in toileting and started sucking his thumb. By age 4 he was acting out against me by hitting and saying mean things and by 4 1/2 he was hitting and threatening peers. He didn't do it often with peers because it was an anger management issue and so he had to be truly angry before he would act out. With me, if he just didn't like what I wanted him to do or was annoyed by my parenting, then I would pay. He started to get that way with his grandparents, too. He slept over at my mother-in-law's house once a month until this began and then she didn't feel comfortable keeping him because she couldn't handle his moodiness and anger. The child psychologist had it all straightened out within 6 months. By the time he started kindergarten he was himself again.

My little guy is in a self-contained pre-school and it has made a noticable difference within months. After 8 weeks of going for 2 1/2 hours each day and getting speech and occupational therapy 3 times a week, we noticed his full-blown anger tantrums stopped. His ability to express every thought and feeling has improved. He's becoming a little chatter box and puts fewer things in his mouth. His listening has improved and so has his imaginative play. He's even begun to be scared of ghosts in the dark. That may seem like a funny thing to be happy about, but by age 4 a child should show some normal expressions of fear. It's all good. It's all healthy. It's just what I would have hoped for him. I don't want to rush him into kindergarten. He is immature. He'll start when he's 6, but now I know he'll be ready to learn and fully participate in kindergarten and I know there will be professionals who know him and can help him feel successful from the very beginning.

Parenting is not about brag books and trophies. It is about little people who have to learn and grow into successful and happy big people. It is about stepping back and discovering the resources within yourself and all aound you that will help your children to blossom and grow into normal, healthy members of society. So if the kid is struggling with anger or learning or anything else, don't let them languish, maybe the kid just needs a little help.