If your child is frazzled, whiny, or stressed—something is out of balance.
From small daily challenges, all the way to big life changes, your child’s energy can be thrown out of balance. Instead of thinking that something is wrong with your child, look at the ways you can bring them back into balance.
In this episode, Carol and Anne share “grounding” tips for all 4 Types of children. They’ll help you identify when your child is stressed and how to support each Type of child in ways that honor their true nature.
This week’s Parenting Practice
The next time your child is out of sorts, use the simple tip for your Type of child to help them ground and re-center themselves so you can all have a beautiful, balanced experience together.
Transcript of podcast episode
Carol: Pets of all kind are now on flights because of that emotional support they offer. I even saw a turkey on a flight, it was quite bizarre. I think they banned the turkeys, but… Welcome to “The Child Whisperer Podcast.” I’m your host Carol Tuttle, author of the best selling parenting book, “The Child Whisperer.” I’m with my co-host, Anne Tuttle Brown.
Anne: I have had a challenging recovery since having a baby almost three weeks ago, and I know my type four son is all out of sorts because he’s crying very quickly over everything and being abnormally defiant. It’s because our regular routine is all messed up and my sweet mom is here caring for the older kids while I recover and he doesn’t like having additional authority figures outside of me and his dad. I’m trying to give him one on one time. How can I support my young type four in this weird but short season? Any ideas for grounding a type four three-year-old?
Carol: I wanna first compliment this mother’s insight, that she’s recognizing that in a child’s type four nature, they like routine. They like the big picture, they are not necessarily easily connecting to new people in their private space. So right away, she’s not scratching her head going, “What’s going on?” She’s figured out, “Oh, my type four child, who’s the more serious child, has had a disruption.” She’s aware of that. So I’m really…I think it’s amazing she’s not just asking us, “Why is this happening?” She knows why she’s asking now for a solution.
Anne: She said she’s been trying one on one time. There have been efforts made and she’s looking for additional support. So that’s awesome. This child whisperer, just that understanding. I say so many times to myself, “I’m just so glad I know that specifically, my type three daughter is a higher energy.” That gives me so much more grace.
Carol: This isn’t weird. Nobody’s at fault. Nobody’s like, “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with my child?” There’s nothing wrong. There’s a situation that needs attention, which is great. And that’s why one of the things I do in the Facebook group, in the Child Whisperer Facebook group, when we get a post that presents a question as to, “Why is this happening?” Because she’s not asking why, she’s now saying, “What do I do? Because I know why. Because I understand my type four child and their preferences.” So, when a parent goes on the page and a mother will post something, “Why is this happening?” One of my questions is, “Have you read the entire book from front to back?”
Anne: And more recently.
Carol: And have you reread it? Because if you’re really invested in being a child whisperer parent, you start to, on your own, get the why when you understand…
Anne: And it’s a pretty basic formula. It really is and you start to see the patterns. And so, yeah.
Carol: So if you’ve not read the Child Whisperer recently, it’s not a one-pass book. I’d encourage you not to share it, keep it, it’s a reference guide. Because you’re going to need to reread it.
Anne: Shared copies often don’t get returned.
Carol: I don’t know. I mean, that’s not me. I’d be like, “Buy your own book.” Back to the question.
Anne: No, actually we do want you to share The Child Whisperer.
Carol: Well not…sure, link. The link to share is thechildwhisperer.com/book. That’s a $15 offer. It’s always there. You can always share that link.
Anne: A wealth of knowledge for $15. Okay, so her question is, how can I support my type four son in this season? Any ideas for grounding a type four three-year-old? Now, we’ve talked about the idea of grounding. It’s different than the grounding for discipline. We’ve talked about that here before, but will you briefly explain what it means to ground yourself or your child?
Carol: This mom is referring to grounding in the reference to being balanced. Their energy is balanced, their emotions are balanced. They’re in a state of well being that they’re not pulled out somehow where they’re more emotional.
Anne: I think like frazzled. If you’re not grounded, you’re frazzled, you’re stressed.
