Understanding your child, starts with getting to know their innate temperament and personality.The more we learn about a child’s temperament and personality, the easier it is for us to get along with our child, stop power struggles, connect with them in deeper ways and help raise them to meet their full potential.
There are even more advantages. We can gain a better appreciation of our own personalities and temperament and how it may or may not clash with our children. We can also learn under what conditions we work best, based on our individual personality.
Another benefit of studying temperament is the understanding it provides to adults of children’s misbehavior. Although adults often accuse children of misbehavior, in actuality the behavior is normal developmentally appropriate behavior or behavior that reflects conflicts due to their personality and temperament. These accusations cloud relationships with our kids, causing unnecessary power struggles and strained emotional ties and trust. Knowing your child and their temperament helps provide a more realistic approach towards what constitutes deviant or disordered behavior.
According to Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, author of “The Spirited Child”, there are nine temperamental traits.
• Intensity
• Persistence
• Sensitivity
• Perceptiveness
• Adaptability
• Regularity
• Energy
• First reaction
• Mood
There are also 2 main overarching categories of how people gain their energy from the world, whether they are an Extrovert or Introvert.
In the following weeks we will bring you a series of posts where we will highlight each temperamental trait. We will discuss “triggers,” conflicts that arise when our children’s personality and temperament are being compromised. We will also talk about effective strategies to manage these situations. We will learn how to teach specific vocabulary to our kids so that they can “describe their emotional states” and request assistance or comfort. The goal: To enable our kids to manage their feelings and help them maintain their equilibrium in all situations.
Stay tuned for our next article talking about Extroverts and Introverts. We will bring you all the stuff you need to know in order to raise your kids and help them appreciate themselves for who they truly are.