The Child Whisperer (9 page)

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How do you feel inspired to make your own Type 1 child’s learning and study experiences more light-hearted, random, and fun? List your ideas:

Physical Development

Learning to Walk:
Give them time

Type 1 children engage with the world socially from a very early age. If walking means they can interact better socially, they’ll go for it.

Child Whisperer Tip:
Don’t push your Type 1 child to walk too early. Give them plenty of time to crawl. Studies show that crawling helps connect the right and left brain hemispheres, which Type 1 children need. We made the mistake of encouraging our daughter, Jenny, to start walking at a young nine months old. A few years later when she was learning to read and do math, she had a difficult time. Type 1s are naturally more right-brained (the creative side of the brain), and need to be allowed to crawl to make those strong neural connections to their left brain so their learning of more analytical subjects comes more easily to them.

Learning to Talk:
So social!

Type 1 children love to talk and interact. They can develop their language skills early, but will not be as clear in their speech. Most Type 1 children are very verbal and love to chatter. The Type 1 brain thinks in whole concepts, so the ability to break those ideas and thoughts into specific words takes more time for a Type 1 child to develop. They try to engage in adult conversation patterns long before they can form words, even laughing when everyone else laughs. They may make up silly words and talk to imaginary friends.

Potty Training:
Occasional accidents

The biggest potty-training challenge for these kids is the occasional accident that happens when they get distracted or don’t want to stop playing. Keep the experience light. The minute you make it serious and unhappy, your Type 1 child will pull away. I’ll say it again. . . .Type 1s
need
fun and creativity. Make potty training a game! Show some exuberance with each success. Clap your hands. Be delighted with your child whenever they succeed!

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ELLIE’S STORY

Make Potty Training Fun

Little Ellie was potty trained in a few days and did great wearing her underwear. However, for the next few weeks, she didn’t always get to the potty on time by herself. She worried about the problem of peeing on the floor and often did a little dance to help her hold it.

She did better going potty if she got to play a little game. Together, she and her mom pointed to things and her mom asked her if each thing was the potty. It was a silly game that didn’t really have rules or a winner, but it made things fun. If her mom tried to get around the game and took Ellie straight to the bathroom and pulled down her pants, Ellie screamed on the potty. It seemed too serious and it stressed her out. She did fine as long as mom put some effort into making it fun!

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Child Whisperer Tip:
Type 1 children may not learn to potty train in one intense, short time period. It may take several months of interest and then a lack of interest. I recommend you wait a little longer until they show a lot of interest. If you start too early, you will have a lot of trial and error and a very stressed-out fun-loving child.

Sleeping:
Don’t want to miss the fun

Type 1s don’t want to miss out on all the fun, so they can have a tough time falling asleep. I love the story of six-year-old Elyce who had such a hard time going to bed that her parents found her in the morning, asleep in her dress-up clothes, with all her toys arranged around her where she’d stayed up playing the night before! Many parents have noticed that their Type 1 children don’t like being put to sleep alone in their own room. It’s tough for a Type 1 to feel socially cut off.

Type 1 children have usually been so active during the day that they will sleep through the night, but don’t expect their schedule to be consistent. There’s nothing wrong with your Type 1 child if they don’t have a consistent bedtime. They are just naturally more random. Trying to get them to conform to a bedtime that stays the same to the minute may lead to frustrating bedtime experiences for both of you. Give them a little leeway time on when they go to sleep.

Child Whisperer Tip:
Turn off the TV, and keep the noise very low in the home if you want your Type 1 child to be able to disengage from the activities going on outside their bedroom and fall asleep more easily.

I learned this with my daughter, Jenny. She came into this world bright-eyed and very alert. She never laid her little head on my shoulder, as she never wanted to miss out on anything! As a baby, she did not want to go to sleep. One solution we found was to have her fall asleep in her swing. The only problem? When we carefully took her out, she too often woke up again, eyes wide and bright as could be! I learned to turn the TV off and not have any noise, which helped her think, “The party’s over—go to sleep!”

