Some of the most fun and fascinating applications of the Creative Systems Personality Typology is to work with kids. They are also some of the most important. It is our children who will lead in the future. Because the Creative Systems framework has such direct relevance to capacities the future will require, its application to both to working with children and to self awareness during development could not be more significant.
A person might think the typology might be more difficult to use with young people because their personality’s are less developed. In fact the opposite is the case. Because conditioning has had less time to have effect, underlying temperament tends to be easier to discern. It is also the case that adult perspective is not needed to make very good use of the typology. The underlying theory is complex, but young people tend to pick up basic notions and their implications quite readily.
The typology is of most obvious immediate application to younger people in the school settings. Schools are one of the few places in society in which all temperaments meet in about equal numbers and on equal footings. And temperament is so directly tied to learning styles, individualization of educational approaches, and the ways of engaging kids that best support self-worth and psychological well-being.
As important is the frameworks usefulness to parents attempting to better understand their children. And the depth at which the typology engages also makes it of particularly powerful use by child psychologists and family therapists.
The primary work with developing the typology for work with kids are teachers Lyn Dillman and Teresa Piddington. Two articles provide an overview. The first, by Lyn, examines applications to learning environments more generally. The second, by Teresa, looks at temperament through the lens of teaching writing.
“Creative Systems Theory Applied to Learning Environments” by Lyn Dillman
“Temperament and the Writing Process with Young Children” by Teresa Piddington
