IDENTIFYING AND RAISING CHILDREN ACCORDING TO THEIR MOTIVATIONAL GIFT:
This study will be in two parts. This section will focus on children birth to about five years of age. The second part will focus on children six to ten. The following elements will be the focus of our attention.
The gifts are called motivational as opposed to spiritual because it is my opinion the gifts are given by the Lord before a child is born. The gift shows in the child from the Lord’s investment in their life and testifies to the child of the Lord’s presence. Each of the gifts have specific traits not utilized in the other gifts. There are seven. Some break these up into dozens or even hundreds yet I have found that these seven form the core. Along with the gifts are specific character traits central to the gift.
There are two external influences that strongly impact the gifts: birth order, and abnormal abuse,( abandonment, neglect, rejection or death of a parent). These influences may either enhance or deflect the gift.
The old adage about treating every child the same is most certainly poor advice. Rather each child should be raised according to their gift. Parents tend to raise a child according to their own gift, yet this tends to be a real hindrance when the child has a different gift.
When trying to assess the child’s gift it is easier to break the traits up into two different groups. The first division has to do with leader or follower type traits. The second way they may be observed is by physical, emotional, or intellectual responses.
Here is an example. My wife use to keep children, especially infants. One afternoon I came home to help her with a new 3 month old baby girl. I walked in and picked little Macie up and turned to talk to Mary. In my peripheral vision I noticed that Macie’s neck muscles as she strained to acquire eye contact with the speaker.
I knew immediately that she was exhibiting Exhorter like qualities for eye contact is an inborn trait of this gift. As time has born out this indeed is her gift as seen in a host of other traits exhibited by this gift.
This desire for eye contact is strong in the infant it is as if they already know they need it to ‘know’ the speaker. We will return to this a little later.
Physical traits apparent early with certain gifts are oriented to the physical realm. The young child is attracted to physical items, plays and toys with physical toys. Along with this is a rejection of strong emotional behavior. They actually flee the room in the face of emotional outburst, strong or loud language. Representative of this group are Servers, Organizers, and Givers.
Emotional traits that maybe observed early in infants and small children are responses to emotions. The infant can easily sense the emotional state of whoever is holding or caring for them. If they sense anxiety they may try and calm the individual. If they sense anger they may push away from the person.
The intellectual infant tends to examine their environment. The tendency is to either avoid or ignore emotional experiences. These are just some of the clues. Lets examine each of the gifts more closely in order to acquire discernment in the details we observe and proper responses. Again we will group these gifts into three with the following gifts representative of each of the gifts.
The emphasis here is what to look for or explanations of possible traits during the first 6 months. These are not exclusive nor inclusive of the representative traits rather just guidelines that help the parent focus on responses most important to the child.
PHYSICAL GIFTS:
Organizer
Server
Giver
INTELLEECTUAL GIFTS:
Teacher
Exhorter
EMOTIONAL GIFTS:
Mercy
Prophet
Exhorter
Note intelligence is not an attribute of any specific gift all have the capacity for high intelligence.
As one looks at the physical gifts the traits most observable in the first six months will be high activity level with difficulty being still. They will appear to have a lot of energy particularly the Server, with fewer sleeping hours and a desire for physical stimulation.
The physical gifts do not respond well to emotional behavior in fact they will avoid emotional displays or not respond at all. Physical stimulation is very important with these gifts along with the avoidance of emotional stimulation. The infant will react to sights, sounds, smells, touch and temperature changes.
The emotional gifts with Mercy being the strongest will display different traits altogether from the physical or intellectual. The child will be very sensitive to the emotional situations.
Moodiness will be an active trait but is controlled by the emotions of those around the child. The child will attempt to mollify the emotions of others. Pacification of others is a key response of the child to the negative feeling of others because from the very beginning the child wants to heal others. Activity levels are going to be lower and intensity to situations higher.
The Teacher is the main representative of the intellectual group. Again the traits observed will be substantially different from the other two groups. Activity level will be lower, moodiness will be very weak. One will observe a regularity about the child. The tendency to repeat behaviors, persistence in the face of obstacles. The Teacher will avoid or be nonreactive to emotional experiences. The child will tend to change activities or focus frequently. This may appear as distractibility when it is a great desire more mental stimulation.
Now lets change our focus to the older child for here from age one upwards we find more and more of the traits becoming evident. It is also here that the parent must take caution in direction, and discipline of the child. Most certainly one type of correction will work for some groups of gifts and will not work at all for others.
