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''I am Dana, an English Language teacher and a Master student at the Lebanese International University.
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Temperament and its effect on children


Temperament:
Temperament is defined as a person’s characteristic, biologically based way of approaching and reacting to people and situations. Temperament then, is the how people behave in doing something and not and not what they do (Thomas & Chess, 1977).
It ‘refers to the characteristic phenomena of an individual’s emotional nature, including his susceptibility to emotional stimulation, his customary strength and speed of response, the quality of his prevailing mood, and all the peculiarities of fluctuation and intensity of mood ‘ ( Allport , 1961, p34)
And as some Eastern researches define it; it is the approximately innate fixed psychological characteristics which is able to be molded and adjusted to arise its positive affect. (Yabroudi, 2014)


Temperament components:
As the definitions show; the concept of temperament consists of a wide range of features that combine together to shape the person’s style of behavior, and based on Temperament and Development, by A. Thomas and S. Chess (1977).
Psychologists tended to identify nine traits as a part of temperament:
   1)      Activity level:  child’s activity level is the amount of physical energy evident in typical daily activities and behavior.(Low energy, high energy)
   2)      Sensitivity: child’s sensory threshold, or how easily your child is bothered by changes in the environment. (Low sensitivity, high sensitivity)
  3)      Regularity: The rhythm or predictable recurrence of daily activities or routines (such as waking, hunger, becoming tired), in a child’s personal habits or patterns in after-school routines. (Low predictability, high predictability)
   4)      Approach and withdrawal: child’s initial reaction to new situations.
   5)      Adaptability: How a child adjusts to new situations; length of time needed to accept changes in plan or routine.(Slow to adapt, adapts easily)
   6)      Mood: child’s general tendency toward a happy or unhappy demeanor. (Negative, positive).
   7)      Intensity The amount of energy your child puts into responses. (Less responsive, more responsive).
  8)  Persistence: child’s ability to stick with a task in spite of distractions, interruptions, or frustration. (Low persistence, high persistence)
  9)    Distractibility: child’s tendency to be sidetracked by outside noise or interruptions. (High distractibility, low distractibility). (Great Schools Staff ,2017)

Types of temperament:
 Eastern researchers based on Different temperament educational study by Yabroudi, 2014, believes that the different types of temperament are related to two effective reasons, innate and environmental, without forgetting the religious reason which is mentioned in Quran and Sunnah about God’s will in creating a diversity in human’s temperament as a remarkable indication for God’s wisdom and uniqueness in beauty and power.
And as a result of all the traits within the human’s temperament, and the different reasons after them, the researchers were able to place most of the children into one of three categories:
   1)  Easy or Flexible (about 40% of most groups of children): they are regular in biological rhythms, adaptable, approachable, and generally positive in mood of mild to medium intensity. Their flexibility makes the child easy for caregivers.
    2)    Difficult or Feisty (about 10% of children): The feisty child is the opposite of the easy child. He/she may be hard to get to sleep through the night, her or his feeding and nap schedules may change from day to day, and the child may be difficult to toilet train.
   3)    The Slow-to-Warm-Up or Fearful Child (about 15% of children): is a group of children who are often called shy. The child in this group also has discomfort with the new and adapts slowly, but unlike the feisty child, this child’s negative mood is often expressed slowly. They are mild but slow to adapt to new people and situations. (Diane Weiss, M.S., 1993) based on * Thomas & Chess, 1990.
But due to the multiple traits combination in shaping the child’s temperament, there are many kids who do not fit exactly to one of these three categories, and the left 36% of the data refers to those kids who may eat and sleep regularly but they are afraid from strangers, or they show a rhythmic toilet habits but irregular sleeping patterns.
All these variations are normal when it comes to any aspect in human’s personalities, but what counts is if we can realize the poor ones as soon as possible and work on them so they can be adjusted as much as we can.


Difficult temperament:
Difficult temperament has been hypnotized to be important in individual differences in personality development, children’s effects on adult socialization agents, and the early origins of child hood behavior problems (John E.Bates, 1980).
And it is considered as a kind of God’s trail for the person to test his ability in fighting his internal desires through developing its goodness and molding its virulence. (Yabroudi,2014).
Difficult temperament child is characterized by high, often impulsive activity level; extra sensitive to sensory stimulation; overwhelmed by change in routines and new experiences; intense, inflexible reactions; easily distracted or incredibly focused; adapt slowly to change, not able to calm themselves well; irregular biological rhythms, such as hunger/sleep schedules; rapid, intense, mood swings resulting in acting out or withdrawing completely intense reaction (Karen Stephens, 2007)


