Class member: Compassion for others and how I could help them.
Class member: Wisdom
Class member: Ability to see people like the Savior does—charity
Class member: Knowledge if I always knew how to respond to this.
Class member: If I could constantly feel the Holy Ghost
Solomon had wisdom and he still blew it. Knowledge doesn’t always transfer into conversion. I’m not belittling any answer.
If in that pill I could give you a constant intentional knowledge that you were a child of God and that you were divine. Would it affect your choices? Your courage? What you wanted to study? I think it would be one of the most powerful things that would affect our thoughts and behavior in everything we do. We believe it for them.
I believe I am a child of God, but I have to become worthy. I have to get over my weaknesses. Instead of saying I am divine and can overcome weaknesses. If we doubt ourselves do we really believe we are divine? Are we living divine? If we feel like those weaknesses control us do we really feel our divinity?
Class member: I was listening to Hank Smith “Who art thou? For behold I am a Son of God”. This is a Satan killing scripture. It’s been powerful in our family. It’s simple. I don’t change it.
What is Satan’s line? Satan said, “Son of man”. He says “I am not!” Are we a son of man or of God.
Class member: This has been a hard year for me because my husband is a bishop. He said I wish you could understand how hard Satan is working. It’s not just kids that struggle with it. It’s because we struggle with it.
Today and next week dovetail each other. My goal is to tie those two together.
On your paper right now write down 3 Spiritual Gifts that you have…..
If I say write your parenting weaknesses you could write them very quickly. We spend more time focusing on our weaknesses instead of trying to focus on magnifying a strength. Most of your New Year’s goals were to fix weaknesses instead of magnifying strengths. That transfers from us into our parenting and our children sing the song “I am a Child of God” and how we treat our children that it makes them feel like they are not divine…that they can BECOME, but they aren’t now.
1. Core Personality—I think we each came with our own personality from heaven. We know the prophets, Joseph Smith, Emma, Mary were all foreordained. How could that happen unless they were something up there. Heavenly Father didn’t say, “This blob will be Abraham, and this will be Joseph Smith.” You know that everyone fought valiantly on the side of the Lord. You were feisty. You were fighters. I’ll bet you said some harsh things to those other guys. You were the noble and the great. Some of you are thinking…I know they are, but not me. You are the noble and great. Then we forgot we were fabulous. We spend the rest of our life trying to figure out we are fabulous. We know there were leaders that had personalities of leadership. Some of us were on the team, but we weren’t the boss. A good leader has to have some followers. We all chose the right part. We didn’t all have the same personality. We were all individual.
With 3 or more children I guarantee you know they aren’t the same. I guarantee that one of them is an interesting experience to raise. One is probably easy to raise, which makes the hard one harder.
2. Gender—We know that you were a woman or a man before you came to earth. That was determined…a long time ago. We were male or female before we came. Being male and female means that from the pre-existence you were endowed with different attributes. You came to earth thinking different from each other. You came to earth with different responsibilities in life. You came equipped (you brought it with you) to be a noble son/daughter. Our responsibility is to open and use that package here. If you are married to a man they are going to think different than you. When we get to marriage we are going to talk about these differences. You aren’t supposed to think the same. You come to a unity of ideas, but you aren’t the same.
You have little girls cradling babies. You have boys that came knowing how to make gun and car sounds. You have girls that know how to show love by cuddling up and boys that only know how to show love by smacking you on the arm.
3. Environment—I think personality can be influence a lot by environment…social, athletic, educational, birth order. As I get my children together…I had girls then 5 boys and then a girl. The last girl didn’t have the experiences as the other girls.
Those things are all factors. Not any one of them determines who you are alone. This is critical: all of these can be modified/changed/improved through the Atonement!! Through the power of Atonement we can overcome any weakness in any area. The goal is to take any weakness we have and overcome them through the Atonement….to become perfect…being whole. I don’t want anyone to get discouraged.
Parenting, marriage, cub scout, YW leader…the key is to understand people. We often think…if you think like I do we will get along. You really just want someone to agree with you and want them to be submissive to you. That is Satan’s plan.
The idea is to figure out what is inside you and your children and your husband when they don’t know what’s in them themselves.
You are going to look at yourself and see your flaws. You are going to pigeon-hole people. You use this to know what tools you need to approach these children.
You have core strengths and weaknesses. One color is a natural listener. As you talk to that person they know how to ask questions. They will pull stuff out of you. Another one has no patience for listening. I care that your miserable. I don’t want to hear the 3 month saga to get you there. I want to go to the bottom line. If you are a do-er you have to learn how to listen. If you are the natural listener you need to learn how to be more of a do-er.
