Your quiz results show that of all the needs, you are most responsive to your child’s need for delight. Celebrate! Pouring delight into our children builds foundations of security in them that they’ll be able to stand on their whole lives.

When your child experiences your delight in them—your genuine, unforced joy in who they are, not what they do—it lights them up with wonder and discovery. We tell parents that delight is the wind in their children’s sails. It provides the lift they need to set them off into the world. Delight doesn’t guarantee any concrete outcomes but is a hedge against the storms. If our kids are set off with sails full of delight, they can run aground. They can fail. Your child’s knowledge of your delight deep in his bones means that when the storm clears and the ship is righted, they can be audacious enough to hoist the sail again.

Support is how we help our kids discover and pursue the particular things they find interesting and valuable. We also support them when we introduce them to tasks or skills they need to master to succeed in life. Through support, we partner with our children as they learn about the world and find their place in it.

Your quiz results show that meeting your child’s need for support comes easily to you. This is good news! You are likely giving them guidance and direction that will serve them well as they learn to navigate the world. But ask yourself if you might be providing too much support, which could keep them from learning how to do some things on their own.

When we take over for our kids or insist that they do things perfectly, we send them the message that their efforts are not good enough and take away their motivation to try. Children close doors to whole worlds when they feel stupid, inadequate, or unnecessary. The key to healthy support is to focus less on the end product and more on the process. Your child needs your help to set their own goals, evaluate their own effort, and judge their own outcomes. Ask them what role they want you to play in helping them get where they want to go and try to step away if they want to do something on their own.

We respond to our kids’ need for boundaries to teach them how to live at peace with others. We give them boundaries to help them understand that their actions have consequences. And we give our children boundaries so that one day they will be able to set and keep healthy boundaries for themselves.

Your quiz results show that you have a strong sense of the value and gift of boundaries. This is a good thing. Now consider whether your approach to boundaries relies mainly on force and consequences. When children respond to boundaries only because of punishment or reward, they are unlikely to value and internalize those boundaries beyond the influence of those rewards and punishments. Take time to slow down and understand what is going on inside your child that makes some boundary a challenge. Is he hungry? Tired? Anxious? Overexcited? Distracted? Rather than going straight to consequences, say something like, “Try that again, bud.” or “Are you forgetting something?” If something persists, ask, “Will you help me understand what you’re feeling right now?” Don’t let small offenses consume your relationship. If the same boundary issues keep resurfacing, consider that your child may not be capable of meeting your expectations or your expectations may need to be adjusted. Their brain may need to mature, or they may need added support to meet your boundary more consistently. Children with ADHD, for instance, have a very hard time inhibiting their behavior in the heat of the moment even though they know the rules and the consequences.

Protection is one of humanity’s most basic needs, and there are moments when we must draw our children close and stand between them and things that would harm them. We also live in a culture that bombards us with warnings and reminders about the dangers that could befall our children. This can trigger fear that makes us want to keep them close at all times. Overprotecting our kids can keep them from trying things on their own and learning to master the skills they’ll need to survive and thrive later in life. As a parent, you face the challenge of trying to find the balance between too much and too little protection and deciding whether what they are experiencing is a danger to be protected from or simply an obstacle to maneuver.

Your quiz results show that you are very responsive to your child’s need for protection. This is good news—you are communicating to your child that they have value and worth and are worth advocating for and protecting. But we encourage you to explore whether their lack of practice navigating danger and difficulty could be robbing them of opportunities to build self-confidence. Consider how you could provide opportunities for them to navigate small risks and obstacles on their own so they can gradually learn how to keep safe when you’re not around.

When we comfort our children, we join in their suffering and provide refuge through their emotional storms. This both eases their pain and strengthens them. Because providing comfort requires sharing in our children’s pain, it is almost always uncomfortable for us. It often requires patience, kindness, and emotional strength of our own.

Your quiz results show that meeting your child’s need for comfort comes naturally to you. This is good news. Your comfort communicates to your child that they have a safe place to come to for refuge when they encounter life’s trouble or pain.

If you are so comfortable with comfort that you tend to jump in at the slightest indication of pain, fear, or disappointment, consider that offering comfort to quickly can prime a child to expect pain and distress, even when it’s not truly warranted. Offering comfort right away, especially when it’s not solicited, robs your child of the opportunity to find comfort within themselves. So if you lean toward over-responding to the need for comfort, watch and wait. Instead of moving to comfort immediately, pause and ask your child whether they need help, then be willing to respect their desire to find their own way. Let them fall down and pick themselves up sometimes. And know that they still need you and are connected to you, even as they learn to find comfort and strength on their own.

Our kids are going to make mistakes. They’re going to have difficult encounters in the world and with others. Equipping is how we help them make sense of their hard experiences and find a way forward after their inevitable conflicts and setbacks. When we equip our children, we help them understand their difficulties so they can feel prepared and hopeful about facing similar experiences in the future.

Your quiz results show that you are highly responsive to your child’s need for equipping. This is good news! But consider if you may be prone to overdoing life lessons and wanting to talk through every emotional outburst, conflict, and relational fracture. Step back a bit, and wonder if your eagerness to find solutions is a way of avoiding emotional pain. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves to slow down. If your child is in struggling, allow yourself to sit quietly with their pain first, before trying to equipping them.

When you sense your child is having a hard time, extend the invitation to talk, but be willing to step away if the invitation isn’t accepted. Respect that there may be some things they need to work out on their own or with others. This is especially true as our children grow into adolescence. Trust that if you have made it safe for your child to talk with you about hard things, they will likely eventually want your help or input, but on their own terms. Your kid might knock on your door late at night or start sharing something important just as you are dropping them off at school. Make room for those inconvenient and unexpected moments.