The Emotional Struggle Of The Fun-Loving Child
Published on October 5th, 2015
Updated on March 12th, 2022
The fun-loving child embodies the innocent and playful spirit most of us imagine children having. Fun-loving children are imaginative and exciting. Their energy is less about driving achievement and more about driving adventure. They are free spirited and independent and can rally with almost anyone who is up for a good time.
Fun-loving children are ruled less by emotions and more by activity. In the same way that the sensitive child wants to feel connected, loved and affirmed, the fun-loving child wants to feel entertained, stimulated and happy.
I’ve found that the challenge for the fun-loving child often has more to do with helping them manage their external environment than it does helping them sift through internal emotions. Rules and responsibilities are boring to most children, but especially to the fun-loving child. The strength of this type is their ability to make even mundane things fun, yet their shortcomings kick in when tasks require persistence, patience and stamina.
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Get StartedTeach fun-loving children to finish what they start. Fun-loving children are energetic and positive so encouraging them to start a new task is rarely a challenge; asking them to complete it might bring on a power struggle. Fun-loving children can regress quite quickly to an infantile state when they experience deprivation. “I just want to have a good time!” is the cry of the fun-loving child.
In this sense, it’s important to instill a sense of humility and curb entitlement in the fun-loving child. It does a child great harm to imply that her entire life will be sunshine and ice cream. Teach your fun-loving child that life must be balanced with responsibility and jobs to take care of. Your child will be more receptive to chores if they involve hand drawn charts documenting their progress- most fun-loving children are highly creative and imaginative.
As a parent check your own desire to preserve their childlike innocence forever; while I’m hardly advocating for some declaration of harsh and age inappropriate truths, I’ve heard many parents unknowingly nurture their child’s entitlement by arguing they “should get to be a child.” Indeed, adulthood will come soon enough but the fun-loving child would prolong it forever, if she could. They are the eternal “Peter Pan” types and growing up is hard and resisted. Balance their desire for freedom and fun with a healthy dose of realism.
Fun-loving children are party-people and they need social outlets. Think: clubs, after-school activities, sports, games—they are true social butterflies. Keeping them inside and quiet can be a challenge but balance their need for activity with some built-in alone time. Balance the rhythm of things with fun and quiet and share with the fun-loving child the plan for their day, week or summer. Fun-loving children are the most anticipatory of children and they will endure their alone time more graciously with the knowledge of fun, social times ahead.
Since fun-loving children are up for anything, as they become older, help them discriminate. They can’t enjoy and do everything and furthermore, will dominate your own time and energy if you let them. Help them curb their natural tendency to experience “missing out syndrome” and reiterate that they can’t “do it all.”
Fun-loving children are precisely as they sound- entirely enjoyable, lovable and endearing. Help your child develop responsibility, self-sacrifice and discipline and you’ll experience him or her as more balanced and responsible. Fun-loving children have futures in any field that is “play” to them- they are likely innovators, designers, entertainers, writers, artists and entrepreneurs. Vocation is perhaps; most open for this type since they are such opportunists at heart.
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