Parents of toddlers are the most conscious in the world according to my point of view. They are conscious about the maintenance of abilities of their all kids. They rare their kids in such a way that the kids act like a troop of an army; everything according to the order or devised rules of parents and abiding by the set rules mean punishment or insolence. John Gray in his book,”children are from heaven” says that being different from siblings doesn’t mean one style is better than another child. He has identified four temperaments of children and devised the parenting styles according to those temperaments. I have made easy to get a glance over his work on children temperaments. There are the following points to go through and discover where are the parents making mistakes in understanding their kids and also apprehend the importance of different personality if they don’t want to mislay their children.
Sensitive Children
- Stronger feelings
- Go deeper
- More serious
- More responsive
- When heard, child becomes light
Active Children
- Strong wills
- Take risks
- Want to be center of attention
- Cooperative
- On enough guidance, achieve their goals.
Responsive Children
- Bright , light and need more stimulation
- Gradually learn to focus
- Disciplined
- Fully commit in relationships and work
Receptive Children
- Well mannered and cooperative
- Follow instructions well
- Gradually become self motivated
- Wise adaptive
So in which category do you (as a child) lie? I think it’s easy to recognize your or yours kid category. In the horde of different personalities, the same raring strategy often fails. Parents consider such differences as the natural temporary phenomenon and they don’t give adequate space to kids to articulate naturally. They forget that there are also different speeds of learningchildren adopt according to their capabilities. Among ,Runners (extra learning ability), Walkers ( dream children who learn according to age) and Jumpers (very slow learners and perform suddenly after spending a lot of time in learning), the normal behavior of parents is comparing the learning speeds of kids and worrying if any kid does not meet the parent’s expectations. In stipulations of comparing children, John Grey says,
“Times of frustration are caused by expecting our children to be different from the way they are”
In order to accept different temperaments of children, the following different needs for trust and caring are better to adopt:
- Caring motivates parents to be involved, interested, and affected by children’s experiences of life.
- Trust motivates parents to give freedom and space for children to do for themselves.
Regardless of age, boys tend to need your trust more while girls need caring. Hence the challenge for parents is to give a girl extra doses of caring, understanding and respect so she may continue trusting. While the challenge for parents regarding boys is to give extra doses of trust, acceptance and appreciation to keep him motivated. Similarly offering help to girl may make her feel cared for, but a boy may take it as insult. That is why it is commonly said that the boys are from Mars and Girls are from Venus.