Parenting and temperament:
 ‘’The literature on interactions between parenting and child temperament is still relatively limited, and many questions remain about the interplay between specific types of parenting and specific temperament dimensions during particular developmental periods on the subsequent development of young children’s socially appropriate behavior.’’ (J Soc Clin Psychol, 2015)
As temperament appears to be largely inborn, and fairly stable (Thomas & Chess, 1977, 1984). And even though researchers have found that temperament at age of three closely predicts personality at ages 18 and 21, it doesn’t mean that temperament is fully developed at birth, but it also develops as various emotions and self regulatory capacities appear, and can change in response to parental treatment and other life experiences. (Diane E. Papalia)
And according to NYLS study, the key to healthy adjustment is goodness to fit, which means the match between a child’s temperament and the environmental demands and the constraints that a child must deal with. Where parent’s can anticipate their child’s reaction and help him adapt by gradually introducing him for the desired situations. (Diane E. Papalia)
Usually parents do not believe in the effect of temperament on their child’s behavior until they have another child and recognize how their management strategies that worked with the first child are not working with the other or vice versa
Temperament influencing parent, parenting influencing temperament, or both has been addressed by a number of studies in the field which proved that it is difficult to predict theoretically the nature of this situation. But the researchers found that methodological issues are one important basis for this difficulty, as some critics relate this relation for the genetic similarity between the parent and the child.
Nevertheless, temperament is not open to experimental manipulation and few studies ( van den Boom, 1994,1995) have attempted to manipulate parental factors in investigations of parent-temperament relation,  and mostly investigations around this topic involves parenting by mothers. Adding that studies have noticed associations between the child’s positive affect and self-regulation and parental responsiveness, social interaction, and the use of rewards (Hindi, 1989; Kirior & Prior, 1990).
Similarly, recent studies have found that difficult temperament correlates with ‘’positive’’ and ‘’negative’’ parenting and it may be related to widely divergent parenting behaviors:
Intervening variables:
Although most studies have found a relation between parenting and temperament, but results that might be obtained from large sample studies; where the influence of competing third variables ‘cancels out’ effects in smaller and more homogenous samples; found that there are no association between them. But in general studies do consider the effect of several third variables in relation to temperament and parenting.
Intervening third variables can function as, moderators where the third variable alerts the strength and/or direction of the relation between two variables; as in the child’s gender that moderates the relation between difficult temperament and father involvement with girls, but with higher level of father involvement with boys; or they can act is mediators, that are third variables seen as mechanisms connecting independents variables to dependent variables, as when the difficult infants contribute to lower levels of self efficacy in mothers.  (Samuel P. Putnam, Ann V. Sanson, Marry K. Rothbart, 2002) 
The child’s age:
According to Crockenberg(1986), age moderates association between parenting and child temperament, as parents invest more time and energy on their difficult temperament child at young ages , but their efforts with time decrease to lead to negative effects on the child’s temperament . While the parents teaching efforts increase with time with the easy going child.
Although this result may underlie different meanings for the term ‘’difficult’’, but still suggests that mother’s effort to the difficult baby declines with time, and that’s why they can’t reach the desired results most of the time.
The child’s gender:
Gordon (1983) had documented that the role of child gender as a moderator of associations between temperament and parenting and found that mothers give more command for difficult girls than she do for difficult boys. Rubin et al (1998) also found that children’s temperamental emotion dysregulation is positively correlated with maternal warmth toward boys. And Rendina and Dickerscheid(1979) found that fathers also are less involved in social activities with difficult daughters and more involved with difficult sons.
But on the other hand there are studies that reported a contrary for this pattern, as Crockenberg(1986) who found that mothers are more responsive to difficult girls than that of boys.
We might relate these differences of parent’s responses to their beliefs about girls and boys, and the degree that they accept the irritability in boys but not girls.
 Parental characteristics:
However, parent’s psychological characteristics influence the relation between parenting and temperament, where confident mothers are not affected when their soothing techniques fail and keep on trying, but more anxious mothers lose confidence.
Gowen, Johnson-Martin, Goldman, and Apealbawm (1989) found that infant irritability predicts depression and parenting incompetence, and because depressed and non-depressed mothers vary in their parenting, temperamental difficulties affect on the parental behavior toward a difficult child.
Adding that parenting style is affected by the mother’s personality characteristics , as when mothers low in perspective taking, have higher use of power assertive techniques lead to negative temperament.
Social and cultural factors:
Studies of the relation between socioeconomic status and temperament were contradicted, where some found no consistent interaction as the researcher Bates et al (1982), while others found significant correlations as Prior, Sanson,Carroll, and Oberklaid (1989). This result might be considered as an evidence of sensitivity for the child’s individuality among high SES status.
Social support is another variable that we may consider as a variable that has strong affect on the parenting of difficult child, as with Crockenberg and McCluscky (1985) showed that mothers with low social support had less sensitivity to their difficult child.
Moreover, many studies have found differences on temperament scales among children in different cultures and their values causing differences on parenting practices and attitudes. (Samuel P. Putnam, Ann V. Sanson, Marry K. Rothbart, 2002) 
Temperament and parenting as cumulative influences as adjustment:

Anne Dopkins St, Kathleen Cranley Gallagher, and Ken Kelley (2008) study found that temperament moderated associations between maternal parenting styles between early childhoods and children’s first-grade academic competence, social skills and relationships with teachers and peers. They found out that infants with difficult temperament had better adjustment than less difficult infants when parenting quality was high and poorer adjustment when parenting quality was lower.

