A long time ago I went to a wonderful blog conference in Harrisburg called Relevant.
OK, so it just feels a really long time ago…it was actually just October of 2010, but alot has happened since then.
While there, Family Matters and Tim Kimmel were giving out free Kids Flag Page sets to bloggers who would try them out and write a review on their blogs. I gladly took one because I can use whatever help people will give me in parenting. I was eager to try it out with my oldest son, but realized I really needed to wait until he was older to be able to use it more effectively.
Well, that time has come, and a couple of weeks ago my 4 and 1/2 year old and I sat down to determine what his Home Country and Adopted Country are.
For anyone not familiar with this, the Kids Flag Page is basically a simple personality/temperament test for kids from about 5 to 15ish. Knowing how our kids are wired is so helpful when it comes to parenting them, knowing what motivates and discourages them, and in determining their gifts and talents.
I was really thrilled with this kit. I sat down and read through the instructions provided and part of the short book included by Tim Kimmel. I then went through the test on my own to determine what I thought my son’s top countries would be. Next, I sat Xander down, explained the “game” to him, and let him have at it. Surprisingly, his results were very close to mine, with only slight differences, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that his conclusion was much more accurate than mine.
The Flag Page helped me verify what Xander’s leanings are towards personality, Kimmel’s book provided alot of insight on how to parent a child with this type of personality. Furthermore, even though my other two sons are two young to test yet, based on these resources I can already pretty much narrow down what personality types they are going to fall into, and how I need to steer them as a result.
This tool was simple, easy to understand and use, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to any parent. At the very least, take a look at it and consider how better understanding the type of personality and temperament your children have will be a tremendous help in knowing how to parent them.
Seeking to fully live,
