Energy Types

Have you ever heard of The Child Whisperer?  I heard of it a lot before I delved into it.  It’s a book about energy types.  The point is that you figure out which energy type your children are (out of four different types) and it helps you to learn how best to nurture them.

I have known for awhile now that Kylee and Dylan are opposite as far as personality goes.  Dylan is very bubbly, active, random, and touchy.  Kylee is focused, determined, not very touchy.  So when I looked at the website and the quick breakdown of the four energy types, I knew immediately which ones each of my kids fell into.

Here’s the website in case you are interested. http://thechildwhisperer.com/getting-started/

Dylan and Sadie are both Type 1 dominant, and I believe Dylan is probably a secondary type 3 and Sadie is a secondary type 2.  Kylee is a Type 4 dominant, and I would say maybe a type 2 secondary.

Another helpful thing was looking into myself and realizing I parent a certain way because “it’s in my nature”.  But it’s not necessarily what is best for all my kids.

Honestly, when I first looked at this I thought, “how great would it be if this book can teach me exactly how to give Dylan what he needs to help him be happier and more disciplined.”  But in reality, it doesn’t have all the answers.  I mean, I knew it wouldn’t.  But I was hopeful.  I can say that it has helped me appreciate Dylan’s randomness.  And Kylee’s orderliness.

I had Kylee read over the little chart in that link and I asked her what she thought.  She didn’t really know.  When I told her Dylan was a type 1 and said, “social, bouncy and random”.  She said, “what is random?”  I explained it’s doing something for seemingly no reason that doesn’t really make sense.  Not five minutes later, no joke, Dylan walks up to the table where Kylee’s candy cane was sitting (that she was slowly savoring) and karate-chopped it exclaiming “hi-yah!”  Kylee stared at him for a minute.  I looked at her, waiting for her to freak out at him.  But instead she looked at me and said, “okay, I get what you were saying about random.”  All of us busted up laughing.  Dylan didn’t really get what we were talking about, but he loves a good time so he just smiled and laughed.

I was listening to a Podcast for The Child Whisperer Carol Tuttle.  It was about anger, which I thought was fitting with Dylan, though he’s been doing so great lately (seriously, he’s been a much happier child!)  This woman called in about her 7-year-old Type 1 child who is very fun-loving, bubbly and bouncy even walking on his toes…  She went on to describe him even more like Dylan.  I was blown-away how similar he sounded to my son.  Knowing his energy type helps me to just smile at the silly things he does in attempts to make someone else smile, at the little skips he does during his basketball game.  When before I may have rolled my eyes a little or tried to “fix” him to be more like me.  Now I understand that he is not like me.  And that’s okay.

Kylee is like me.  Which is nice because we understand each other, but it comes with its own problems.  Type 4 kids tend to be bossy and she is the oldest anyway so she really acts like a little mini-mom to the other kids.  Sometimes that is good, like when she volunteers to change Kaden’s diaper, or put Sadie to bed.  But other times it’s not.  Like when she is constantly snapping at Dylan or Sadie or saying they are “annoying me”.  The problem is that the fun-loving energy of type 1 doesn’t always mesh well with type 4 (or any type, I would imagine).  If Dylan or Sadie are singing or just being too loud in general, I often hear Kylee trying to silence them and when I tell her they are allowed to make noise and it’s not hurting her she says, “it’s annoying!!”  Kylee loves to have a little space sometimes.  Sadie refuses to have any alone time.

Sadie is incredibly social.  And touchy.  I get so many hugs from her, and “I love you, Mommy”.  She is constantly wanting to play with friends, though it’s not very easy with a four-year-old.  I can’t just send her out to go knock on doors around the neighborhood to find a friend.

Both Dylan and Sadie love to color pictures or create things for other people.  They are constantly giving little papers to all of us.  And making things for their friends as well.  They both love to create.  When Dylan and Sadie get on a roll together, they play really, really well.  They get excited about their ideas and they have a lot of fun.  They decided to make a robot out of Dylan’s gumball machine one day when left to their own devices.  They were so proud of it.

