The Child Whisperer (25 page)

Child Whisperer Tip:
When communicating, it’s best to stay practical and to-the-point with a Type 3 of any age. Especially when your child is younger, clearly say what you expect from your child. Stop over-explaining and just pick up and move. Your Type 3 child will value your honest and realistic communication with them and will respond best when you are most direct.

I witnessed firsthand the struggle that over-explaining can create while grocery shopping recently. A Type 3 little girl was pushing her mom to get some candy. True to this girl’s determined nature, she kept asking and asking at the checkout stand. Her mom attempted to stay calm and talk things out with her daughter, using a lot of explanation and reasoning why it was not a good time to let her have a candy bar, that it was almost dinner time, etc. I thought to myself,
That child is a Type 3 and she just needs to be told clearly and to the point, “No, we are not going to buy any candy right now. I hear what you want and no matter how hard you push me, it is still not going to happen. I love you and appreciate how determined you are.”
So many parents would benefit from knowing they can meet their Type 3 child’s requests head-on and actually be more effective that way.

Behavioral Tendencies

Family Relationships:
Love (and fight) with intensity

Type 3 children love their families intensely. They enjoy doing things together, especially physical activities as a group. These children appreciate physical expressions of love. This can look like hugs, cuddles, high fives, back scratches, or wrestling. As these children are always on the go, let them be affectionate on their own terms. They won’t want to sit still and snuggle with you for long periods of time. Expressing your love physically for these children often means doing something with them or helping them to accomplish a goal. A Type 3 child who sees you get up and do something for them will feel more loved and honored than if you just told them you loved them.

Your Type 3 child will often act in order to get reactions out of family members. This can be such a blessing. They’ll try to make their baby sister laugh. They’ll do something funny to cheer up a grumpy brother. Or they’ll help you out, just to make things easier around the house. Explain the result that you want and your Type 3 will move action to help.

The flip side of this tendency? Type 3 children may try to boss the entire family around, make decisions for their siblings, and tell everybody what to do. They may taunt or pinch their siblings in order to get a reaction from them. Remember: The magic word is
redirect
. Instead of telling your child to stop, help them channel that forward movement into something more productive.

. . . .

ANNE’S STORY

What Child Whispering Can Do

My daughter, Anne, came home from her in-laws’ family dinner and shared with me that her Type 3 six-year-old nephew had been very rambunctious and rowdy all night. He teased his younger sister, ran up and pushed his cousins, only to irritate the other little children to tears and frustrate the adults. His parents continually scolded him and told him to calm down and stop behaving this way, to no avail. He just continued to get more and more riled up.

Through Anne’s “Child Whisperer” eyes, she wisely recognized that he was just trying to get a reaction out of everyone. So she got his attention and invited him to play a game of pushing and shoving, with her on her knees to make the game more equal to his stature. When he shoved her, she made exaggerated sounds to cause the reaction he was looking for. After about 10 minutes of rough-housing with her and experiencing her reactive noises, he became calmer, acted more at ease, and stopped bothering everyone else.

. . . .

Friends and Social Settings:
Natural leaders

Their extroverted expression leads these children to be friendly and outgoing, and a variety of friends are drawn to their energy and confidence. These children are ready to jump right in and play with children of all ages, and are not intimidated by bigger kids.

They prefer active play, like jumping around on playgrounds, running in the yard, or exploring outside. They wrestle, they run, they tag, they tackle. Even little Type 3 girls may find friends who match their level of energy and wrestle endlessly, giggling the whole time. As they get older, they may not wrestle their friends in the backyard as often (or they might!), but they will always prefer to remain very active, going places, playing sports, or participating in a variety of activities that get them out into the world.

Because Type 3 energy is such a strong expression, and has not been viewed culturally as a particularly feminine energy, Type 3 girls may be labeled tomboys. They can unintentionally come off as too strong for some other little girls. When they are young, they may play best with other girls with strong Type 1 and Type 3 expressions since both of these energies are high movement.

Timeliness:
Going up to the last minute

These children move abruptly, making them erratic with timing and schedules. Since Type 3 children move many things forward at a time very quickly, they can sometimes make the mistake of trying to accomplish more than what their time allows. As you try to get them going in the direction you need them to go, you might hear your Type 3 child say things like this: “Hang on a second. Just let me finish this real quick.” They don’t want to stop what they’re doing. So these children go, go, go right up to the last minute, which often means they are late and that their movement to get out the door produces a flurry of activity.

