The Introverted Mother of an Extroverted Child

A guest post by Beccy Sharley.

When I pick up my three-year-old daughter, E, from childcare, she is bouncing with energy and enthusiasm. Miraculously, her blonde ‘twin tails’ as she calls them are only slightly wilder than they had been this morning. I have been working from home all day, my husband off at college working on Latin translation and theological concepts for his PhD. I ask my daughter the same question I always ask at pick up, and I know her answer will be the same as always. “Straight home, or playground first?” I ask. 

“Playground! I want to see my friends!”

Anyone would think she is the one who has been in a room by herself all day.

My daughter is a textbook extrovert, in that her energy is not depleted by time with people but rather charged by it. She glows with enthusiasm after playing with her friends. She prefers days when we (my husband, her, and I) are all together, all day. She charms every passerby. Often when we meet new people, she’ll play shy for about ten minutes, but once she has warmed up, they’ll find themselves reading her stories and playing parts in her games of pretend. She’ll confidently invite herself into her friends’ homes or offer playdate invites at the drop of the hat.

And mostly, it’s a delight. Yes, I do have to awkwardly tell people they are not obligated to read her another story or remind her we don’t enter someone’s house until invited. But her people-loving nature has helped me find stronger connections with my various communities.

Then E dropped her daytime nap. Suddenly, the hour’s break I had in a long day of parenting was gone. Instead, it was non-stop talking and interaction and games from dawn to well beyond dusk. And this is when I discovered the downside to my daughter’s extroversion: she did not know how to play by herself.

This is the difference between my child and I: while I deeply enjoy time with people, especially favourite friends and family, I am ultimately an introvert who recharges by spending time alone. Since E was very young, my husband (another introvert) and I have talked about how we don’t understand how two introverts made an extrovert. Maybe it’s something to do with genetics, biology, or physics (two negatives make a positive, right? We’re not great at science). 

But parenting someone whose energy recharge system is built completely differently from yours is a steep learning curve.

I used to deny the label of introvert, from a misunderstanding of what it means. I like people, and I like spending time with people. I’m fairly confident speaking in front of a crowd and I used to spend all day teaching a class full of kids! I’m not shy or withdrawn. But being an introvert or an extrovert is not about whether you like people or not: it’s about where you recharge your energy. The psychological understanding operates something like this: 

“The distinctions between introvert and extrovert psychology reveal how each type engages with their environment and replenishes their energy. Introverts often recharge by spending time in solitude, enjoying solitary activities such as reading or engaging in personal reflection. Their preference for low-stimulation environments allows them to process thoughts deeply and engage in introspection. In contrast, extroverts thrive in vibrant social settings, gaining energy from interacting with others in larger groups.”¹

I used to teach all day and love it, but when I got home, I needed an hour or so alone with a book and a snack before I was ready to talk to my housemate or my husband. I still need time at night with a podcast to wind down, particularly on the days I spend with my daughter. I like spending time with people. But I recharge by myself.

I’m recharging to spend more time with people, because I think it is a good and worthwhile thing. But it is a thing that takes emotional energy, not recharges it.

When I say my daughter is an extrovert, I am not entirely sure that conveys the experience of parenting this vibrant little girl. She is a social butterfly, a people person, a child who thrives on interaction. From the moment she wakes to when she goes to bed (actually, after she goes to bed as well) she wants to be with people. And often, that person is me.

A few months ago she had conjunctivitis, as kids do, and so we kept her at home, isolated, and did all the correct protocols for trying to stop the spread to other kids. Like most kids her age, E was stir crazy and bouncing off the walls. In desperation I took her for a drive, thinking we would at least get out of the house and not infect anyone else. The route I took went past the blue building of her childcare centre. As we went past, E longingly stretched out a hand and said in a tone of deepest yearning, “My friends.”

When my daughter dropped her nap, I suddenly realised how much I needed that hour to myself in the middle of the day while she slept. To keep up with her chatting and playing and not turn into the grumpiest version of myself, I needed a break, a rest, a moment to pause and be – alone.

No one warned me that I would have to teach my three-year-old to play independently, in her room, by herself. That the idea of alone time would seem like poison to her little social soul. For her, time alone is worse than time wasted. It just doesn’t compute.

I want to embrace her and all the ways she is different from me and champion her exactly as she is. But – I also want her to be okay on her own. Just as my introversion can lead to self-isolation and unhealthy independence, I know extroversion has its own pitfalls. I don’t want her to feel she needs other people watching her to feel real. I don’t want her to be afraid to sit with her own thoughts.

She’s three. There is time enough to teach all these things. But it starts now, in firmly holding the boundary that she will be okay playing with Barbies in her room for ten minutes while I fold laundry in silence. It starts in me not trying to meet and fulfil all her social needs, but in accepting she needs a variety of different kinds of social interactions.

I’m finding ways to teach her how to be alone and be okay. I’m also finding ways to fill my cup during the day, or during the days she is at childcare, so I can meet both her social needs and my own energy recharge needs. There’s a quote from a German theologian, Bonhoeffer, who is probably most famous as taking a stand against the Nazis before it was cool, that I think of often as I balance the introversion and extroversion needs in my family: “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community…but the reverse is also true: let him who is not in community beware of being alone.”²

E needs to be okay being alone, and I need to be okay giving up some of my alone time. Life is lived alone and together, and we’re all wired to recharge our energy in different ways. I’m grateful for the ways my daughter is so different to me, for as I learn about her, I learn about myself, and what we both need to thrive. And rather than see those needs as competing, I’m learning to treat it as a delicate balancing act, a dance of give and take.

Rebecca (Beccy) Sharley is a freelance writer and editor at Rebecca Sharley Writes and Searching for Grace. She lives with her husband, her daughter and too many cats in Sydney, Australia

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