We hear a lot of complaints about children from parents. Just imagine a discussion between teens about their parents and let us understand how much impact a parenting style can make on a child’s life. Have we ever tried to analyse our own behavioral styles and the corresponding Parenting style that we possess?
Using a “DISC” psychometric tool, we can easily find out our behavioral profiles at home, and accordingly identify our own parenting styles. This powerful tool shows our predominant characteristics:- D- Dominating, I-Influential, S-Steady or Supportive and C-Compliant or Conscientious. Generally people are a combination of these 4 major traits and one or two of them are predominant and become the defining factors for our behavioral patterns in any environment. You can read more about DISC here. There are many organizations where you can get this tool from, other than this link.
As per my experience in dealing with parents, a majority of parents fall into the category of being “Supportive” and “Compliant” by nature and which means that they expect their child also to be very systematic and consistent, and committed in their efforts while doing anything at all. Very few parents are “Influential” and don’t really micro-manage their child, but are very supportive and always ready to help . Even fewer are parents who are “Dominating” and have always believed in challenging the world and therefore expect their child also to be a brave hombre who would confront and challenge everything and take the bull by the horns. Of course there are overlaps and combinations of the above, and you can easily map your predominant traits using this powerful, yet very simple tool.
Why is this important to know? Because your child may not be the same personality profile as you and therefore there are bound to be differences in what you expect and what you observe in your child. For eg. a “Compliant” mother will tend to believe that all things have to be kept very neatly and structured in the shelf or on the table. The child may be a “Dominating” or “Influential” personality and completely unstructured, and believes in “chaotic creativity”, the likes of a MF Hussain or AR Rahman. Can you see how much of problem this could create? If only, there was a mirror like DISC to show each about themself, and this would make it far easier to understand and accept each other.
Most of the time, as parents, we believe that what we expect from the child is absolutely justified and correct. However, if we try to understand the personality profile of our child and also our own profile, we will be able to understand “Why” the child behaves in a particular manner, and maybe very different from our expectations.
It is more about “Acceptance” than “expectation”, and the earlier we learn to accept our own child the way he/ she is, the better relationship we will have with our teenagers. This could be a game changer in our life, because, in my experiences, both in my life and with my clients, I have seen children becoming absolutely self dependent and responsible, when they have a good open relationship with their parents. Not to mention the higher level of happiness and peace of mind that prevails at home because of more understanding and better communication.
Personality traits are something that do change but there are certain core characteristics that remain with us as permanent, for eg. a person who is “Dominating” will display a certain assertiveness, boldness and upfront behaviour and even though with age, there will be more maturity, but the core behaviour will be mostly governed by this trait.
Jeevan Pravaas Life Mentoring Services uses “DISC” and many more such tools for personality and abilities assessment to identify the unique characteristics of each child and helps parents understand the nature of the child and also look at how the “strengths” identified can be leveraged to make the right choices for life, while enabling parents and children to be in the same team for success in life’s beautiful journey.