Going to Pre-school and School:
New friends are a plus

Type 1 children love to see and meet new friends. Some Type 1 children are a little nervous the first time they attend a preschool setting, but they always come home happy. Any tears don’t last long as soon as they see all the fun everyone is having. Most Type 1 children see toys and other kids and don’t even bother to say goodbye to Mom and Dad. If they are having trouble parting from you, make sure you’re not treating your goodbye like a serious event.

Being Left with a Babysitter:
They warm up

A babysitter is a fun, new person to play with. As long as the sitter is willing to play and have fun, most Type 1 children will warm right up. Some Type 1 kids will even flirt! If they don’t feel comfortable, consider what you’re doing in the process of dropping off your child with a babysitter. Do they feel like leaving them with someone is a serious situation? If so, it will create stress and discomfort. Also consider the possibility that your child doesn’t feel like disconnecting from you the second the sitter arrives. They will. Just give them a moment and show them something fun to do.

Dating:
So many possibilities

Type 1s love possibilities, so they may change up boyfriends or girlfriends often to experience lots of different options. This connected-then-disconnected process is natural for a Type 1 teenager. Their relationships may not last very long or look very deep. This doesn’t mean that Type 1s do not invest in relationships. They can best create meaningful, lasting relationships when they feel mutually supported in living true to their bright, hopeful nature.

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BRIDGER’S STORY

First Girlfriend

When Bridger had his first girlfriend, he spent hours talking to her on the phone. He mentioned to his mother that his girlfriend’s mother had died. She asked when that had happened. Bridger didn’t know. How did it happen? He didn’t know. How many brothers and sisters does she have? He didn’t know. Bridger’s mother was confused that he spent hours talking on the phone with this girl and in her words, “knows nothing about her.”

Bridger’s mother asked another question: “What do you talk about?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Chit-chat.”

That’s not unusual, nor is it a problem for a Type 1 relationship—especially in high school. In fact, Bridger’s ability to keep things light may have been one of the reasons his first girlfriend was drawn to him!

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High school experience:
Social, with a catch

Type 1 teenagers enjoy the social aspect of high school, but they have to be careful not to adapt or take on the negative energy of their friends. These children face the challenge of being expert chameleons, adapting in whatever way they feel necessary in order to lighten others’ moods. As your Type 1 child goes through their high school experience, watch for signs that they feel weighed down and give them permission to be themselves.

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SUMMER’S STORY

Adapting to Others

Summer loves soccer—and she got the bad news that her high school would not be able to have a soccer team unless enough girls played basketball. So Summer joined the basketball team, but she soon became overwhelmed and depressed because it wasn’t fun for her and made her schedule too full and structured.

She chose to quit the basketball team and has decided to be more careful in the future to recognize her tendency to try pleasing and adapting to others’ demands, particularly when those demands don’t support her natural movement.

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Type 1 children will excel in school when they are able to engage in activities that feel fun to them, whether it be through classes they have fun in, extracurricular activities, or otherwise.

Child Whisperer Tip:
If your Type 1 child has to take classes they deem less fun, support them in finding a way to make the subject they are bored with more entertaining and engaging for them.

My son, Mario, learned to do this in high school classes he was not as engaged by. Mario used to say he did not have a good memory for test taking in subjects like math, science and history. Yet, he could recall movie lines flawlessly, and sing every word to every popular song. When I noticed how great his recall was with movies and songs, it made total sense—the movies and songs were more entertaining and fun, and his brain more easily engaged. So memory was not an issue for him in learning; it was the lack of fun in more left-brain subjects and style of teaching that lost his interest. He was very successful in creating ways to make these subjects more interesting and engaging for himself. Once he understood this about himself, he sat up front, got more involved in the discussions and even imagined he was watching a movie, which helped him do much better on his tests.