Child Whisperer Tip:
Because your Type 3 child will always try to accomplish more goals than they have time for, give them quick updates as the time to leave or get ready draws nearer. Given directly (and without nagging), these updates can help your child remember which tasks absolutely need doing. “Be down for breakfast in five minutes.” “Get in the car in five minutes.”

Recognize that your Type 3 child will not always arrive at places on the dot—but they’ll definitely get a lot done all along the way. Don’t demand punctuality in every area of their life. Do identify a few situations in which punctuality really matters to you. It might be getting to the school bus on time. It might be coming home at curfew. Communicate which situations matter the most to you and why. Then trust that they will move forward to create the most important result you’ve both agreed on.

Jobs and Household Chores:
Focused on results

Chores for chores’ sake don’t interest a Type 3 child. But they love to help when they feel a job has purpose or is part of a competition. Once they begin a task, they will finish it, especially if given a feeling of accountability about their work. These children move swiftly through their chores—some parents might say a little
too
swiftly. This means that they excel at big tasks, but smaller, more detail-oriented tasks can feel tedious and may not be finished to the standard you prefer.

Child Whisperer Tip:
Give your Type 3 child big jobs. Some examples include raking a yard, cleaning up an entire room quickly, moving furniture, or washing the car. When they finish, admire the results of their hard work with them. If you assign your Type 3 child small, detailed tasks like organizing drawers or cleaning all the baseboards, they will not see purpose and put off the task. If you are detail-oriented yourself, you will not see the sort of results you want. Play to your child’s strengths and they will accomplish good things around the house.

. . . .

A MOTHER’S STORY

Making Daily Life Easier

One mother shared her delight that she knows exactly how to make day-to-day activities easier and more cooperative with her fiery little Type 3 toddler. She says that her daughter, “may not want to put her shoes on, but if I ask her how fast she can do it, LOOK OUT! It’s so wonderful to have these insights and strategies to help us make daily life more fun and peaceful.” When you know what motivates and delights your little ones, you can really honor them in every activity throughout the day.

. . . .

Child Whisperer Tip:
Whatever chores your Type 3 children do, make them a challenge. Have a race to do chores around the house. Or tell your child you’ll time them while they put something away for you: “Ready, set, go! 1. . .2. . .3. . .” I know one mom who put a dollar on the counter and told her daughter that if she cleaned up her room in a certain amount of time, the dollar was hers. Guess who rushed off to clean her room in a hurry! Because money is an indicator of their ability to create results, Type 3 children will respond readily to a financial incentive to help a little extra around the house. Tell them you’ll pay them to do extra chores around the house and they’ll ask you how soon they can start.

Money Management:
Natural entrepreneurs

Type 3 children love making money! It’s tangible evidence they can use to measure what they’ve done and the results they’ve created. These kids like to go big, so they might save up for a larger item that they really want. I’ve also heard of some younger Type 3 children who want to earn money, but don’t necessarily want to spend it—because then the evidence of their effort would be gone!

While every Type of child can be an entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial experience comes most readily to Type 3 children. They see a challenge in making money and move forward to make it happen. As natural leaders, they have no problem enlisting the neighborhood kids to staff their roadside booth or join their cause. And they are often very successful! When he was 10 years old, my son-in-law, Tanner, built a raft and charged kids 50 cents for rides down the canal behind his house. One nine-year-old Type 3 girl named Annie was always cooking up some business or another at the end of her driveway. She even sold rocks from the family’s landscaping to people driving by.

Child Whisperer Tip:
Support your Type 3 child in their entrepreneurial efforts, without micromanaging them. This might mean that you pay them for some extra jobs around the house or projects you want finished. And if they want to go bigger than that, consider the possibility that even fairly young Type 3 children have an eye for business. Instead of trying to talk them out of it, or managing it for them, just let them try. They will learn so much from small endeavors that they will eventually put those lessons to use on a larger scale in the future. One of the best questions you can ask when your child is moving forward with their plan is, “I want to be here for you. What would you like me to do?”

. . . .

TANNER’S STORY