By: Cheryl Henderson
I am loving these personality posts! What about you girls? Did you figure out the colors of your children? How is it helping you to teach them? ~Kelli
My husband, who is Green is the co-author of this installment. It seems that he didn’t think I quite understood the whole “Green” thing going on. Try and see if you can pick out who’s who!
Thanks for joining me for Week 3 of Personality Colors. This week we’re going to meet another personality type that relishes control, the Green person. Whereas the Red personality seeks to control the environment and people around them, Green people want to be in total control of themselves. And for a Green to feel comfortable they need a strongly structured environment. And these people make up more than 35% of the population.
I do not have a Green child, but I do have a Green husband, father, and nieces. The one thing they all have in common is a need for structure. Note the example below:
You have given your child a task to do. You have told your child to do a set of math problems that are on an instruction sheet. On the instruction sheet, there are math problems on both sides. You have told him to do the problems within 30 minutes, more than enough time to do both sides of the instruction sheet. It is a practice test. This is material which your child is already familiar with. Your child nods in acceptance of the instructions.
You child does the problems and, once finished, waits patiently for you to examine it. You examine the sheet at the end of the 30 minutes. You are alarmed to see that your child has only done one side of the math problems. Your child now looks at you with a mixture of angst, confusion and conviction. “You didn’t say both sides of the page.” your child responds not in a raised voice, but with grim earnestness.
You recoil. You search your mind for the exact words you used 30 plus minutes ago. You are divided. “It should have been understood that I meant both sides of the sheet. Who would need 30 minutes to do just a page.” Do you apologize to your child? Do you scold your child for not doing what seemed to have been obvious?
You tell your child, “No, big deal. It is only a practice exam.” You do not want to dig into this. It is only a practice test. It doesn’t count in the scheme of things. Your child though is adamant. Your child wants you to explain did you screw up the instruction or did he/she get it wrong. Your child is putting you to task because he/she is convinced that the instruction was done correctly.
Welcome, to the Green child’s world.
A Green personality likes to have a set of rules available for reference. No, the child NEEDS them. These are the children that the public school structure loves. They are generally quiet, very rarely in trouble and very studious and serious. And this makes educating them rather easy … or so it would seem.
Green children are naturally cooperative, hard working, and eager to please authority figures. If you give them a task to complete they will work hard to meet the deadlines set and to get 100% on their work. They are natural perfectionists. They are not very comfortable “winging it” or blazing new trails. They believe that working steadily and within a proscribed system will get the job done right. They are also very loyal and self-disciplined so schedules are very important them. And if they are in charge, they have a sharp eye for proper procedures and will call you on any perceived wrongdoing. They are very cautious about change; they feel it is better to “go slowly” and “look before you leap.”
One reason that they would love history is because there will be no surprises. Columbus will always sail over to America. The American colonists will always break away from England and start the United States. Mathematics is also another subject that they will be comfortable with because 2+2 is always 4. These things are absolutes and have rules attached to them that will keep them constant.
Their difficulty lies in learning to deal with surprises, other people and themselves. It is very hard to get them to try and experience new things. This is especially true when it comes to things that entail emotional involvement. Green people are not comfortable with emotions. Emotions are messy. They are unpredictable and sometimes uncontrollable. Therefore they are dangerous. They also tend to equate “new” with “dangerous” and will fight tooth and nail not to do something differently.
One reason that they hate new things is because they’ve been blessed (or cursed) with an overly developed imagination. You know all those horror movies they made in the 1970s – “The Poseidon Adventure” and “The Towering Inferno”? They were thought up by Green personalities. For example, a trip to a new place with different people than their usual companions (if any) could bring a bounty of problems. “What if I get left behind?” “What if the place is ugly, too hot, too cold, too small, too large, or too noisy?” “What if I lost my lunch?” “What if they don’t have a restroom and I have go NOW?”
These folks can dream up the most horrifying consequences for not following a safe (i.e., tried and true) path in life. My sister, who has traveled extensively, was invited to go skiing in Upstate New York. That woman came up with about 50 different ways that the trip could end in disaster. Let’s see, there was the avalanche, then there was getting stranded up at the lodge during a record-breaking snowstorm and running out of food, then it was … you get the idea.
One way to get around their innate horror of the “new” is to use what they already know and are comfortable with to expand their boundaries. Take writing for an example. If you ask your Green child to write a report about the California Gold Rush it will be done accurately, with facts, figures and maybe even illustrations. It will be a very well done paper because they have the rules on how to make an outline, how to flesh it out, etc. But they may struggle with writing a fictional story about how a little boy or girl must have felt growing up during those times. The ability to put themselves into someone else’s psyche is very difficult for them.
Green people are not very comfortable around people that they do not know. Once they’re used to a person they can be a lot of fun. Because of this, one portion of their education really should be devoted to learning about people and understanding others. My husband claims that he understands people much better now that he has learned the colors and watches mysteries with me regularly. He’s had to learn to look beyond the superficial and that has been a challenge. But now he figures out the crimes as fast (if not faster) than I do!
I would include in a Green education activities where they had to interact with various people for extended periods of time. Only by repeated exposures will they become comfortable with different situations. They also have a natural talent for managing and organizing things. They enjoy making things run smoothly, so they should be allowed input in some decisions regarding how to get things done in the house and their lessons. Not only will it free up your time, but it will also build up their self-confidence.
Greens are very serious by nature. Jokes tend to go over their heads because they tend to think others are (or should be) just as serious as they are. Greens are very hard on themselves. From my observations, these are the people that do not require much discipline from their parents because they punish themselves more harshly than anyone else ever could. In this capacity, the Greens have an abundance of imagination. It is easy for them to believe that being hung by a rope, chained and flogged, starved in a small, cold stone cell without light is the correct punishment for missing a punctuation mark on a essay.
One thing that I’ve noticed about Green people (and this is a broad generalization) is that they rarely feel appreciated for all that they do. Maybe it’s because they’re not flamboyant like the Red saying “Look what I did!” But as parents, we must never forget to praise them for the work and services they provide. They aren’t flamboyant, they aren’t dramatic or overly emotional, but they feel things keenly. Because of their reserve people sometimes forget that their feelings get hurt just like everyone else and we need to tread lightly.
Some famous Greens:
- George Washington
- Harry Truman
- Queen Victoria
- Justice Sanda Day O’Connor
- Rabbit (from Winnie the Pooh)
- Adrian Monk (from Monk)
- Spock (from Star Trek)
Green children are a delight to have because of their general willingness to follow the program and ability to work hard towards a goal. However, as parents we definitely need to validate them whenever possible. Let them know that they’re important and that you appreciate their hard work. This goes a long way in establishing their self-worth and happiness.
About Me: My introduction to the world of personalities began about fifteen years ago when I stumbled upon a website called www.advisorteam.com. They offer a free personality test and if you pay a fee you can get your full results. Anyway, I found the descriptions of the four major personality groups fascinating. About two years ago I stumbled upon a free report that broke these four personalities into four colors: Red, Blue, Yellow and Green that has really simplified all the scientific explanations. Before you start trying to figure out what color your children are, you really need to first discover your own. Once you have your own information you’ll be able to adapt your style to fit your children better. You can take this quiz at my website Homeschoolers-Work-At-Home.com. (You’ll get your results instantly.) And it is also good to understand that each of us has each of the four colors in our personality. These articles focus on the dominant color in our daily lives.
Don’t forget to read the past posts!
Part 1 – Red, The Color of Power
Part 2 – Yellow, The Color of Sunshine
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About Kelli
