Use Enneagram to Understand the Motivation Drives of Your Child that You May Not Know (Four to Six)

An enneagram is a powerful tool that helps us to understand the personalities and drives of behaviors. It can be regarded as one of the perspectives to understand our child better and become a more effective parent. We'd covered One to Three. Let's continue to check Four to Six.

4. The Tragic of Romance

The drive is jealousy.  Jenny is moody and affectionate.  What’s happening around her can trigger different stories to her feelings. One day, she saw a white paper falling to the ground, she burst into tears.  She told me this reminded her that her white cat had passed away. Very often, you can’t quite understand why she is hysterical to feel upset or feel happy suddenly. 

Key motivation:

Attach to emotional needs before attending to anything else.  Want to maintain certain moods to create and pursuit of beauty surrounding themselves. They used to express their individuality and withdraw to protect their self-image. 

Parenting Tips

1. They need more personal space or zone.
2. Avoid arranging a tight schedule for learning or curricular activities. 

5. The Observer

David is an introvert who dislike communicating with others.  He has very few friends, perform not so good in school.   When the first time I met him, he was only ten years old but concentrated on reading a book about the causes of earthquakes.  He talked more to me at that time by asking me questions about the science of earthquakes.  I might disappoint him as I knew very little about earthquakes. When I saw him on another day, he talked much less rarely speaking a word. They are the investigator interested in engaging energy on something worth their time and effort.  When David regarded the communication with me is not fruitful to deepen his knowledge, he closed the little communication door with me to save his energy.

Key Motivation:

The drive is greedy.  They view the world is a scarcity of resources in which everyone is competing for a share.  Cost-effectiveness is important, want to possess the knowledge, to understand the environment, to have everything figured out as a way of defending the self from limited environmental resources threats.

Parenting Tips

1. The child may appear weird to spend a whole day reading a non-entertainment book with a difficult subject.  Don't worry!  Albert Einstein and Bill Gates got the personality trait of this category.
2. They need a personal zone with alone time. 
3. Their actions for implementation seem to be weak.  Use the encouraging method to help them developing their specific skills instead of exerting pressure to perform well in school.

6. The Loyal Skeptic

John seems like being slow in everything.  When the parent told the two children (John and his brother) to go out for dinner, John’s brother would move fast to dress up and ready to leave within 5 minutes.  Whereas, John would move slowly, and came to ask his mom questions such as:

• Where do we go?
  
• We will go with whom?
  
• Why we go there?

Key Motivation:

The drive is fear.  Want to have security, to feel supported by others with reassurance. They tend to test the attitudes of others toward them, to fight against anxiety and insecurity. 

Parenting Tips:

1. Take the child to do more exercise for releasing fear physically.
   
2. To help the child develops trust with others from baby steps. 
   
3. Use the teaching method similar to helping a kid to ride a bicycle. Holding the bicycle to let the child feels the security until he can ride by himself.