Carol: You’re out of balance. You literally, you have a energy system that runs to maintain balance. You have this very influential system called meridians. And when they’re not balanced, you’re not grounded. And children get pulled out, their energy gets pulled and overwhelmed, and they can disconnect. The ungrounded effect will occur to a type four child when they feel disoriented. They can’t read their space with accuracy.
Anne: Especially at this age, three years old. Yeah, when you’re used to rhythms and routines and all of a sudden, woah.
Carol: And he won’t have the verbiage, the vocabulary, he’s going to express he’s under stress, things are off, exactly like this mother recognized. So, again, good for her to read those is a child that’s just under stress and there’s an opportunity for her to correct it. So, what do you do to ground a type four child?
Anne: So this question was asked in the Facebook group and there were lots of comments and one that…
Carol: Mine was very different than all the others.
Anne: Yes, it was. What were some? Do you remember some?
Carol: I pulled out my energy healing wand and went, “I have a solution.”
Anne: Do you remember some of the other suggestions that…
Carol: I do not.
Anne: Okay. This one took the cake, we’ll just go right there. You said, “Dress him in black. I’m serious. The color black has a positive grounding effect on type fours.”
Carol: Yes, very much.
Anne: Have you taught that before or was that just something you thought?
Carol: That was very intuitive in the moment. I know in the dressing your truth world, that is something I hear frequently, that type four women, especially in our lifestyle Facebook group, they’ll say they like to go with pattern and more bold colors and color, but they have to go back to their black because it centers them. So I did have that feedback.
Anne: “Black is very grounding for me,” we hear a lot of type fours say that. It has a still quality.
Carol: I was like, “Oh, yeah, I get it. It centers them.” So I did have that to consider, that that was something actually our type four dressing your truth community had taught me. But it made complete sense to me because black is such a saturated still color that it just, it’s like that, “Oh.” It just puts you back in the center. And so the thought came to me was, that if she puts black on him, he’s gonna feel stabilized. So, you followed up with her. I’m curious what happened. Did it work?
Anne: Yeah, she said, “I do notice a difference when he’s in black now.” And she even shared a story about how he participated in a singing performance with his Sunday school class at church that they performed in front of the congregation. And usually, he would be not wanting to participate, but she, using her child whispering skills, shared with him what to expect beforehand and then also just led it up to him and dressed him in a black polo. And she says, “To my surprise, he did great and participated without reluctance. He doesn’t always want to wear a black shirt, so purposely, I bought him black shoes, quite literally grounding him. It’s good to be reminded,” I love this part. “It’s good to be reminded that little people are people. When I dress my truth, it makes a difference in how I feel and it totally does for my kids, too.”
Carol: Yeah, that’s really important, and I loved her. That’s again taking my feedback, and true to her role as a mother, her right to an intuitive hit and being guided by understanding her son. She received an insight on her own to get the black shoes. I love that. I love that they go further with this and they’re like, “I get it,” and they’re now practicing in a much fuller way what they’re learning from us. So, kudos to this mom in so many ways. To me, she’s a role model child whispering parent in her whole approach to this.
Anne: So after you shared that comment, there were follow up comments. “Well, what should I put my type three child in? What color should I put my type two child in?”
Carol: They were asking what color. They thought it would be a color for each child. So that was an interesting reply series of, you know, “What’s the color for a type one?” And I said, “Well, it wouldn’t necessarily be a color.” So I did come up with each of the other three types grounding support that would help bring them back into that place of being centered. Why don’t you go through the first two, and I’ll add three since I’m a type three and this is what I do.
Anne: Type one is a spinal flush, and we’ve taught that before. You put your hand at the base of the neck and just brush it down to the…
Carol: Spinal column, right off the tailbone.
Anne: And just do that a couple of times.
Carol: We’ll put a link on the website to that video that we have that teaches that. You and I produced a video a while back that we demonstrate that.
Anne: And you said a glass of water. Have them put their hand on top of their head for a few moments up to a minute. Now, I haven’t heard you teach this one before. What’s the point of putting their hand on top of their head?
Carol: Hold that thought. Let’s continue this discussion after a short break.