A brief example is the difference between the Prophet and the Mercy. With the Prophet the parent has to be strict non-wavering in their approach. With the Mercy if you tried strict discipline you would emotionally hurt, crush the spirit and alienate the child. Now let’s look at specific attributes of each of the gifts at young ages.
The Prophet: From a very early age you will see the child’s interest in the behavior of other children. As you correct, direct, or discipline the child you will find the child examines the behavior of other children and either tattles or tries to correct others behavior. I am reminded of a YOUTUBE video some months ago where the child is arguing incessantly with the mother over failures of the mother to properly correct others behavior.
Parents frequently consider this behavior disrespectful. Yet it is the wise parent who looks more deeply at the issue and finds the child is developing a deep sense of what is right and wrong and wants to influence the world about him with this same morality.
Thus the trick is to train the behavior not eliminate it. Talks with the child about what they see and how they feel and what the appropriate response becomes further trains the child in the proper path. Discipline, especially harsh discipline encourages rebellion and acceptance of duplicity by the child.
A first born Prophet will tend to be loud, at times obnoxious, see everything as right or wrong, black or white. These tendency will be very intense in a first born child and milder in second born or other birth order. The Prophet has a distinct sense of insincerity thus such behavior on the part of a parent will bring about an immediate response by the child.
The Prophet will tend to lead other children. If the manner of leadership is acceptable then others will tend to appreciate and follow the Prophet. If however, the Prophet is harsh, unyielding with others then other children will tend to reject the Prophet.
Typically the Prophet has few friends because of their black and white behavior and unyielding positions. You will find that though the Prophet craves the friendship of others rarely are they able to acquire acceptance. For this reason the acceptance and understanding of the parent is very important. Discipline is critical. One always corrects the same behavior with the same discipline. To do otherwise is to confuse the child. The child with the gift of Mercy is a distinct difference.
The Mercy
Birth order like with the Prophet is very important. A first born Mercy will have some Prophet like traits, while the second born Mercy is the most intense. They will tend to be moody and sensitive to the moods of others. If there is arguing going on in the house the Mercy will attempt to intervene. If intervention fails they will tend to side with one of the individuals.
The Mercy tends to be a very loving child. They will cuddle, follow, and attempt to acquire the attention of the parent. The Mercy will tend to be protective of others, even excusing bad behaviors. They will be soft spoken, mild mannered and easy to get along with. They make ‘friendships’ quickly. Friendships are at two levels.
The first is what one might call acquaintances. The other person does not realizes this but the Mercy will tend to withhold the personal self from this level of friendship. In contrast the Mercy will form one, two, maybe three close friendships throughout their whole life which will be deep and time consuming.
The Mercy is probably the most misunderstood of all the gifts. The Mercy is slow, inconsistent, and forever late. The parent particularly the Prophet and Server gifts will react strongly to the slow responses. Other than hurting the Mercy’s feeling harsh reactions will have no effect. One will not be able to speed up a turtle. The parent frequently misunderstands the reason for this behavior and will attempt a variety of disciplines to no avail.
The core issue for the Mercy is the sensing and responding to the emotional state of others. This takes time and the child does not want to hurt others. Thus they have to be positive about their reactions.
Moreover corporal discipline is not effect with a Mercy in fact it is counter productive. Rather the Mercy will respond more positively if they feel certain behavior is hurting another.
All of these traits like those of the Prophet’s and Mercy are very apparent early in the child’s life.
The Server and Giver:
These two gifts are alike in their responses with a few exceptions thus I will review them together. Both gifts are highly sensitive to environmental issues. Heat, cold, smells, taste and even hearing are more intense in these two gifts. Neither gift will remain in the presence of strong emotion.
Several years ago I had a couple come in for counseling. They brought a three year old and a five year old with them. They had recently lost their two year old in a tragic accident and were distraught as one would suspect. As they talked tears ran down their faces. The three years went across to a table with Kleenex and returned got up into her parents laps and wiped tears from their eyes and said ‘do not cry mommy,’ ‘do not cry daddy’ as she gently wiped the tears from their eyes. The five year old crawled under a desk and played with a toy totally non- responsive to the scene in the room.
Servers, Givers, Teachers, and Organizers will not stay in the presence of strong emotion. The Servers and Givers shut it out completely. Parents with the gifts of Mercy, Exhorter, and Prophet find these response difficult and will attempt to obtain emotional responses to no avail. They interpret the child as not caring. The answer has to do with their gift which suppresses the emotions in order to have energy for activity. The Servers, and givers seems to have boundless energy and are able to work at task for long hours without tiring. So what separates these two gifts? Their behavior towards material things.
