Your child is born with their natural style of interacting with or reacting to people, places, and things. Scientific studies of temperament have continued to show that children’s health and development are influenced by temperament. Temperament is stable and differs from personality, which is a combination of temperament and life experiences.
The nine temperament traits are:
Activity: The child is always moving and doing something OR has a more relaxed style.
Rhythmicity: The child is regular in their eating and sleeping habits, OR eating and sleeping are somewhat haphazard.
Approach/ Withdrawal: The child never meets a stranger OR tends to shy away from new people or things.
Adaptability: The child can easily adjust to changes in routines/ plans or resists transitions.
Intensity: The child reacts strongly to situations, either positively or negatively, OR reacts calmly and quietly.
Mood: The child often expresses a negative outlook OR is generally positive. Their moods could shift frequently OR stays even-tempered.
Persistence and Attention Span: The child gives up as soon as a problem arises with a task OR keeps on trying. They can stick with an activity for a long time, OR their mind tends to wander.
Distractibility: The child is easily distracted from what others are doing OR can shut out external distractions and stay with the current activity.
Sensory Threshold: Is bothered by external stimuli such as loud noises, bright lights, or food textures OR tends to ignore them.
Temperament Types
There are three basic types of temperaments. Most children have some level of intensity on several temperament traits, but one dimension will usually dominate. Your child will probably fit into one of the three patterns. By understanding these patterns, we will be able to tailor our approach in such areas as expectations and encouragement, hence, addressing your child’s behavior challenges and improving classroom interactions so that “goodness of fit” happens.
Easy or Flexible: Generally calm, happy, regular in sleeping and eating habits, adaptable, and not easily upset. Because of their easy style, they will need special times to talk about their frustrations and hurts because they won’t demand or ask for it. Intentional communication will be necessary to strengthen relationships and find out what the child is thinking and feeling.
Difficult, Active, or Feisty: Often fussy, irregular in eating and sleeping habits, fearful of new people and situations, easily upset by noises, high strung, and intense in their reactions. They need vigorous play to work off stored energy and frustrations with freedom of choice to be successful. Preparing them for activity changes and redirection will help them easily transition (move or change) from one place to another.
Slow to Warm Up or Cautious: Relatively inactive and fussy, tend to withdraw or react negatively to new situations, but their reactions gradually become more positive with continuous exposure. Sticking to a routine and your word and allowing ample time to establish relationships in new situations are necessary to enable independence to unfold.