Understanding Children's Personalities: Unraveling Talents And Limitations

THE PARENTING GUIDE : CHAPTER 4

Personalities can be observed in children by the age of three. A lot can change in terms of attitudes, behaviors and fears, but essentially, personality will not change. Getting to know our children’s personalities helps us determine what makes them tick; what makes them happy, curious or excited. Personality types unravel the mystery behind children’s talents and limitations and help us better adjust our own expectations.

 

How Different Are These Personality Types?

While introvert’s focus of attention is within, extroverts’ focus is without; setting them up for two very different interpretations of both worlds. A variety of studies have shown different brain activity accounting for these types’ differences in perception. These differences explain their discrepancy in understanding, priorities, incentives, judgments, values and behavior.

Once we identify our children’s personalities, we will understand their energy sources and happy places. We will be consciously aware when asking them to leave their comfort zone.

If children’s personality types match their parents, communication and understanding is always easier, as it is easier to relate. But the children that suffer the most are the ones whose personality types don’t match a parent’s type, as communication will be more difficult, expectations unrealistic, and bonding will be compromised by the difficulty to relate to each other.

Parents who are conscious of the clash of personalities and work at understanding, communicating and bonding, parents who allow their children to be who they are, have a better chance at turning these differences into positive learning experiences for all. By celebrating their differences and respecting children’s preferences, parents can build a healthy, supportive and caring relationship, with plenty of opportunities for bonding.

PERSONALITY TYPES

PERSONALITY TYPE # 1

THE EXTROVERTED CHILD

FASCINATING!

Like a little alien on planet Earth for the first time, extroverts are fascinated by the world around them. They seek highly stimulating environments and groups of people they can interact with. They tend to be warm, affectionate and very good at reading faces, which they use to select others that will reward them with positive experiences.

 

The Outgoing Children

Usually considered “happier” children, as a result of today’s elevation of social activities and group work; or maybe because extroverts are more easily pleased, as their mood can be altered by instant gratification. Extroverts experience life through their senses. Their incentives are short termed, preferring smaller and immediate rewards over larger but delayed rewards.

Extroverts may miss out on big opportunities in the name of immediate gratification, making it difficult to sustain long-term goals. Their warm personalities or spontaneous natures can deviate them from their paths with every distraction. Here is where reprogramming can help. By building long-term incentives based on short-term ones, children learn to self-reward for their efforts towards a specific goal and learn that they can get there. Helping children learn to wait for what they truly want will assist them in the future in making good, long-term decisions.

Group sports, teams, music bands or multi-player games are highly recharging activities for extroverts. Although society seems to be set up for them, it also demands of the extrovert the virtues of the introvert. When children can’t muster up traits that conflict with their personality type, they get labeled with ADD, ADHD or any other “disorder.”

When it comes to attention, a child’s focus needs to be engaged. A long and boring explanation will have extroverts distracted and introverts daydreaming, but yell “Who wants ice-cream?” and watch them all jump up!

In trying to catch every child’s attention with the same bait, chances are they will not all bite, which shows an orderly display of personalities, interests and talents, rather than an attention disorder of any kind. If all children were to pay attention, all of the time, then we would have something serious to worry about; a population of drones with drone responses, lacking any talents, personality or identity.

Let your introverts daydream and your extroverts mingle, run and explore. Support children to excel at who they are and happiness will follow.

GOOD PUPPY Child Cognitive Behavioral Tools are designed to help extroverted children get the physical activities they seek, to train them to think critically before making choices, and to learn to delay gratification, so that they may get want they truly wanted, instead of whatever comes first.

 

PERSONALITY TYPE # 2

THE INTROVERTED CHILD

IT'S COMPLICATED!

Exploring a colorful inner world, with their focus inside, introverts can come off as more reserved, which can be taken for shyness. Introverts are curious, creative and solution oriented. They are also sociable people, but in general they prefer smaller groups and need time alone to create, play and recharge.

