The Child Whisperer (10 page)

Driving:
Quick-minded, maybe distracted

Parents get a little worried about their Type 1 teens as drivers because these teens seem so distracted much of the time. Yet, these teens are very quick-minded and can be aware of numerous things going on at once and make very quick decisions. The key is not adding extra distractions in their first few months of learning to drive. Keeping the radio and cell phone off and the side conversations to a minimum will keep them from getting distracted and keep their eyes and attention on the road.

After reading through this section about the development of a Type 1 child, what inspiration do you have about supporting your Type 1 child in living true to their nature? Make note of your thoughts here:

Physical Characteristics

At first glance at the 4 Energy Types, most every parent may think their child is a Type 1! This is because we tend to refer to all babies and children as cute and playful. One of the most telling ways to determine your child’s true Energy Type is to look at his or her facial features and body language. Your child’s physical characteristics are often more accurate than personality, which can be altered by situation or expectation. The overall quality of a Type 1s physical expression is animated, youthful and cute. Their bone structure creates circles and points of a star with features being asymmetrical or random.

Something to remember
: Learning facial profiling for babies and children in a book without pictures or illustrations can be difficult! That is why I have created a library of videos on my website called, “How to Profile Babies, Children, and Teens!” To access this library visit www.thechildwhisperer
.
com.

Face shape:
Circular or heart shaped

Very high, rounded forehead that may look even higher than normal in infants before hair grows in.

Skin/skin texture:
Clear, fresh, smooth skin, with random freckles or moles

Type 1 skin often features a soft golden or rosy glow. Babies can have tendency for rosacea, or baby acne.

Cheeks:
Circles

What we call “apple cheeks.” Cheeks look round and dimples will often be found around the smile.

Nose:
Turned up, button nose

Often small and round. Cute. Little.

Eyes:
Sparkly, bright, wide-eyed, and often round

Their eyes appear to be “smiling eyes,” which means their whole face smiles with an upward movement. Even the lines on the sides of their eyes move upward when they smile.

Eyebrows:
Come to a point right over the eye, or half circle, shorter in length

Lips:
Plump lips or fuller bottom lip

Ears:
Disconnected ear lobe, pointy at the top of the ear, ears that poke out
 

Hands:
Little cherub hands, chubby, very childlike

Short, circular nail bed.

Your Type 1 child may not express all of these physical features in their face—and some features may not fully express themselves while your child is still growing. One common tendency that most all Type 1 children express is their animated facial expressions.

People may comment on the wide variety of facial expressions your Type 1 child makes, or say that they make faces that look like a cartoon. These children are definitely animated. They will probably continue to make these faces as they grow because they often draw a laugh or a smile from others.

Body Language

Body language is an excellent clue to your child’s Energy Type. Since Energy Profiling is an assessment of our natural expression of movement, pay attention to the way your child moves. Do any of these movements describe your child?

Crawling:
Type 1 children crawl very fast. Some may prefer to roll toward whatever they want to get closer to, putting crawling off for a little while longer.

Walking:
Type 1 children have a bounce in their step. Sometimes, their walk looks more like a skip, a dance, or a run. They are bouncy, energetic, and light on their feet. They skip through life with quick steps and their heads up.

Sitting/Standing:
These kids just don’t sit still. When they sit, it’s often on the edge of their seat. They change positions often and they usually fidget, bouncing their leg or otherwise. Standing still—especially to wait in a line—is just not an option. Younger Type 1 children love to twirl and fill up as much space as they have with their energy. 

Child Whisperer Tip:
PLEASE do not tell your Type 1 child to, “Settle down and stop moving around so much!” This is probably the most common phrase Type 1s hear! This is damaging to your child as it tells them to be the opposite of who they are, and that who they are is not acceptable. The dominant movement of a Type 1 is upward and light. Tell a Type 1 child to stop being upward and light time after time and they will begin to no longer trust their natural movement—they will start to believe that it just gets them in trouble. Rather than tell them to settle down or stop moving, come up with some clever phrases like, “It’s time to see how long you can sit and pretend you are a statue!” or, “It’s time to get the wiggles out and sit like a doll.”

Voice/Language:
A Type 1 child is often a giggle-talker. These children like to laugh. They often shriek or squeal when excited. They can also be loud. They enjoy using goofy words for fun and their voices are very expressive and animated.

Child Whisperer Tip:
Your Type 1 child may shriek loudly or get very loud and animated in public places. Rather than shush them, ask them to use their indoor voice and/or to make a game out of whispering to them and having them whisper back to you.

Personal Space:
Organization to a Type 1 often looks like disorganization to the rest of us. So a Type 1 child’s room might look like a disaster, but he will think it’s clean. In fact, Type 1 children often feel uncomfortable if everything is organized and put away. These kids prefer their possessions to be visible, meaning that they are out and around. For that reason, don’t let a Type 1 child own a lot of stuff. Keep the possession count low, or rotate their items in and out of hiding regularly, and you’ll be tripping over a lot fewer things.

Child Whisperer Tip:
Make it easy for your Type 1 child to clean their room by only having enough belongings out and available so they can clean up a messy room fast. One mom I know of a Type 1 child rotates toys. This is a brilliant idea, as Type 1s love variety and new possibilities. Changing which toys are out once a week not only keeps it easy to clean up, but also keeps play creative for your child.

Consider how you help your Type 1 child organize their room. For example, a Type 4 mom called in to my Better Parenting radio show looking for help with her Type 1 four-year-old daughter. She was not having any success teaching her daughter to clean up her room.

I asked her what she was expecting of her daughter. She was trying to teach her to fold her clothes and put them in her drawers. This experience usually ended with an unhappy four-year-old who spent a lot of time sitting in her room until she finished this task. I told her that folding clothes was too tedious and slow for a Type 1 child. Plus, this girl had absolutely no fun having to do it by herself.

I suggested this mother get some bins that could hold all the clothes to put under her daughter’s bed, and then to put on some music and have her daughter do a silly dance while she tossed her clothes into the bin. Then I suggested that this mom have her daughter call for her and hide in her room when she was finished and jump out when her mother came to find her.

What was a grueling battle of wills and hours of frustration for both mom and daughter could become a light and happy bonding moment that resulted in a clean room and big smiles on both their faces!

What can you do to make your Type 1 child’s personal space simple and easy for them to maintain? Is their personal space bright and cheery in its décor? How could you help them create that? List your ideas here:

Challenges as a Parent: Lack of Focus,

Not Enough Fun

Parents of Type 1s face specific challenges in raising these children true to their natures. True to their nature, Type 1 children can bring out an animated level of their parents’ frustration. The biggest challenge parents often express about these children is keeping a Type 1 child focused or on task. These kids can get distracted easily and do not follow through on everything they begin.

Most parents think the solution to this lack of follow-through is to create more structure in their Type 1 child’s life. It’s an obvious conclusion: What we see as unstructured we think will be fixed by more structure. This will actually create more difficulty, more of what you are trying to change. Consider the possibility that your Type 1 child already is being subjected to too much structure, and their tendency to get distracted and off track is due to their need to create random, spontaneous movement in their experience. This is their natural movement and they will find a way to express it. If you see this natural expression as something that needs to be disciplined by adding more structure, you will either wound your Type 1 child or cause them to act out more randomly, even to the point of rebelling in their teens.