It’s evident that God has made every single person, each child unique including those growing up under the same roof. Understanding exactly how different we are, the ways we think, differences in learning, and even the ways one truly feels loved can be an incredible revelation.
Learning about your child’s personality can unlock a world that you never knew existed, allowing the parent-child bond to mirror the model that God has laid out for us.
In this What We Learn Wednesday post, Licensed Professional Counselor and mother of two, Samantha Sult partners with us to give parents resources and ideas for learning more about your child’s personality; helping them succeed in learning and in life.
In order to get to know your child’s personality, Samantha recommends paying close attention to your child. This not only takes time, but patience and prayer as well.
Watch them. See what areas in life your child is confident, but more importantly pay attention to times where they blame others, shame themselves, or control, escape or avoid situations, these are key indicators that they are struggling with you, themselves or with feeling safe and may need extra attention.
Teach them. Teach your kids about emotions so that can verbalize their needs. Model how to share feelings by sharing your own with your children, this will help them be more comfortable in sharing with you. Use words like imagine, guess, or pretend helping them be more expressive and less matter-of-fact when talking about their feelings.
When they verbalize their needs be sure to pay attention and recognize those things they ask a lot from you. Show them you understand their feelings by nodding your head in agreement, repeating their statements, or verbalizing how you “get it”. Once you make that connection, you are in essence encouraging them to learn about themselves as well as giving them the opportunity to express themselves and learn from their experiences.
Hear them. Be quick to understand and slow to discipline. It can affect parenting and learning when we as parents discipline our children rather than taking time to understand them.
We want to be restorative and not condemning. How can we restore what we don’t understand? In some cases the more misunderstood the child feels the less able they are to focus and in others, the more they will looking for their value and worth in achievement rather than in God. We as parents can speak life into our kids, work with them to figure out what they need, and give them the confidence to know that no matter what they can feel safe and loved by us!
Know them. Learn about their personalities and behaviors in order to work with them as a parent, and teacher. This day in age, we have so many resources available to us from personality tests, behavioral websites, parenting blogs, and so much more.
Here are only a few, (of many) great tests and resources to learn more about your child, their personality, temperaments, love language and learning styles.
5 Love Languages for Kids (recommended for children ages 9-13)
5 Love Languages for Teenagers
Samantha cautions that we as parents would benefit from not just seeing what our children struggle with or what they are successful in, but to understand why. This key concept is imperative to being able to replicate the success and be able to learn and create new strategies for struggles.
It’s a fact, the more we understand how our child thinks and feels the better we can parent and teach them.
** Samantha Sult is a Licensed Professional Counselor with LivingWell Counseling Associates of Kannapolis and Cornelius.
Share with us, what are your best tips or resources on getting to know your child’s personality? We can’t wait to hear from you.