COLOR CODE TEST by Taylor Hartman You can take the test online @ http://www.colorcode.com/free_personality_test/
Homework: Try to put people in a “color category”
A=Red
B=Blue
C=White
D=Yellow
This is typical among most LDS groups…highest-Blue, lowest-Yellow
There is no bad color. Every color has strengths and every color has weaknesses. The goal is that you have become more of a rainbow. You want to pick up the strengths of the other colors and magnify your own.
The strengths of the blue come to me naturally. Because they come to me naturally I can’t understand why other people don’t have them. Blues care about other people. Reds want to get things done regardless of feelings. I can’t be angry at a red for having that outlook. If you had a red child you teach them to become more patient with people. If you have a white child you teach them to step up and take leadership. Yellows are fun…they are loud and obnoxious. You have to learn from the other colors.
Red: opinionated, power oriented, dominate, decisive, arrogant, assertive, bossy, responsible, strong willed, good dynamic leaders that get things done, product oriented, they walk over people but get the job done, logical, always right, merciless
Weaknesses: dominate personality, they walk over others, they don’t listen to other opinions. Donald Trump is a good example of that personality. They make a lot of money. They get things done. In a personal relationship they don’t understand feelings. They can be insensitive. They don’t like to admit they need people. They don’t know how to be affectionate. If you need that intimacy you have to help them learn to see if and give it.
Core need: Power…they need to feel like they are in control. That’s their feeling of worth.
If you have a red child and are a red parent there is a lot of conflict. The red parent has to learn to parent the red child.
Create situations that they can be in charge. You pick the 4 jobs that you will be in charge of. Don’t stop parenting. A red needs to understand emotional needs.
Blue: idealistic, moody, depressed, respectful of other people, naturally have good manners, unforgiving, judgemental, deliberate, boring, don’t take riskes
Core need: They need intimacy.
We are the moral guardians of the world. Right is right and you do what’s right. We are critical of ourselves. We are guilt prone because we don’t keep all the commandments correctly. Lecturers! We talk way too much. We are boring. We like security. Blues need to learn how to be fun. I need yellows to teach me how to be fun. I need Whites to teach me how to listen. Very moral. Very high desire to do what’s right.
White:
Core need: They need peace.
A white will slink in and sit in the back row. They want you to get to the point. They don’t want to hear the lecture. They can’t stand being the center. They are prone to quitting. They are perfectionists. They don’t want the attention that comes with a mistake. White’s need private time and space. They need to have some, but they also need to learn to be integrated into a group. There is great leadership in the church from whites. You will never find them volunteering and wanting to be the leader. They are dependable, committed and loyal. White’s don’t tend to be warm fuzzies. They don’t like the intimacies. It needs to be respected. They need to be taught to give and receive intimacy. White child can be easily broken. It’s easier to change direction in the child than stop them, break them, and then restart them. We need to redirect our children.
A red parent will get angry and fly off and the white child can be destroyed. You need to be kind and patient with a white child. You have to do it in a softer manner. You have to be careful of words that you use. They have to be walked with way more than a red or a blue. They need to find courage that they can succeed. They need to have belief in themselves while they are developing it. When they get it they are fabulous companions and care about and listen to each other.
Yellow:
Core need: They just want to have fun in life. When a yellow walks in the room they are loud. They are fun to have.
Reds & Yellows watch them as they grow into teens. They are more drawn to the things of the world. Yellows need friends. They need to be popular and the center of attention. They need to have good friends so they can be the center of attention with good people.
Red & Blue personalities are very strong personalities. A red says we will do this because it’s the right thing to do because I say it’s the right thing to do. The blue will do the right thing because it is morally right and will fight to the death for the moral right. The red will explode and then it’s gone. They don’t backpack it. The blue will fight the same fight and my right is morally right. We will get in this discussion and 6 days later I’m still replaying it in my head. I can’t let it go. The red doesn’t even remember it anymore. Blues have to stop backpacking.
There is something that we all need to learn and we all need to learn from each other.
HOMEWORK: LDS.org link to Sunday journaling This week write each of your children. Write what color you think they are. Write your spouse and what color you think they are. Write down what you think their spiritual gifts are.
HOMEWORK: Read the syllabus for insight.
Preschool kids….that is hard to do. A 2 year old will throw temper tantrums…not necessarily red. Before they are 8 yrs old it’s harder to place them in a category.
President Eyring “O Remember Remember”
“ I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done. More than gratitude began to grow in my heart. Testimony grew. I became ever more certain that our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. I felt more gratitude for the softening and refining that come because of the Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ. And I grew more confident that the Holy Ghost can bring all things to our remembrance—even things we did not notice or pay attention to when they happened.
HOMEWORK: Read the talk by President Uchtdorf “Forget me not”. Say a prayer before you read it.
HOMEWORK: Get on and join the Facebook Group---Carleen Tanner’s Positive Parenting.