The Child Whisperer (11 page)

Child Whisperer Tip:
Don’t demand that your Type 1 child focus on one thing at a time. They won’t! If they try to in order to please you, they will feel flawed, inadequate, and frustrated. It will only lead to conflict in your relationship. Instead, help them decide which of their ideas they value enough to pursue and then support them in creating a fun, socially engaged process that they can maintain all the way through the experience.

The second major challenge is creating enough fun! Parents of Type 1 children may start to feel that their child expects them to be an entertainment director, always creating new and exciting adventures. Trying to keep up with this can feel downright exhausting, especially if you’re not a Type 1 parent. What do you do?

Child Whisperer Tip:
Remember that your Type 1 child is an expert at creating fun wherever they go. Fun does not have to mean a specific activity or something that you
do
; think of it as an expression, an energy that feels light and free. We tend to classify certain activities as fun and other activities as not so fun. With a Type 1, though, anything can be more fun when they are supported in being themselves. Even cleaning the garage can be fun with a Type 1! They naturally bring the energy of lightness, spontaneity, creativity, and cheeriness to everything they are a part of—it’s this energy they naturally express that makes us all feel lighter. We identify that as fun! Their natural expression of this energy is effortless and makes everything they are part of more enjoyable for everyone who is around them.

Tune into the ways your Type 1 child is pretending and celebrating wherever you are—the grocery store line, in the car, during dinner—and encourage it. Are they laughing, smiling, or imagining? Then they are having fun. You are not responsible to create all the fun for them. Many times, all you need to do is stop shutting down the fun your child is already creating.

Type 1s also naturally have the gift of ideas. Rather than be the director of their fun, ask them what ideas
they
have to make life more fun. A great question to ask a Type 1 who is stressed, whiny, frustrated, or resistant is, “How can we make this more fun?” or, “What are your ideas right now?”

Child Whisperer Tip:
You cannot be your Type 1 child’s sole social outlet. They love newness and will engage with a variety of friends. If your child is small, create a play group that meets regularly, go with other parents and children to the park, or hire some added help to come and play with your child. As your Type 1 child grows, listen to the activities and friends they want to participate with. They will let you know how social they need to be.

What offsets these challenges? The joys.

Fun-loving, Type 1 children truly are joys. They are naturally happy and optimistic and they forgive easily. If you worry that you have shut down your Type 1 child’s bright, happy nature, you can do something about it today. Type 1 children naturally forgive quickly. They will likely light up when you express your intention to help them have fun and move through life with their light, buoyant movement.

When a parent understands their Type 1 child’s natural gift for keeping things uplifting, they recognize the beautiful gift that child is to their family, especially in a world where there is so much focus on negativity. These children truly are rays of sunshine that brighten every day! What a blessing to have a Type 1 child in your family. In fact, put down this book and go tell them that right now! All children yearn to be recognized for who they are. All too often, Type 1s are seen as problems or as too much energy to handle. They need to know what a brilliant gift they are to this world.

The Type 1 Fun-loving Daughter

Type 1 daughters are joyful and caring. Their energy tends to be recognized more readily as a feminine expression, due to its lighter nature. Type 1 daughters like to express their creativity by playing dress-up and pretending at a very early age. Our Type 1 daughter, Jenny, loved putting on shows. From an early age, she loved organizing and directing her younger siblings in creating plays and dramas. She was always at the center of the stage and cast the others in supporting roles.

Type 1 daughters are seen as cute and adorable when they are young, but may begin to struggle with being called cute and adorable as they grow. This is unfortunate, as these words truly represent their nature. They struggle with those labels because they want to be taken seriously and feel recognized for their brilliant minds and talents as they grow into young women. Being called cute and adorable suggests they are still little children.

Child Whisperer Tip:
Encourage your Type 1 daughter to embrace the power of her cuteness and understand that her natural energy is not something she will grow out of. Help her feel and believe that she can be a force to be reckoned with by staying true to herself and continually developing her natural gifts and talents to make a difference in the world.

The Type 1 Fun-loving Son

Type 1 sons are engaging and uplifting. They easily live true to their natures in the younger years of their life, as we tend to recognize Type 1 energy as childlike and youthful. We don’t necessarily think of this energy as gender specific when Type 1 boys are so young.

When a Type 1 male starts to mature and move into his teenage years, though, he may begin to question and try to alter his true nature. This is due to the cultural imprint of what we believe is male energy. We have created the belief and the perception that male energy as it matures needs to be stronger, bolder, and more serious. The whole idea of this belief is captured in the phrase: “It’s time to grow up and be a man!” I have met many Type 1 men who live in conflict with their Type 1 energy because they think they cannot be successful if they live true to it. This is completely false. Many successful Type 1 men have contributed to humanity with their ideas and optimism. Nelson Mandela is one example of many.

Child Whisperer Tip:
Make sure you do not send the message to your Type 1 son that he needs to “grow up and be a man!” He just needs to grow up living true to himself and when he does, success is guaranteed. Honor his random, buoyant nature as he grows and help him to honor it himself.

Our son, Mario, struggled with his true nature in his early 20s, until one day I recognized what he was doing. He believed he could not live true to his nature
and
be successful. All this belief did was keep him from progressing. I pointed this out to him and told him he needed to stop shaming and doubting his true self and start loving and trusting it. He grasped onto this quickly (true to his Type!), and his life started to shift. Since then, he has created one successful outcome after another.

Two areas where this lesson helped Mario experience success were work and sports. While he worked for a barricade company, setting up and staging barricades on highway construction sites, he learned to use his Type 1 energy to think quickly, to keep things light and fun for other co-workers, and to use his gift for ideas to come up with creative solutions to flow the traffic. His secondary Type 4 energy supported his dominant gifts by keeping him focused in a high-risk environment and maintaining the structure he needed to work long hours into the night. In his college sports career as a rugby player, Mario’s Type 4 tendencies sometimes took over and he berated himself if he didn’t play to an optimum level, which took all the fun out of it for him. He learned to make sure he was having fun first and executing at high levels second. This actually supported him in playing even better during his games, as he lived true to his nature rather than repressing it.

The Type 1 Child Through the Years

The following are some examples of the many ways Type 1 children express their true nature from birth to age 18 as they mature and develop. They express many general tendencies in these first 18 years. I noted here those I have seen most commonly. These examples may surprise you by how well they describe your Type 1 child.

At each developmental stage, your child has a specific emotional need. This is true for all Types of children. I share some specific phrases to share with your Type 1 child to help meet each need. Use these phrases in words, or consider how you could express these phrases in action to help your child feel loved and wanted in each stage of their life.

When your child is supported in living true to their nature, they can more easily enter their adult experience ready and able to create emotionally healthy relationships. You can meet your child’s developmental emotional needs in many ways—just use my examples as a way to get you thinking.

Baby 0 to 18 months

Primary Emotional Need:
To be validated for their bright, fun-loving nature and to be supported in starting to explore and sense the world around them.

The Type 1 baby is delightful. All Type 1s start their life experience with a primary connection to the social experience of this world. These little ones draw attention to themselves wherever they go as people feel their cheeriness. Around them, others have a feeling of, “I like you and want to connect with your energy!” You may hear a lot of people comment that your little Type 1 is very friendly. These kids truly do start to put a smile on people’s faces from the very beginnings of their life.

Messages your Type 1 child needs to hear in this stage of life:

• Welcome to the world; we’ve been eagerly waiting for your bright energy.
  
• We have a special place prepared for you.