Where Bates and Bayles (1988) were able to predict children’s six years old behavioral problems based on combining first and third year temperament, maternal, positive involvement, and behavior.
Cameron (1978) also related the behavioral problems to a 1 year old child’s difficultness paired with poor parenting in the age of three years. Adding that Sanson, Smart, Prior, and Oberklaid, 1993) found that the most reliable risk indicator is the combination of difficult temperament and poor mother-infant relationship, which is a characteristic of hostile-aggressive children at the age of 7 to 8 years.
While other studies has conceptualized temperament as a resilience factor when there is a high level of psychological stress and poor parenting, as the study of Werner and Smith (1982). Where, Lengua, Wolchik, Sandler, and West (2000) found that temperament and parenting can independently predict the children’s successful adjustment after divorce. (Samuel P. Putnam, Ann V. Sanson, Marry K. Rothbart, 2002) 
Finally, Bates and Pettit (2007) highlighted that negative, or low levels of positive parenting were associated with adjustment problems, especially for children with low manageability or self regulation to emphasize that parenting matters more for poorly regulated children than it does for well-regulated ones. (John E.Bates, Alice C.Schermerhon, Isaac T.Petersen, 2012)


Strategies to deal with difficult temperament:
Therefore, parents should recognize that much of their child's behavior reflects his/her temperament and to be able to mold the difficult temperament they should try to establish a neutral or objective emotional climate in dealing with the child, and try not to respond in an emotional and instinctive manner, which is unproductive.
Parents should not take their child's behavior personally. Temperament is innate, and the child probably is not purposely trying to be difficult or irritating. So, they shouldn't blame him/her or there selves. Instead, they need to prioritize the issues and problems surrounding the child. Some are more important and deserve greater attention. Others are not as relevant and can be either ignored or put "way down the list." They need to focus on the issues of the moment and do not project into the future.
Adding that parents have to consider their own temperament and behavior, and how they might also be difficult. Think how they might need to adjust in themselves a bit to encourage a better fit with the child. (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2015)

Parents discipline interaction is the clue to the child’s temperament since children with difficult temperament do require extra time, guidance, and patience, and all children can be raised to be well-adjusted people with positive self esteem.
As well as, difficult children can learn to be self-controlled, cooperative, and adaptable through parents’ attitudes, guidance strategies, and communication skills; and here are some strategies that help:

        Focus on strengths; look for the positive. Voice your appreciation whenever a child is flexible, positive, or adaptable.
        Avoid name-calling and labeling kids as “hyper’’ because labels chip away at self-esteem.
·         Encourage self-awareness and coping strategies.
·          Use reflection to help children recognize options.
·          Be patient, empathize, and interpret temperament traits.
·         Distractible children hear one thing at a time. Give children simple, step by step directions so they can succeed.
·         Keep your home calm and predictable.
·         Make sure kids get hands-on active play daily; it helps them use energy constructively. A children’s discovery museum engages these kids more than going to a sit-down children’s concert.
·         Create safe, cozy and calming spaces in your home where a child can relax or re-gain control when upset or over-stimulated.
·         Coach children towards self control.
·         Model and encourage positive social skills, such as trading, negotiating, sharing, inviting others to play, asking before entering others’ play, offering to help others, asking for help, and sharing play ideas.
·         Choose your battles wisely. Avoid power struggles. When disciplining, use clear direction and enforce age appropriate limits with reasonable, related, and respectful consequences. Avoid over-reacting, raising your voice, or issuing false threats and ultimatums. Deal with behavior problems calmly and matter-of-factly. This will help your child gain control and develop trust in your support and guidance. (Karen Stephens, 2007)
Furthermore, nurturing kids has a crucial role in controlling their temperament through maintaining their good character and enriching their good habits, as well as refining their poor tempers and molding them with awareness and intelligence.  
Thus, it is normal to face a chain of difficulties and obstacles in molding what is largely hereditary, and the key for succeeding is an affective nurturing build on balance, rational, and positive benefits and affects.  Where there is no nurturing, or where there is invalid nurturing, the poor temperament is nourished. And as we start molding earlier as our chance in succeeding is higher, but it’s never late to try (Yabroudi, 2014).

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