Woman: Knowing your type and your child’s type changes everything, doesn’t it? It helps you to understand one another better. It can help your outside, too. When you wear clothes that express your type, you feel better, you look better, and people understand you more easily, including your kids. Carol Tuttle created the “Dressing Your Truth” program to help you dress true to your type and create a personal style that expresses who you really are. The best part, you can learn all the basics for free. Start loving how you look and feel at dressingyourtruth.com.
Carol: You have a very powerful energy center on the crown of your head, and type ones have a very active imagination and a very active…that point of energy is very active for them. So type ones can literally spend…get into a place if they’re not in their bodies, they’re spending more time in a manner out of their bodies in that imaginative space in what’s called the thought field.
Anne: Well, if you think about just bringing it back to the type one movement, type one movement is upward.
Carol: Yes, up and out.
Anne: That makes sense. Yeah, their energy is moving up and out…
Carol: They’re pulled too far up and out of their body. It’s like, where’s the hot spot of their energy? Well, it’s outside of them right now. So, putting their…it will bring them back into present moment reality. It’d be a really good technique for a type one once they get into that time period in school where they’re testing, to do this before they take a test. So that they bring that energy back into their thinking mind rather than their imaginative mind. So we kind of think right brain, left brain when they need to be more left brain active because type one children will tend to honor their right brain more, which is the creative space. And so that will help create a balance to both hemispheres of the brain but it will bring them back into their body which will ground them. So it’s just, cap it. And the water, water is light, fresh, and it’s a sensation. So, again, it brings them into the present moment by drinking some water.
Anne: Using their senses, yeah.
Carol: Those three things.
Anne: That’s all very sensory. And would you dress a type one in black to ground them?
Carol: Oh no, not at all. That’s counterproductive.
Anne: Because it’s so…
Carol: It’s too still.
Anne: …still. Having your children dress their truth, though, will have a great impact on, no matter what type they are.
Carol: That will actually balance them because it’s aligned with who they are energetically. So, your child, your type one child may be out of balance because they’re in too solid of a color and you’re not letting them be expressive in their dress and clothing.
Anne: They’re feeling stifled in their expression, their clothing. Okay. Type two, you shared cuddling with a stuffed animal, being read to while being held. And I can relate to this. When I’m feeling frazzled, just a moment of like physical connection even helps me when I’m able to snuggle my children or my husband holds my hand, and I just, like you said, it brings me back into present moment and it just makes me pause. Like I’m not moving, I’m just being still, and I’m allowed to go inward and just everything kind of just comes down a bit.
And I’ve seen this definitely with my type two son, when he’s more whiny, which we know is the signal of a type two being out of balance, I’m like, “Well, what does he need?” If I just stop and make eye contact with him, touch him, give him a hug, hold him on my lap for just a few minutes, he just perks right up and is able to just kind of balance himself, center himself, and he just needs that one on one connection for a moment.
Carol: That stuffed animal though could be a really great technique to get. What you’re creating are habits, habits of the mind and body. So there’s a…it’s sort of like Pavlov’s dogs. It’s a trick to train your immune system and your neurovascular system to be responsive to these habits you’ve repeated over and over. So for a type two, a stuffed animal that’s designated as the, you know, the cuddling, give it a little pet name, a little nickname, that’s what it offers. So, it’s kind of like, you know, we know how… I travel extensively and dogs and pets of all kind are now on flights because of that emotional support they offer. I even saw a turkey on a flight, it was quite bizarre. I think they banned the turkeys, but it had a story with it which, if you ask me in the child whisperer group, I will answer why the woman had a turkey. The idea of that is to, again, make a point of reference to a connection with something, and then the reading to while being held. A blanket can also serve.
Anne: Yeah, my son has three blankets.
Carol: Stuffed animal, blankets. Something that offers a soothing touch. Now, the reading while being held, using a soft voice tone is going to bring that child back into balance. It needs to be something that they’re connected with, they have a…
Anne: Is that so they can…because I’m thinking this would work well for me. Is like it gets my mind off of what I was stressed about and it just switches into…
Carol: It’s a distraction.