 

A More Complex Personality

Usually considered a “more complicated” personality type, introverts weigh rewards based on their usefulness. Since their internal cues weigh heavier than external incentives, they are willing to delay gratification for a higher reward or even pass on rewards because they don’t find them worth the effort.

Highly stimulating environments can be confusing and frustrating to introverted personalities, who after a short time may look to escape to a calmer setting. While going to a birthday party, with cake, socializing, entertainment and group play, is an event full of incentives to an extrovert, an introvert may find it loud, messy, annoying, suffocating, claustrophobic, inescapable and overall, overwhelming. Try to fix that with cake! What to one personality type is an incentive, to it’s opposite may be torture.

While you won’t need to convince an extroverted child to spend the day at the beach, an introverted child may need a bit of coaxing. Busy, weighing out the situation, the introverted child may initially resist. If you can find out what it is that holds a higher interest, the easier it will be to figure out what will entice them to go. Did they want to spend the day drawing, building or playing with a particular toy? Bring these activities to the beach or create similar incentives. Building a sand castle, a sand maze or a giant drawing on the sand are activities that would spark the introvert’s interest while also feeling included, understood and valued.

The world seems to speak with the voice of the extrovert, idolizing actors for their gregarious roles as living Gods. But when an introvert catches the world’s eye, there is always genuine awe. A discovery, an invention, a realization that solves a problem for society or that advances civilization. From a dark office, a little lab or a garden of solitude, a brilliantly introspective mind shines its light in the benefit of mankind. So, love and care for your introverts and help them glow!

GOOD PUPPY Child Cognitive Behavioral Tools speak directly to introverts, who will instinctively study the empathetic images that make up the system. Introverts will appreciate the attention the system promises them over good behavior, as it is usually more difficult for them to ask for the attention they need; especially if competing with extroverted siblings.

PERSONALITY TYPE # 3

EXTRA SENSITIVE PERSONALITIES

GIVING CHILDREN WHAT THEY NEED

More and more children today seem to be displaying extra sensitivities. As life becomes faster, louder and more demanding, more and more children seem to be trying to warn us to slow down. Unaware of the stresses we put on ourselves, we can’t notice the stresses we cause our children.

 

 

A perfect example of extra sensitive personalities, are children suffering from dyslexia. Many of these children can see three dimensions on a flat surface, giving them an amazing leading edge in the arts. This super power, however, causes all kind of optical illusions when trying to read a printed page. Populated by symbols, separated by spaces, and set on horizontal lines on highly contrasting ink and paper; a dyslexic’s nightmare. Certain typefaces, spacing and colors help dyslexics read comfortably, but most materials are not designed with their needs in mind.

Confusing environments such as crowds, loud places or even classrooms cluttered with information, badly designed posters, charts or educational materials, can be like nails on a chawlkboard for extra sensitive personalities. Perceiving beauty and balance at a gut leve, these places or situations create a sensation of illness Only harmony seems to satisfy and bring peace to this delicate, but highly aware type.

GOOD PUPPY Child Cognitive Behavioral Tools are designed with empathetic images that will put the most sensitive of children at ease. Color coordination throughout the system and clean design help children find the balance they seek. GOOD PUPPY even offers a Gray-Scale Emotions Chart for children who suffer from color blindness or who are highly sensitive to color, so that they may not be disrupted by it. 

 

PERSONALITY TYPE # 4

COMMUNICATION

AVOIDING JUDGEMENTS & TABOOS TO BUILD CHILDREN'S TRUST

Patience, sensitivity and attention become a two way street in communication. From “what” to say to “how” to listen, communication is the lifeline of the family unit. A family that communicates well, builds healthy, solid bonds that provide children the safety they need to develop healthy self-esteem. Avoiding judgments and taboos creates a trusting environment that allows children to openly discuss their feelings and ask questions freely.

 

Winning Your Children’s Trust

In the darkness of ignorance on any subject, children will choose whom to ask based on past experiences. If they are judged because of their questions, ridiculed, ignored or avoided, children will find a different source of information. An eldest child may find an uncle or a cousin; a younger child may defer to an older sibling. Children are looking for someone that can help them interpret and understand their new experiences and they are quick to learn where to go for what. Today, there is no less judgmental guru than the Internet, leaving parents a short period of time to win their children’s trust.

