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[quote=Anonymous]What do you do, as a parent, when you find yourself frustrated with your child's personality?  I know this is my problem, not my DD's.  She is who she is, but I am struggling with accepting her and at the same time, straddling the line between pushing her in certain ways and letting her be her.  She is a sweet funny 10 year old girl, but she does not seem to be the least bit curious about the world around her, does not engage much in school (she tells me all the time that she hates school but wishes she liked it), is  a little introverted around friends so she's not out there seeking to play with neighborhood kids, never wants to read or draw or create anything, just wants to play on a screen.  I can understand the introversion (I was pretty introverted as a kid, and very sensitive to boot), but it drive me crazy to see her not want to engage in ANYTHING.  We've taken all screens away from both her and her brother b/c things were getting out of hand.  We were very lenient with screentime over the winter and had to go cold turkey but that's a different issue.  But now when I tell her to go do something else, she just sits on the couch staring into space unless her younger brother begs her to come outside and play basketball.  She has no empathy as far as I can tell (she begs me to let her watch CNN b/c it's "fun,"  needless to say we don't let her, and I gave her a long talk about how other people's misfortune is tragic and not fun in the least), has no interest in anything really.

I'm wracking my brain to think of ways that I can encourage her to be more curious, as well as to find activities that would suit her personality (i.e. taking her to the indoor rock climbing gym instead of pushing her to do girls on the run, which she refuses to do, although she does seem to like soccer), as well as find some volunteer activities for us as a family to build her empathy. But at the same time, I wonder, am I doing this for her or for me?  Am I trying to turn her into someone she's not?  Is this just normal kid stuff?  It's hard, b/c my son is the opposite. He's curious about everything, loves school, loves playing with friends, total extrovert, out on his bike until it's too dark or cold, etc.  I have trained myself (literally) not to compare them, but I worry also that DD is comparing herself to DS and I want her to have something, ANYTHING, to grab on to as her "thing" so that she can feel good and confident about herself. And yes, so that I can stop being so anxious about her.  But I guess my main question is, is my anxiety warranted, and if not, how do I deal with it so that it doesn't affect her?  I don't want to project my baggage on to her, but at the same time if there are ways I can push her a little, I want to try.

Did any of this make sense?  I feel like I'm rambling. [/quote]

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