What High and Low “Movement” Mean in The Child Whisperer

Carol: And that possibility thinking when it comes to profiling children can keep you from seeing the obvious. Welcome to the Child Whisperer podcast. I’m your host Carol Tuttle, author of the bestselling parenting book “The Child Whisperer.” I’m with my co-host Anne Tuttle Brown.

Anne: This week’s question comes from a mom in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She says, “I’m a Type 1 mom. My question is, can a Type 2 toddler still express a lot of movement, or have I misprofiled her?”

Carol: I think a healthy toddler will be expressing movement regardless of their type. So I don’t think that’s the qualifier.

Anne: Toddlers are busy.

Carol: Yeah, a healthy, happy toddler should be moving around the world.

Anne: Yeah. I think she’s misinterpreting our description of movement. And so we have, in The Child Whisperer, we have the high movement types, Type 1 and Type 3. We have the low movement energies, Type 2 and Type 4. Every type can still be active, can move their bodies, can explore. The movement comes in how they move through those activities. Type 1, it’s with a bounce. Type 2, it’s with a connection. Type 3, it’s with a push forward. Type 4, it’s more steady and still.

Carol: Exactly.

Anne: Still, you say still. It doesn’t mean they’re sitting still.

Carol: That’s an inner quality.

Anne: Has a consistency to it.

Carol: That’s a reflective inner quality of a stillness that serves them to be able to turn within and really sort things out, figure things out, go into their process of being more mental.

Anne: I have a Type 2 toddler, he’s two years old, and he is busy. He loves to be outside. He especially loves to be on skateboards, and scooters, and on his little wiggle bike. The way he moves about those is very consistent, very fluid. He’ll push his little scooter.

Carol: He’s very steady.

Anne: He’s very steady.

Carol: He’s 2, and he’s on a little scooter. And he…

Anne: Yeah, he’s very coordinated.

Carol: Yeah, he’s very coordinated.

Anne: He’ll stop. We recently went to a skating rink, and he wanted to be out there with all the big kids on his scooter. And he did not want it lowered. He wanted the bars high, way above his head. And he would stop, and he would look around at what the other kids were doing. And then he would look down at how his body was working and figure it out. As opposed to my Type 3 daughter, when she was his age, she was active and busy, but she was moving from one thing to the next very quickly.

Carol: She’d be a little rough in her learning style too. It’d be more crash and burn.

Anne: Yeah, and she, you know, from here to there, the in-and-out outward movement, like that fire burst. And he’s more fluid and consistent. He’ll stay with an activity for a prolonged period of time.

Carol: So the insight is, it’s not about how much they’re moving, it’s the quality of the movement unless you have a Type 3 secondary 1 child. They move more than any human being on the planet.

Anne: Energizer bunny.

Carol: They move, move, move. And so what you’re explaining is there’s a quality of the movement that we teach in The Child Whisperer that helps you recognize that children don’t sit still necessarily, especially toddlers. It’s just, what does that movement look like? What’s the nature of the expression of it?

Anne: So on the flip side, can a Type 3 and a Type 1 have less active times?

Carol: I think so. In fact that, I think, again, is a balanced child to say that there’s times that they can sit still and focus in on…whether it’s reading, doing something that’s more project focused, and puzzles, or things that they’re interest in.

Anne: Play-Doh, painting…

Carol: Yeah. This ability to be able to engage themselves because they’re very involved in it and invested and interested in it. Now they might not do it for as long of a time, and they might prefer to do it in a… Like a Type 1, they might enjoy being in their room alone, but I could see that they’d prefer to be in a more social part of the home or have somebody to do it with and be able to talk while they’re doing it or engage.

Anne: That’s how my…my daughter is a Type 3. If she’s by herself, I can hear her talking to herself or singing. And so there’s that aspect of movement. Even if she’s playing alone… And I think the same… Jaleah, our Type 1 expert, has expressed her mom always knew where she was because she was singing a tune. And so there’s that movement. Or you’re tapping your foot. Even if you’re sitting, there’s that expression of movement. But you can still have those quieter times as a Type 1 and a Type 3.

Carol: It’s important not to stereotype what you’re learning in The Child Whisperer, to have it look so narrow. It’s a little broader than that. And the other aspect that I do touch on in the book briefly is understanding the influence of their secondary energy, as your child’s secondary energy type will be a supportive expression in them that they’ll actually tap into and rely on to feel a sense of balance. And so if their secondary… Let’s just say if their dominant type is what we classify as the higher movements of 3 and 1, but their secondary is a lower movement, you’re going to see that influence in different experiences in their life. And even recognize that’s a balanced child, so that it’s not that… It always looks this way.

