Spirited child

What It Means

A spirited child is one who is more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent and energetic than most children, in the words of parent educator Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, who coined the term in her book Raising Your Spirited Child. She treats it as a matter of inborn temperamentTemperamentA child's inborn style of reacting to the world, like how active, regular, intense or quick to adapt they are, which shapes behavior from infancy. See more. Spirited is her own term, used outside both medical diagnosis and the three types Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess described. In their New York Longitudinal Study, begun in the 1950s, they rated infants from 2 months of age on nine traits, using parents' reports, and described three broad types: easy, difficult and slow-to-warm-upSlow-to-warm-up childOne of Thomas and Chess's three temperament types: a child who holds back from new people and places at first, then warms up with repeated exposure. See more.

How Parents Say It

• "My kid is spirited, to put it nicely."
• "Everything with him is at full volume."
• "Once she decides something, there's no moving her."

The Breakdown

How it can look by age (our examples of Kurcinka's five words)

Kurcinka's approach. The revised edition of Raising Your Spirited Child is built around three ideas: calm, connect and coach. Her site describes it as strength-based, helping parents understand both their child's inborn temperament and their own.

Try it today. Give a warning before a transition, plan an outlet for energy before a long sit-down, and name the trait in a positive way ("you really stick with things").

When to talk to the doctor. CDC recommends talking with your child's doctor about any concern with how your child plays, learns, speaks, acts or moves. Ask if outbursts are frequent or intense enough to hurt people, or if sleep, eating, friendships or school are suffering. The doctor can look at whether something besides temperament is involved.

Where It Comes From

Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, an EdD parent educator, coined "spirited child" and wrote Raising Your Spirited Child, subtitled as a guide for parents whose child is more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent and energetic. She also wrote Raising Your Spirited Baby, Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles and Sleepless in America.

Good to Know

Spirited is Kurcinka's term, and it isn't one of the four areas on CDC's milestone checklists. The closest official framing is temperament, which HealthyChildren.org, the AAP's site for parents, describes as a child's mostly inborn emotional style. Several of Kurcinka's words line up with traits Thomas and Chess rated, such as intensity, persistence and activity level.

Related Terms and Categories

• Temperament

  A child's inborn style of reacting to the world, like how active, regular, intense or quick to adapt they are, which shapes behavior from infancy.

• Highly sensitive child

  Researcher Elaine Aron's term for a child with the trait she calls sensory processing sensitivity: deep processing, easily overstimulated, strongly responsive.

• Easy temperament

  One of Thomas and Chess's three temperament types: a child with regular eating and sleeping, who adapts readily to change and is mostly in a positive mood.

• Slow-to-warm-up child

  One of Thomas and Chess's three temperament types: a child who holds back from new people and places at first, then warms up with repeated exposure.

• Emotional regulation

  The growing ability to notice a feeling and manage how strongly it shows and how long it lasts, so a child can calm down and carry on.

Parenting and child development