The GOOD PUPPY Child Cognitive Behavioral System was designed to improve communication. From its empathetic design which children can understand before they can read, to its charts, tools and games to aid in the recognition and verbalization of emotions. The system itself acts as a translator or aid in communication. The systemic approach to behavior, based on privileges and bound by pre-established consequences, gives children peace of mind, promotes bonding and builds trust.

 

 

PERSONALITY TYPE # 5

MOTIVATION

THE DRIVING FORCE TO GOOD BEHAVIOR

Have you ever heard of people who can’t find a reason to get up in the morning? That is a serious sign of depression, or serious lack of motivation. As our interests in life change, so do our motivations. But every action begins with an incentive that generates the motivation to do it. From going to work to working out, without a paycheck or incentive, we wouldn’t get off the couch.

 

Creating The Right Incentives

Giving children everything, leaves them wanting nothing. Allowing children to work for what they want, gives them incentive, motivation and the satisfaction of accomplishment, while building confidence and self-esteem.

While parents’ motivations tend to be long-term, such as picking a preschool already thinking of college, children can’t think that far ahead. Their future is relative to their life span. Five-year-olds cannot think fifteen years into the future. A week to a child may very well feel like a month to an adult. Children need more immediate gratification because it is relative to their memory and their perception of time itself.

The GOOD PUPPY Child Cognitive Behavioral System includes an array of tools to create the right short-term and long-term incentives for both introverted and extroverted personalities. The system helps parents understand personality types in order to discover children’s talents and limitations and create the correct incentives.

 

PERSONALITY TYPE # 6

CONSISTENCY

AN ESSENTIAL PARENTING SKILL

Consistency creates stability and is a key factor for building the solid structure children seek. Imagine that structure as an invisible house. If you tell the child that the door is here, the window is there, and where the walls are, the child can imagine the invisible house and play along. The clearer you make that invisible house, the easier it will be for children to adjust to it and find their place within it. If you start changing the position of the walls, the door and the window, children will not be able to keep re-imagining the house in order to follow the changing parameters and, eventually, the house will crumble.

 

 

Sending Children A Consistent Message

Both rules and consequences need to be consistent for the message to be clear. If there is a limit, let’s call it a “wall”; that “wall” needs to be acknowledged, always. That’s what makes it real. If you only notice it sometimes, that child is learning to walk through walls; and sometimes, he will hit solid ones.

Ironically, consistency in behavior, which is what parents expect from their children, is learned at home from consistent behavior from parents.

The GOOD PUPPY Child Behavioral System keeps the family playing under fair, preestablished rules and consequences. All it takes is consistency to implement and maintain a healthy structure, clear to all. Children love the game and will help keep parents in check and following the simple rules.

 

 

PARENTING REQUIREMENT # 7

COURAGE

LETTING OUR HEART GUIDE OUR PARENTING

Laying dormant among patience and confidence, courage dreams of waking up. Courage wants to prove itself. Courage wants to let us know who we really are. In making its presence known when overcoming challenges, downfalls, fears and limitations, courage propels us to grow.

 

Rising Above Our Selfish Needs

In quiet non-action, courage speaks its loudest words. In letting go of rituals to let children learn them on their own, in encouraging independence to make children self-reliant, in giving respect, space or privacy, courage soars. In so many aspects and in so many ways, courage comes in to move us forward and help us overcome ourselves, our fearful or selfish wishes or choices.

The word “courage” itself stems from the Latin “Coeur”, meaning that it is the “heart” that empowers us. Parenting is a test of courage, a test of the heart. It is this same force that moves us to protect our loved ones, or to overcome our own obstacles, handicaps or inhibitions, for our children and for our own growth.

The GOOD PUPPY Child Behavioral System prompts both children and parents to expand their awareness of themselves and each other. Challenges become opportunities, limitations highlight talents, anxieties vanish, fears fade, and courage gets a super sidekick!