Understanding the Fire Child
Ah, the warmth and the mesmerizing charm of the Fire child! Fire children are the artists who bring excitement and creativity into the world, so whether you’re applauding their performance or admiring their creations, they grab your attention then bask joyfully in your glow. Like moths to a flame, people are naturally drawn to the Fire child’s charisma as they effortlessly light up the room. They’re quick to smile and engage new people, and will greet loved ones with energy and enthusiasm.
Parents and relatives find it easy to be with Fire children since they enjoy your attention and easily come into your embrace. Even when they misbehave, they’re so delightful that it’s easy to forgive their attention-seeking antics. Sometimes they might want more attention than you can give them, which can be a challenge because the Fire child always wants to cling to you, but your hugs and snuggles contribute so much to giving them peace and security.
Fire children want to bring you into their fantasy worlds filled with dress-up and make believe, so buckle in for a lot of homemade productions where they share their internal worlds with you; their imaginations are overflowing with universes of their own creation. If you don’t share their enthusiasm for the things that excite them, however, they can be absolutely crushed.
Developmental Stage
Fire children need to be carefully tended to, stoked like a campfire that you’re trying to get going. As they develop, Fire children have the opportunity to pursue a lot of different avenues for their creativity, and they need their parents’ guidance to make sure they take a balanced approach to their exploration. Too little support for their creative endeavors and their spark can die out; too much fanning the flames and they lose direction. As kids, they do not yet know which sparks to nourish and which ones to let die out, and they need the adults in their lives to give them guidance and help cultivate their talents.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Fire children is that they try to meld with the people around them, almost as if they want to become one with them. It’s not good enough to be friends, they want to be best friends; being best friends is not enough, they want to be siblings; being siblings isn’t even close enough for them, they want to be twins. Fire children have no boundaries. They have yet to understand the paradoxical nature of love (Fire is, afterall, the element of love): to be near someone but not consume them, to value their own individuality, and to respect the individuality of the object of their love.
The most important thing to understand about Fire kids is that they need to be recognized and praised for their efforts. What they’re showing you through their creativity is a reflection of their emotions and internal lives, so if they’re not acknowledged, they feel as if they don’t exist. And just like that campfire, one of two things can happen: they can completely burn out, or they can turn into a raging wildfire.
Fire Imbalances in Children
When Fire children are not appreciated by the people around them, they will either try harder to get attention, or their inner spark can die and their joie de vivre disappears.
A Fire child can be quite shocking when trying to get the attention they crave but are denied. They can be egocentric, shallow, and will turn up the heat and be extra: extra attractive, extra affectionate, extra dramatic. Their clothes and appearance will be designed to garner maximum attention, screaming, “Look at me!” Their affection goes from being demonstrative to being performative. Like last season’s reality star clinging to their fifteen minutes of fame, kids with an excess of Fire will overstep any boundary in order to get the attention they want.
A child with an excess of Fire can be very targeted when they want to gain attention from specific people. Because Fire is the element of empathy, they will try to draw attention to themselves in ways that attract who they want to be seen by. For example, if they want to impress a particular group of kids at school, they will start listening to the same type of music, dress how they dress, talk like they talk. Depending on their age and resources, they might be inclined to spend a lot of money trying to win that attention, money that they may or may not have to spend.
In another way of playing to their audience, a Fire child may pursue activities that their parents want them to participate in because they know this will garner the positive attention they crave (Dance Moms and stage parents in general come to mind). Instead of their fire coming from within, they feign passion to gain that positive attention. But unless they are actually interested in the pursuit, they will never really achieve mastery of their craft, or derive pleasure from engaging in it.
When a child is Fire deficient, over time, their creativity is suppressed and infused into mundane things that fit into their environment. This might look like a budding author writing policies and procedures at work, or a brilliant musician writing commercial jingles. My phenomenally talented and artistic brother used to make works of art out of every Little Caesars pizza he had to churn out. When the creativity of a Fire child is not valued, or is suffocated rather than encouraged, it can be absolutely smothered. It would be like American painter Bob Ross – who coined the term “happy accidents” and clearly enjoyed the process of unplanned creation – being relegated to painting by numbers.
Worse yet, a Fire-deficient child can detach from the real world in search of a reality that is less boring, or possibly less cruel. Sadly, instead of pursuing rich experiences in life, they can be easily seduced into artificial experiences that detach them from reality, like drugs and alcohol.
Parenting Fire Children
The key to parenting a Fire child is to make sure they know they are seen – literally and metaphorically. Parents can connect with a Fire child by saying, “Show me. Show me what you’re working on, show me what you’re interested in.” A Fire child’s art is an expression of their emotional life, so it’s also important to acknowledge and validate how they feel. “Wow, the girl in your picture looks kind of sad, I see how she’s not standing near the other kids. Why do you think she’s there? Do you ever feel that way?”
Parents should let their Fire child explore different forms of creative expression and praise them for their willingness to try new things. If they are judged too harshly, or pushed too hard, their excitement might be snuffed out. But if they’re exposed to beauty, encouraged to try new experiences, and given the freedom to express themselves, the Fire child will flourish.
Parents must be careful not to profit from their Fire child’s talents. Even without being able to articulate it, children have a sense that creativity and beauty are worth pursuing for their own sake. Introducing questions of monetary value can undermine a young artist’s development, keeping them from trying their hand at more profound work that explores the human condition. That can throw them off balance, causing them to become fixated on superficially valuable beauty and expression, like conforming perfectly to conventional beauty standards or fashion trends. By profiting from the Fire child’s gifts, parents can destroy the inner source of the child’s enthusiasm.
Parents should nurture their Fire child by sharing with them the true beauty and creativity that exists in the world. Fire children need to be supported and praised in order to encourage them to let their light shine; this means having parents who will be there at every art show, school play, and piano recital, cheering them on as they give it their all. The Fire child will take the love that you give to them and spread its warmth far and wide for everyone to feel.
