Every parent who has had more than one child knows that every baby is different. One baby sleeps peacefully through the night and eats whenever it is fed, while another baby screams when it is put down and becomes fussy at mealtime.
Babies are born with their own unique temperament, a building block of personality.
Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas studied these building blocks of personality in the late 1960s and discovered that the way that parents interact with their babies actually contributes to the development of temperament into personality.
The building blocks of temperament: Activity Level
Rhythmicity (predictability of physical functions)
Initial Response (reaction to novel situations)
Adaptability (ability to adjust to change over time)
Sensory Threshold (sensitivity to sensory stimulation)
Quality of Mood (optimism/pessimism)
Intensity of Reactions (response to events)
Distractibility
Persistence and Attention Span
**** Ask yourself…where do I fall on these traits and where does my child fall?
A parent who has a lower activity level and a child with a higher activity level may have a negative attitude toward their child because they feel drained of energy. If you notice a mismatch between you and your child, seek opportunities to reframe your child’s temperament in terms of differences not right or wrong qualities.
Understanding your child’s temperament and your own can help you to connect more effectively. There is no such thing as a “bad” child
Communicate respect for your child’s uniqueness and respect for the needs of the situation through kind and firm parenting.
There is an old tale about a fish living in the water that would look up to the sky every day to see birds flying overhead. The fish wanted desperately to fly and kept jumping out of the water hoping to sprout wings like the little birds that flew out of their nest for the first time. One day the fish made it all the way to land when it jumped, but it never sprouted wings. Soon it learned that it needed to get back to the water in order to survive.
This story does not mean that we cannot strive to achieve our dreams. It does however speak to a fundamental truth which is that we thrive when we understand what makes us who we are and follow a path that accentuates our strengths rather than trying to change who we are.
