I can't stand not to share this...
My 7 year old is a C. Not the creative, artsy type C, but the organized, anal type C. Honestly, she is amazing. She's the child who at two years old changed the paper towel and toilet paper rolls without being asked. That's right, I said two years old. At three she informed me one day that we were out of her favorite cereal. She then explained to me that if I would buy two boxes of cereal the next time we could put one box in the cupboard and the other in the pantry. When we ran out of the one in the cupboard we could move the one from the pantry over and buy a new one to replace it. That way, she explained, we would never run out again.
Which gives you an idea of the personality type I'm raising here and leads me to my most recent Ellie story...
Last week I got a little behind in the laundry. (I swear, it was the first time that has ever happened; I'm normally so organized and together when it comes to mundane, repetitive tasks...) Anyway, Ellie was a little perturbed because her favorite pants weren't clean and I thought, "If you want clean pants, wash them yourself." It was an errant thought... silly even. After all, she's only 7. But then I thought wait a minute... this is Ellie we're talking about here. You can see where this is going. Long story short, Ellie does her own laundry now. I'm not even kidding. What's more she loves it. I'll hear the washer and dryer going, and for once its not me running it. I even hear her pulling the lint trap out to clean it. She separates colors, she adjusts water temperatures and levels depending on her load, and she hangs stuff up right out of the dryer so it doesn't wrinkle... SHE IS SEVEN! She is a C.
And that's the bottom line. This is her strong suit. This comes naturally to her. Knowing how our children are wired helps us to know what we can expect from them. Some things come more easily to certain personality types and some things we need to spend a little more time teaching them. More often than not parents underestimate their kids. They are capable of so much more than we realize. Use DISC to assess where some of those strengths lie in your child.
I've since decided to raise the bar in regards to my expectations for my 13 and 14 year old... they are to do their own laundry once a week now. So far my 13 year old I son has turned an entire white load grayish blue and my 14 year old "creative C" daughter couldn't remember how to set the washer and start it. It was okay, though... Ellie showed her how to do it.