If they don’t some, don’t try to explain them, just erase them from their lists. Make sure the kids understand the meaning of the traits. Print a copy of the list of traits for each member of your family (kids and parents).Use the list to compete the exercise below. I have arranged them in alphabetical order for your convenience. Below the instructions is a list of weeds/bad traits/bad behaviors that I collected from all the parents in my parenting workshops. One of the keys to start changing these traits and behaviors is to be aware of the ones we use.įollow the instructions below to begin recognizing and changing your kids’ personality traits. It allows them to adopt behaviors that we consider bad and unhealthy for them. When we say things in survival mode, we clear the space for lots of weeds to grow in our kids’ mind-garden. Kids are no different, they are just more trusting. Research shows that when we hear something 3 times, especially from people who are dear to us, we tend to consider it as the ultimate truth. They have a mechanism that counts how many times they heard it something. The problem is that our kids record the sentences we say to them. Our brains pull their resources to manage the stress and we cannot think clearly about the things we are saying and the possible outcome. Do not despair, I did to! When we are stressed and under pressure (physical, emotional or perceived) we move into survival mode. If you have read the previous chapter, you probably found some of your “weed killers” there.

It is definitely possible, but not always easy and simple. This time, I cannot say the process of un-learning is simple. If we learn it, we can always un-learn it, or learn a new or opposite trait. It is a behavior he/she has learned in some way. That is because I don’t believe a child who is being stubborn on several occasion means that they are stubborn as a personality trait. I, for example, am not 100% comfortable calling it a trait. If you are not 100% comfortable with calling it traits, call it a behavior that is constant or that appears more often than not. One thing people are often uncomfortable about is saying their child’s personality has “traits”. If you wanted your child to grow kindness like you would grow a tomato, you need to water with support, not a weed killer, to help it grow. It is the same with kids and their traits. Think about it this way: if wanted to have a big plant of tomatoes, you would water it with water and use fertilizer that that supports healthy tomato growth. If kids are the garden, and kids’ personality traits are the plants, we need to water them with great love and care and remember that their early years are critical. If you neglect your garden or worse, water it with weed killer, no flowers or fruits will grow. If you have a garden at home, you know that when you take care of your garden, it looks beautiful and has lots of flowers and grows healthy nutritious fruits. In the process, you can greatly enhance your reputation, your career, and your leadership potential.If our children are like a garden, we the parents are the gardeners. The author discusses the individual traits and suggests how to manage them, which involves identifying the ones that trip you up, modifying some of your behaviors, and continuing to adjust in response to critical feedback. And diligence, in excess, can morph into procrastination and obsessive perfectionism. Having a deeply skeptical, cynical outlook makes it hard to build trust. For example, being excitable may help you display passion and enthusiasm to coworkers and subordinates, but it can also make you volatile and unpredictable. Subsequent profiling of millions of employees, managers, and leaders reveals that most people display at least three of these “dark side” traits, and about 40% score high enough on one or two to put them at risk for career disruption. Two decades ago the psychologists Robert and Joyce Hogan created an inventory of 11 qualities, ranging from excitable to dutiful, that when taken to the extreme, resemble the most common personality disorders.

Personality traits list negative