Read Online The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child by Marti Olsen Laney Psy.d. - Free Book Online

marks the line between the front and the back of the brain (the bonnet and the boot). The brain is also often described by the duties of the four main lobes: Temporal, Frontal, Parietal, and Occipital .
    Although you can’t change your child’s hardwiring, you can help him integrate the four areas of his brain in a rather simple way. You can tell him your life story, and you can encourage him to tell his. Forming a narrative that makes sense and being able to share it weaves together these four parts of the brain. Sharing stories bridges the introverted personal world with other humans in the extroverted outside world. And it helps us reflect on and store our experiences in our memory banks. Bonds are deepened between people because we are enriched by hearing others’ stories and gratified by having our own stories heard.
    This has particular relevance to parents of innies. Outies live their lives acting in the outside world. They function based on currentsensory information and old memories by responding with quick talking, thinking, and acting, and they rely on their short-term memory. They also need to talk and develop shared stories, but if they don’t, they can still function adequately. However, they will lack some amount of self-reflection and a basic tool to build social skills: imitating other people.
    Innies, however, live internally, and they need someone to draw them out. Without a parent who listens and reflects back to them, like an echo, what they are thinking, they can get lost in their own minds. Their thoughts and feelings may become disconnected. And they don’t store their experiences in their dominant memory system: long-term memory. Innies in particular need to know that someone out there hears them: “I hear you—your thoughts and feelings are real. They are important, and you can organize and use them in the outside world.” Innies also need to practice testing their inner perceptions in the outside world. This will strengthen their innate gifts and beef up the other areas of their brain.
    The Heart of the Matter
• Innies and outies travel different brain pathways and use opposite sides of the nervous system .
• Behaviors differ when kids are dominant in the back or front of the brain or on the left or right hemisphere .
• All children use less dominant regions of their brain, but it takes more effort and the results aren’t as effective .

CHAPTER 3
Introverts’ Advantages in an Extroverts World
    Learn to Highlight Your Child’s Hidden Gifts
    “ Our culture made a virtue of our living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.” —Anaïs Nin
    Jeannette, a mother of two, confided that she can’t stand to watch her eight-year-old son, Colin, on the baseball field. He has just joined the team and only has a few games under his belt. “It frustrates me to watch him hang back while all his teammates rush onto the field,” she says. She and her husband wonder if he has enough motivation. He didn’t look aggressive enough when he stepped into the batter’s box. Like Steve Martin’s son in the movie Parenthood , Colin just limply waved the bat at the ball as it zipped past him.
    Jeff, a single, divorced dad, is concerned about his eleven-year-old daughter. “Molly looks at her shoes and doesn’t look people in the eye when she talks,” he said. “She speaks slowly, and sometimes pauses when she’s trying to find just the right word. I get nervous because I think kids will stop listening to what she’s saying. Sometimes I jump in to finish her sentences. That’s probably worse—she may not want to talk at all.”
Boys Will Be …?
All innies experience some discrimination, but boys who are innies face even more challenges than girls. Our culture isn’t always thrilled with boys who are quiet, enjoy solitary activities like reading, and aren’t aggressive. The myth is that being masculine, by