Strategies for Parenting Children with Difficult Temperament Children Are Born with an Inborn Temperament, a Preferred Style of Relating to People and Events. Temperament Is Indicated by Behavior That Clusters Into
Strategies for
Parenting Children with
Difficult Temperament
Children are born with an inborn temperament, a preferred style of relating to people and events. Temperament is indicated by behavior that clusters into three categories: easy, slow-to-warm up, and difficult. No category makes a child good or bad. They merely describe a child’s response patterns.
Some children (approximately 10-20%) are born with “difficult temperament.” Traits include: 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.
Your discipline interactions can clue you into your child’s temperament. Parents struggling with difficult temperament say they continually remind and nag; name-call, yell, bribe, plead, make empty threats; give into power-struggles; feel as if their child “calls all the shots” or “rules the roost”; over-react; argue with co-parent over discipline; or give up trying to discipline at all.
None of those characteristics make life easy, for kids or parents. But children with difficult temperament can learn to cope with their sensitivities. If they don’t learn, they can become confused, frustrated, and hopeless. In addition, they will most likely have to endure constant negative feedback which creates a vicious cycle of discouragement. Children with difficult temperament do require extra time, guidance, and patience.
But all children can be raised to be well-adjusted people with positive self esteem.
It takes parenting finesse.
Effective parents develop attitudes, guidance strategies, and communication skills that work with, rather than against, a child’s temperament. Difficult children can learn to be
Parenting Children with
Difficult Temperament
Children are born with an inborn temperament, a preferred style of relating to people and events. Temperament is indicated by behavior that clusters into three categories: easy, slow-to-warm up, and difficult. No category makes a child good or bad. They merely describe a child’s response patterns.
Some children (approximately 10-20%) are born with “difficult temperament.” Traits include: 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.
Your discipline interactions can clue you into your child’s temperament. Parents struggling with difficult temperament say they continually remind and nag; name-call, yell, bribe, plead, make empty threats; give into power-struggles; feel as if their child “calls all the shots” or “rules the roost”; over-react; argue with co-parent over discipline; or give up trying to discipline at all.
None of those characteristics make life easy, for kids or parents. But children with difficult temperament can learn to cope with their sensitivities. If they don’t learn, they can become confused, frustrated, and hopeless. In addition, they will most likely have to endure constant negative feedback which creates a vicious cycle of discouragement. Children with difficult temperament do require extra time, guidance, and patience.
But all children can be raised to be well-adjusted people with positive self esteem.
It takes parenting finesse.
Effective parents develop attitudes, guidance strategies, and communication skills that work with, rather than against, a child’s temperament. Difficult children can learn to be