We had two sons and one daughter. One son was "a junkyard dog" but grew into a kindly paragon of manhood. The second was the most obedient ever born. Our daughter Kathleen looked like me. She was my favorite. I know you're not supposed to have favorite kids, but Kathleen was the Golden Child.

Because she looked like me, I assumed she'd be just like me - Blue.

But things started happening early on. When I read stories that her brothers had liked, she'd say, "Read me another story, Mom. You read that one already."

And she wasn't affectionate like I always was. If you hugged her, she'd say "Eeyoo - leave me alone."

Later in middle school, she preferred lab sciences over reading and writing - not like me at all.

I was lighthearted, but she was hilarious. In fact, she loved physical comedy like goofy dancing. She was very physical - in dance, sports, whatever. Very charming!

Here's where the real problem lay. When Orange Kathleen became a teenager, she had absolutely zero respect for anything I said. (Sure, you think, that's how most teenagers seem to be.) But I have since learned that she had no respect for my Blue pie-in-the-sky thinking, for my soft-touch nurturing, and certainly for my inability to be the cop I needed to be around her type of adolescence. She walked over me like Sherman marching through Georgia.

Kathleen read my ideas as foggy suggestions. She told me later in life that I set no clear options or clear boundaries. She said I didn't rigorously enforce anything that I supposedly insisted on. So my parenting was perceived as not really caring in her eyes. I was weak in her eyes.

No question about it, we Blue people do not usually like to be cops. We want all people, including our children, to find and follow their own pathways - presuming that people are basically good and that they will ultimately make good decisions about their own futures.

As in all relationships, it is usually best to consider the values and needs of others when asking them to do things. Other people of other temperaments do not think or act like we do. In fact, they have trouble understanding why we think and act as we do.

So, yes, I would have been a different parent if I had known about Colors, about temperaments. Kathleen would have related to clear expectations, to clear options, and to clear consequences for failures to meet expectations. Certainly her attitude may not have looked different under these new circumstances, but I feel today that my parenting would have been more effective, she would have followed a better life path, and she would have avoided mountains of personal pain. In a phrase, I was the lenient parent for another type of child. (This is where most people say not to blame yourself and that you can't shoulder other people's problems. In this case, I will not say that. I was a crappy parent. Deal with it, folks.)

Kathleen today is a troubled adult having burnt lots of bridges. The most I can do for her is be available, although it appears she does not care very much what I do or think these days.

Just as changing diapers is not something anybody likes to do, learning and adapting parenting skills are not necessarily a picnic either.