Child Individuality & College Success

What exactly—beyond those adorable smiles and angelic faces—makes your children special? One of the miracles of parenting is watching our kids develop into real people. With my kids, I found them beginning to form their identities at around six months of age. That's when they felt like a solid sack of potatoes and could alternately shriek and smile with vigor.

I suppose that what I'm doing here is lobbying for you to become more aware of the subtle nature of your child's early development. My wife often reminds me that our daughter would always walk smartly ahead of her when they shopped at the supermarket. From the time she took her first steps, she was determined to be in the lead. Don't overlook that word "determined." We watched as her determination in later years became a tremendous work ethic. That "walking ahead" became leadership. Other traits manifested and grew, all part of who she is. Be sensitive for those developmental metaphors.

Also be sensitive to individuality. We all hear the familiar refrain, "She takes after her mother," or "He takes after his brother." General comparisons are okay, up to a point. However, the sooner we realize that our children are not carbon copies of ourselves or their siblings, the sooner we will be able to appreciate them for their own merits. As a quick example from my own family, our daughter was strongly affectionate and loving as a toddler and preschooler and remains so today as an adult. I warmly recall many evenings when, as a three-year-old, she would sit in my lap as we listened to Beethoven, Brahms, and Paul Simon. Our listening sessions would inevitably end with her big hug, kiss on the cheek, and wonderful "Thank you, Daddy" capstone. Precious moments, indeed.

Our son, John, on the other hand, was completely different. Although he would share music listening and reading sessions with the same enthusiasm as Leigh Ann, he was markedly less affectionately demonstrative. As he grew older, I sensed what I interpreted as a kind of emotional aloofness toward me, and came to wonder if my fatherly ways were in some way defective.

It wasn't until I came into the knowledge of temperament and personality theory (for a fast, drive-up-window look at this topic, see http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp) that I understood the reason for the differences in my two kids' apparently different "affection-response" profiles. (Now, please don't be confused or frustrated by the following statement. It will become much clearer once you read and understand the HumanMetrics material cited above.) Leigh Ann's temperament is that of a feeling Guardian. John is a thinking Rational. It makes all the difference in the world.

So, I eventually learned who my children are, and that knowledge has made a significant difference in how I relate to them. It also made our college process much more focused, meaningful, and productive. In today's elite-college market, the stakes are high—and expensive. The smart move is to implement long-range strategic planning. One of the key foundation stones to any long-range college plan is to know who the candidate is. The big bonus may come from finding out along the way who you are too. Now there's a scary thought.

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