I’ve really been racking my brain trying to figure out what each child needs from me at any given time.  Kylee will break down about one thing or another, and I will offer an outstretched arm, but she barely responds to that.  She doesn’t fold into me like Sadie does.  Physical touch just doesn’t do it for her.  She needs understanding.  I think.  I’m not really sure.  Ryan and I were talking about what her Love Language is and we think it must be quality time.  The other day she scraped her leg and she was whining to me as if there was something I was supposed to do to fix it.  So I offered a mother’s hug.  I told her mothers have magical hugs and it just might fix it.  She refused.  I tried and tried, she didn’t want my hug.  Of course it turned into a game.  I tried to get her to give me a real hug.  Sadie and Dylan both jumped in trying to demonstrate.  I am not lacking in hugs from those two.  But Kylee let her arms fall limp and refused to squeeze me back.  My mom pointed out the difference in the kids hugs months ago.  She said Dylan squeezes her so tight, but Kylee barely touches her and pats softly.  I can’t decide if we should try and help Kylee become more comfortable with a little touch.  Because affection is a good thing to show.  During my lesson on hugging (that’s a joke, we were all just joking, but at least her leg stopped hurting at some point during the lesson.  Sadie took it literally and really tried to explain to Kylee the proper way to give a hug, it was stinking adorable.) Ryan pointed out that some day she would be a mother and she would need to hug her children.  That brings me to another point in this whole energy type / love language discussion.

I feel like it may be a little dangerous to label children one way or another.  Actual I think it’s a lot dangerous.  I’ve seen the Child Whisperer lady do this.  She sat and told a young boy how he was going to be when he gets older.  What if he doesn’t want to be like that?  People are complex.  And while I agree with a lot of what she says about the energy types, I don’t think we need to tell type 4 kids that they don’t have strong social skills, that making friends will be hard for them.  That they won’t enjoy fun as much as the type 1 kids.  I don’t think we should tell them how they’re “supposed to” be at all.

I am a type 4 now, no question.  But I was incredibly social as a teenager and young adult.  Biggest flirt, right here.  I was very touchy, no personal space.  I’m still a very open person, at least with people I trust.  So would I have been considered a type 1 back then?  My mother says I had type 4 traits when I was young.  I think as adults, most people tend to take on other traits from the different types to make us more well-rounded.  And I think that’s a good thing.  I think it’s good for us to step out of our comfort zones.

So, while I’m happy I understand my children a little better, and I know that I don’t need to force them to be more like me and I can help them to enjoy life in the way that they want to.  I still think it’s not a good thing to put them in a box of personality traits.  They can be multi-faceted.  They can learn to step out of their comfort zones.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to better ourselves and the excuse that “it’s not my nature” isn’t reason enough to avoid certain things in life.   

As a side note, she also has a book called “Dressing Your Truth” which I’ve read a little of and I think it’s interesting.  It’s not hard to see how the way we dress can show different types of personality.  It explains why I see so many people wearing things like bows in their hair and I just think “I can not pull that off.”  And I really can’t.  It’s not my personality.  That’s like type 2 or maybe type1 I think.  Type 4 are better with bold colors and straight lines.  Frilly, flowery, mellow colors don’t really showcase us best.  I agree with that.  I prefer red, black, mustard, cobalt blue.  But I also enjoy bright colors too depending on the day.  But this might explain why some of Kylee’s hand-me-downs looked really great on Kylee but I just don’t love them on Sadie.  Because their personalities are so different (not to mention their hair color and over all look.)

Oh, another thing was that she says you can tell someone's energy type by looking at face shape and features.  Even identical twins often have different energy types and you can see the difference in their face.  Type 1 have round eyes, round cheeks- which describes Dylan to a T, and Sadie quite well too.  They've both always had big, round eyes.  Type 4 is more angular.

Anyway, it’s been fun.  If anyone wants to borrow The Child Whisperer to learn more about the energy types, I’m happy to lend it.