Temperaments

Temperament is a matter of individual differences that reflect a child's personality. It's initially genetically determined but can be influenced by a child's environment. Temperament impacts how children react to events in their environment.

There are four kinds of temperament:easy, difficult, slow to warm, and hard to classify. A child's temperament influences the type of coping approaches a parent can use. An easy child is flexible, they adapt quickly to new situations and are curious. The difficult child has intense and frequently negative moods and cries out loudly. They push limits and respond on a whim to intense emotions. With slow to warm up children these children are more fearful, avoid difficult situations are cautious to participate in contact with new people. These children are hesitant with new experiences. The hard to classify children are rare and they are hard to feel out. They show all three temperaments depending on the situation. These children will like a food one day and not the next. These children can frustrate a parent because it seems like everything they do is wrong, when it's not. These children really do not know what they want to do and need more direction and parent activities. For example, "Do the puzzle for a bit, then color when you're ready to do something else.

My child has an easy temperament but depending on the situations could be a difficult child. Most of the time she was an easy child. If she needed something she came to, she went from one activity to another easily and with little warning although I always made sure to give her warning. Where she was an easy child I and didn't demand a lot I would check in with her throughout the day to see how she was doing and if she needed something otherwise I let her play by herself and with friends and didn't bother her much.

It's important parents are mindful of a child's temperament in order to respond to the child accordingly because this can help. Temperament is steady and steady throughout life. It never changes. Each child's temperament is different. A family can have children that have all of these types of temperaments. How you parent each type is different. Many parents think what works for one child will work for another and it doesn't. Remember each child is different and each child has a different temperament. For this reason one child will only have to be asked to do something once, whereas another child will have to be asked several times. If a parent remembers what type of temperament a child has, dealing with them and raising them becomes easier.