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.
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).
No comments:
Post a Comment