Your children…there are some very universal clues to understanding your child’s energy type. One of the most universal references is their facial features. I did a series. You can find these on The Child Whisperer website at thechildwhisperer.com that… I did a series of podcasts previously that are published there where I show you the photographs. I show you their features and that you can see the movement in their faces even at a young age. And so that should be your first point of reference to interpret your child’s energy type correctly and their dominant movement is, what are their features telling me about who they are?

And not single out these different experiences to say… And I see adults do this. We see it all the time where they’ll take one specific experience, one specific behavior, one specific quality of their attribute and say, “Does this make me this type?” I’m like, “No.” This is an overall expression. We’re looking at universal attributes and qualities that are a common theme amongst people of that type. And so it’s a broad look versus a very narrow, specific, let’s tally up every single thing I do. You will move through life true to your nature even when your mind can’t see it. You just will. It’s a natural expression in us. Children are born with it. The good news is your learning about this supports them in staying true to it, so they grow up with a conscious awareness, “This is who I am, and it’s okay to be me.”

Anne: This question that we read was shortened from the original question that we had. In her original question, she does say that her features are very Type 2 and she also is more hesitant approaching strangers. And so in her question, she was reassuring herself. But all these factors that she saw that supported the Type 2, and then like you said, was getting nervous by narrowing it down to this one niche thing of like, but she moves a lot. Is that okay? Is that still Type 2? Well, go to those things, the facial features, the body language, the overall movement.

Carol: Also note that the parent, the mother, is a Type 1. So she has a gift of seeing lots of possibilities, and that possibility thinking when it comes to profiling children can keep you from seeing the obvious, the bigger presentation of who they are. Because you’re now looking at these singular possibilities versus, “Who is my child in their most day-to-day movement?” Is a quality expression rather than, “What about this? What about this?” So, make sure that you use the energy profiling tools, the most supportive in… Your child’s telling you who they are every day of your life, and there’s obvious signs. But it gets tricky if you go beyond the obvious and start to niche it.

This week’s parenting practice is to set the intention, whether you’re confident or still in that I’m uncertain what your child’s energy type is, that they will make it so obvious to you that you will see it. It will be a witness of who they are. That you’ll see it, you’ll acknowledge it, give thanks for it, and you’ll stop questioning it. That you’ll just…you’ll get it. You’ll go, “My child’s showing me who they are. They want me to know this about who they are.” So trust that. So look for… Something’s gonna happen, and maybe it’s one child that you need this confirmation of. It’s just gonna present itself. Trust what you’ve learned so that you… “There it is, and now I see it.”

Anne: What are some of the tendencies that each type of mom would face true to their nature that would put them in that uncertain phase? Type 1, seeing all the possibilities, you mentioned. Type 2 would be the questioning.

Carol: Not trusting themselves. And that can be a pattern that they’re experiencing in a lot of places. They’ve just… What happens is you bring your existing patterns to the experience of your profiling experience. The profiling didn’t provoke you to have these patterns. So if a Type 2 mom isn’t confident and she doesn’t trust her own sense of things, that’s being displayed in other areas of her life. It’s not just unique to this. It’s like, you’re bringing that to it. A Type 3, they haven’t studied the information adequately to really have the information, and they’re going the shortcut. And so it’s really important as a Type 3 to take the time to study it so you understand the model so it becomes useful to you rather than something that you’re just winging it with because there’s a good chance you’ll make errors, and your confidence will convince you otherwise. Really take time to learn this and practice it. If you skipped through the book, read the book. Listen to it. I would suggest listening to it. It’s on Audible.

Anne: On double speed. You can get through it real fast.

Carol: Yeah, speed it up, and listen to it while you’re doing other things. But really learn the model so it’s useful to your family and to yourself as a parent. And Type 4, that’s overthinking it. I see that with adults profiling themselves as this… They get a hit, and then their mind… It’s like the intuitive hit comes first, and then their mind takes over. And it questions the intuition because the analysis now tries to examine the intuitive hit, and they come back to the fact that actually, that intuitive hit was correct all along. And so use your mind to learn what that intuitive hit presented rather than to be a process of analyzing, examining it to see if it was correct.

I believe in inspiration as a parent. It’s one of my greatest working tools to pray, to ask, to be given, to give thanks, and to trust. It’s just something that’s served me all through. I’ve been amazed at the many, many, many scenarios that I was told and shown what to do different, who my child was, what they needed, just in the moment. And it’s such a thrilling way to operate, to be using intuition and inspiration as your guiding force. And with The Child Whisperer model, it gives you the perfect setup to make that highly useful to you and to trust it.

Anne: So going back to the parenting practice, I would ask that your own gifts which can switch into challenges get out of your way and that your child shows up very clearly to show you who they are so that you can use this information to your benefit.

Carol: And that might not be a positive experience on their behalf. They may display it in a stressful way, so it’s still information for you.

Anne: Like, give thanks because now I know.

Carol: There it is. I cannot question this. There it is. My child is really clearly showing me who they are. Let’s move forward. 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].