Anne: Yeah, the present moment.
Carol: Plus the softer voice, make sure you read it to them in more of a type two quality so that it soothes them. There’s a soothing effect of that, doing that. So type three, they are physically connected to the world. You can see how these all line up with the energy of each of the types to give them the benefit. When a type three is not grounded, it’s because they’re just, there’s pent up energy a lot of the time or they’ve been locked into too many screens and they may have been overdoing some things, so now they’re kind of burnt out.
The best technique for a type three is connection with the earth, and so if it is the time of year you can walk in the dirt or grass barefoot. Literally, that is a very universally taught grounding technique in the world of energy therapies. They even sell grounding mats. I sleep with one at night. But just walking in that dirt barefoot and really letting them connect, feel it, get it in their toes even, feel that, and breathe deep breaths in as they’re pulling the energy from the earth into them, and even stomping, or going on a brisk walk is very helpful as well.
Anne: Those are all great tips.
Carol: Dressing your truth is not a fashion system really, although by first appearance it looks like that because women look better. It truly is a life balance system. It’s about honoring our true selves. Not only do people see who you are, the benefits of your own energy being supported are quite profound. Because now that I’m 15 years into dressing my truth, I couldn’t wear anything that’s not true to my type and feel balanced. I would notice it the entirety of the day. I would just be off. My energy is used to being in my type three colors, my design lines, textures, fabrications, patterns, that it’s just balancing to me.
It’s created an authentic quality of not only how I express myself, but in how I feel about myself. So, the advantage of that is really quite profound. In fact, I had a mom post on the Child Whisperer Facebook group that she’d bought the style kit which includes your color guides, pattern guides, and some other instructional information. And she just laid them out and let her daughter who happens to be a type one choose which was hers. And she didn’t give her any instruction. And I’ve seen this literally hundreds of times because parents will share this with me. Guess which one her daughter picked? She just said, “Pick which one’s your favorite.”
Anne: Type one.
Carol: Yeah, she picked the type one color.
Anne: Oh, I saw that picture, and she said, “Please, mom, please can I be this one?”
Carol: Yeah, she was really excited. And it actually helped one mother confirm what she thought her children’s types were because they picked the particular style guide and color guide that she thought was their type.
Anne: I’m going to try that with my three-year-old. I haven’t done that yet.
Carol: Have you ever done it with Sam, your type two?
Anne: No, that’s who I’m going to try it with.
Carol: Oh, I wanted… Would you videotape that? I want to see that. I’d be really curious. Oh, if he picks the right one.
Anne: We’ll share it.
Carol: Like, “Would he pick it a type four?” I can’t imagine him picking type four.
Anne: No, we’re going to do an experiment.
Carol: This boy is so particular about what he puts on his body. I mean, I babysat him over the weekend, he re-dressed himself three times by 9:30 in the morning. I’m like, “You’re naked again. What are we doing?” “I didn’t want that. I want [inaudible 00:18:33].”
Anne: So dressing your kids according to their type is such a great way to help them feel grounded all throughout the day. And then guaranteed, life gets crazy. There are going to be moments where they will need this added support. And I love that these are very simple tricks that you can do every day. You have all the resources right there. And so setting your children up for success to just support them in their energy and that they can be more well balanced. Your parenting practice this week is when you notice that your child is out of sorts…
Carol: I guarantee you will have an opportunity because life is rushed. We feel very pulled out of ourselves a lot.
Anne: So when that opportunity presents itself, use the tip for your type of child to help them ground and re-center themselves so that you can all have a more beautiful balanced experience together.
Carol: Then come to the Child Whisperer Facebook group and share your success story, because I want to hear how fabulous this works. We’ll be looking for that. Thanks for listening. For more support. Go to thechildwhisperer.com where you can purchase the book, subscribe to our weekly parenting practice email, and find a transcription and audio of “The Child Whisperer” podcast.
Anne: If you’re listening on iTunes, thank you for leaving a review. If you have a parenting question, please send it to [email protected].
