Introversion and prematurity: A link?

Wednesday was Arianna's day at daycare.

When we made the decision for me to stay home with the girls we agreed that Arianna should continue to have interaction with the boys at daycare because we saw it to be so good for her. She got along fabulously with all of them and when she was around them she did things she would never do at home - she would eat better, she would do more boy-ish things like climb and jump. She even potty trained better there. So it was a no-brainer that she should continue to go one day a week.

This Wednesday was not so great for her - she had two big temper tantrums and was very anti-social.

When I pick her up I typically stick around for a few minutes to chit chat. Her daycare teacher is expecting #2 in April after having her son at 35 weeks due to pPROM so our conversations have been centered around pregnancy as of late.

This week was different though. She asked me if we were doing any "Mommy and Me" classes. Truth be told all she does during the week that's scheduled is her day at daycare and 'story time' for 2 year olds at the library on Thursdays. Otherwise our days really focus on keeping Daria happy. But it seems I've done that to the detriment of Arianna.

Her teacher told me she's been noticing it over the last few weeks but didn't want to say anything until she knew for sure. She's concerned Arianna is socially regressing and becoming much more introverted. She knows the boys at daycare well and there haven't been any big changes there. Yes, her life at home did a complete 180 but daycare has been stagnant. She doesn't play with the boys anymore and is suddenly much more vocal about her demands to be by herself. She'd much rather go read books and be by herself. Her teacher even went as far as to say that she tries to not schedule outings for Wednesday because Arianna can be a big handful if they go tot he zoo or ecotarium and she throws a big fit cause she doesn't want to do something.

We've known this to be an issue and have been working on it without any success. Part of me wonders if this is her personality and how she'll be for the rest of her life? The worst part of her introversion is that she's really rude about wanting to be by herself - she'll go as far as blowing raspberries and slapping the air (in the general direction of whomever she's talking to) and saying "No!" really nastily. She does this all the time she doesn't get her way. If you continue to say no to her she will throw herself on the ground, face first and cry - and it doesn't matter who she is with or where she is at. Karah, her teacher, said the grocery store was a favorite place for her to do her 'drama queen pose' as she calls it. She laughs about it but I don't. None of us believe this type of introversion is healthy in a 2 year old.

I don't know how to help her work through this. I know she is shy, not so sure its full on introversion, although she may be - but she is scared in alot of situations. She constantly wants someone with her - she'll even ask me "follow me please mom" when she wants to walk back to her room. She'll play with mom and dad until the sun goes down but not other kids.

Dad is a full on introvert - there's no other way to explain him, but... he has friends and enjoys conversation with others but he prefers to be by himself. Luckily his job as a computer programmer suits this personality trait well.

I'm more of an ambivert - showing traits of both an extrovert and introvert but as a child I was extremely shy and was horribly made fun of for it. I don't want this for my child. Arianna is incredibly sweet and kind when she's in a comfortable situation.

One of my main motivators for homeschooling is to shield Arianna from alot of the hurt that I experienced as a child. Some have told me that its 'part of growing up' - but I don't believe hate mail, black mail, bullying and physical harm have to be part of a normal child's life. How does putting up with those things make you a better adult? I don't believe it has much to do with it actually. I believe you can learn all you need to about corporate politics from real life experience with it - not by having a bully tear you down. But... being away from a public school setting does limit, somewhat, her ability to interact with other children and build her social skills with other children on a daily basis.

Unfortunately I think Arianna may be headed in the same direction and I don't know what to do. I don't know what my parents could have done to help me, so how do I help my daughter? I do know that finding something I could excel in helped to bolster my self confidence but that didn't happen until I was 14 or 15 when I became very interested in and good at my clarinet and saxophone.

I found this link that explains a bit about causes of introversion and am intrigued by it, especially the nurture vs. nature aspect and brain development aspect.

Does being a preemie make you more vulnerable to this type of situation? Does weeks on end in an incubator separated from mom make you more susceptible to introversion?

I don't know. All I can compare is myself to her and I spent alot more time in an incubator than she did and the hospital I was at was more of the "we'll call you when she's ready to go home" type. How sad...