The Giver places a lot of emphasis on the material. They tend to want the best quality for the best price. Which means early in life they tend to be be able to ascertain value. At an early age you will see the Giver not wanting to share their toys or other items. One may observe evidence of stingy behavior. The material becomes all important.
The Giver in contrast will be more focused on godly things and wanting to share with others these feelings.
The Server is a doer. Is physically oriented. The Server wants to please others and will do things to acquire praise. They are not readers. If the child is exposed to reading and wants to please another then they may take up reading but it is not primary nor should it be forced. The Server’s do not easily learn by the written word rather by verbal and visual experiences.
One other trait seen with the Server is the inability to express themselves in a logical manner. Frequently observed in the adult and therefore in the child is illogical statements or statements which are really not relevant to a discussion. Physical discipline is most effective with the Server and Giver. However, emotionality on the part of the parent is counter- productive.
The Organizer:
The Organizer shares with the physical gifts many of the same traits. They shut out emotional experiences and avoid stress filled relationships.
The Teacher – The Teacher shares the reluctance for emotional involvement. They will not invite and will avoid at all cost emotional circumstances. However, they have a strong tendency for anger.
Even early in childhood one may observe obsessive type behavior. This may also be seen in their need to repeat new knowledge. When interacting with other children if called upon to ‘teach’ they will repeat the information numerous times to make sure it is being understood.
The Teacher is standoffish in their relationships. Even with parents they tend to keep emotional distance. They approach their environment intellectually wanting to know why, and how. They are filled with numerous questions.
Teachers learn by reading far more than any of the gifts. As they learn to read they exercise a tremendous love for books.
Neither physical nor emotional correction works with the Teacher. Placed in the position of not being able to obtain intellectual stimulation seems to be the most effective correction. Teacher’s tend to entertain themselves. Relationships are not important nor do they seek the approval of others.
The Exhorter
As already noted the Exhorter needs eye contact. Partly in order to assess the person partly to project strength. The Exhorter child tends to a very stable emotional state. They are comfortable with emotions and tend to interject themselves into emotional situations.
Exhorters are people problem solvers. If family members are at odds with one another they tend to place themselves in the middle as mediators.
The Exhorter is strongly effected by birth order with being the third born being the ideal placement. Discipline and correction is important during the first few years with emphasis always being placed on consequences. Two words carry considerable influence in the heart of the Exhorter; consequences and wisdom. Both words provide structure and blessing.
The Exhorter while emotionally oriented does not seem to experience depression in harsh circumstances. Rather they seem to be able to use such experiences to mature. Adults usually delight in interacting with the Exhorter for they listen and project a caring attitude. Part of this is projected by the constant eye contact.
Parenting the Gifts
It is imperative that the parent learn to interact with the child on the basis of the child’s gift. Barriers between parent and child even from a very early age are heavily influenced by the gift.
When a parent has the same or similar gift as the child they tend to bond. When the gift is different there is a distance perceived by both parent and child.
Moreover, discipline will be most effective when in accord with the child’s gift. Harsh treatment for a Mercy instills rebellion. Gentleness with a Prophet is perceived as weakness and permission. Gentleness with a Prophet is perceived as weakness and permission. Emotional responses to the Teacher, Server, Giver, and Organizer will fall on deaf ears. In all of the gifts discipline, correction, and direction is perceived as love. Without discipline, correction or direction, you instill feelings of rejection and worthlessness. It is difficult as a parent when your gift is different than the child’s. Thus the parent must learn and train up a child according to the gift which means understanding each of the gifts and how they appear. The early years allows the parent to see and experiment with the gifts.
A word about abnormal situations with children. When a child is given up by the birth parents it has a profound effect on the child. The emotional gifts Prophet, Mercy, Exhorter are hit the hardest with this form of abandonment. While the Server, giver, Organizer, and Teacher had the ability to suppress the emotional effects. At the same time the Prophet, Mercy and Exhorter, will be able in later years to use the harsh circumstances received in childhood to the betterment of others. Do not be fooled into thinking that just because a child is adopted at birth they will escape these scars. The earlier the abandonment by the birth parent the more severe the damage. A host of other situations in early childhood of a physical, emotional or mental type heavily influences the child. Some gifts thrive in hardship others do not. But regardless the child’s gift is the key to unlocking growth to maturity in an understanding of the gift and how it is used most effectively to train.
Christian Family Services Ministry 