Understanding Temperament: another key piece in the parenting puzzle

By Lindsday Dunckel, First 5 Nevada County

Printed in the Family Post: Back to School Issue 2007

For me, like so many parents, the birth of my second child made me a big believer in genetics. Here was a baby who wanted to eat and sleep and curl up in a cozy ball— so different from his sister who had been wide awake with no interest in nursing as a newborn, and who liked to stretch out her body to its full length. Maybe it didn’t all have to do with me, after all. As they grew, I saw more evidence of the fact that babies come equipped with their own distinct way of being.

All you have to do is put two babies in a room together to see that babies can be very different. Temperament is a way of describing these differences among how children behave. It has been studied since the 1950’s, and we’ve learned that when parents understand their children’s temperament, it makes the job of parenting easier. When my son took part in a study of attention and the ability to organize exploration of a new object at the age of seven months, he completely ignored the beeping television screen with lively animations that was set to distract him every ten seconds while he explored a new toy. I learned something important: this was a non-distractible, highly persistent child. I try to remember that when I call my now nine-year-old son to dinner and he’s deep in an activity. He isn’t ignoring me, he literally doesn’t hear me.

Knowing that my daughter is slow to make transitions helped me avoid frustrations in parenting her. I built time into my schedule to “settle her in” on her days at daycare, and to be able to spend some time with her in that environment when I came to pick her up. If I tried to whisk her away, we both ended up unhappy. Even today, I know she will fall asleep faster if I give her time to read as she makes the transition from waking to sleeping. So even when it’s past bedtime, I give her that reading time because I know she will actually be asleep sooner if I do.

So what is temperament? One way to think of it is as the “how” of behavior, not the “what” or the “why.” If you have a baby who fusses the minute her diaper is wet and your friend has a baby who won’t take a bottle when it isn’t just the right temperature, you both have babies who are sensitive, though they’re expressing it in different ways. If you have a toddler who clings to you when you go someplace new, you have a child who tends to withdraw from new things. If you have a preschooler who literally jumps for joy when you make pancakes for breakfast and sobs when it’s raining and you can’t go out to play, you have a child who has intense reactions.

Temperament is made up of several different dimensions, depending on what research you read. The classic description of temperament includes the following nine dimensions:

• Activity level—how much the baby or child moves her body

• Rhythmicity/regularity—the extent to which things like eating, sleeping, and pooping happen at the same time each day

• Approach/withdrawal—your child’s reaction to something new, whether it be a person, a food, a toy, a situation, etc.

• Adaptability—how easily your child adapts to a change from the normal, like eating at a restaurant or taking a bath at grandma’s

• Threshold of responsiveness—how much of a stimulation it takes to get a reaction from your child, how sensitive he is (a baby who cries at a wet diaper has a low threshold, a baby who doesn’t startle at a sudden sound has a high threshold)

• Intensity of reaction—is your child a drama queen? Some children react mildly, whether happy or upset, and some react with more intensity

• Quality of mood—whether your child is generally happy or unhappy, a “smiley” baby or more reserved

• Distractibility—often called “soothability” in infancy, how easy it is to distract the child and get him to focus on something else (some babies will cry without stop when hungry and some can be shown a new toy while mom gets a glass of water and gets settled to breastfeed)

• Attention span and persistence— how long your child will stay interested in an object or activity, or how much she works at milestones like rolling over, crawling, and the like (this one varies with age, because development brings with it a longer and longer attention span)

Intensity, mood, rhythmicity, and activity level show the most stability over time as babies grow into children and then adults. Temperament seems to be the basis for later personality, with experience playing a role in personality development while temperament seems to have a more purely biological basis.

Perhaps temperament developed in order to help babies get the care they need, partly through being more predictable to parents. By spending some time figuring out your child’s temperament, you are making your job as a parent easier. Is yours a baby who will quickly reach threshold at a loud party and then become upset? Get a sitter rather than make yourself and the baby miserable. Is yours a child who tends to withdraw from new people? Don’t set him loose at the next family reunion, but keep him close and let him take the time he needs to warm up to new people.

Knowing your child’s temperament helps you understand her reactions and not take it personally or blame yourself. A lowthreshold child may be sensitive to taste, temperature, and texture and therefore may become picky about eating, but this won’t be because of anything you did. An active baby will not be able to sit still for a restaurant dinner for several years, but not because of the parenting she’s received. The more you understand about your child’s temperament, the less likely you are to set up situations where you “butt heads:” you can work with the temperament instead of against it, lowering the frustration for both you and your child.

Aren’t labels bad for children? Yes, so I like to avoid calling a child a “picky eater,” “shy,” “hyper,” or “a difficult child.” These kinds of labels have a way of being a selffulfilling prophecy—the more they are used, the more they are seen. Kids get stuck in a label and don’t have the room they need to grow into whoever it is they are going to be. Temperament is a little different from labeling: it is how your child normally reacts to her environment and describes behavior, not the child. It’s always better to label the behavior (which can change) than the child (which sounds more permanent).

There is a terrific web resource for parents of 4-month-olds to 5-year-olds. You can go online and fill out a questionnaire about your child’s normal reactions to things; the website will prepare a temperament profile for your child and give you tips on handling certain situations. The website, Preventive Ounce, which also includes additional information on temperament, can be found at: www.preventiveoz.org

If you do not have a computer with internet access, you can still log on and learn about your child’s temperament: computers are available for parent use at all of the Nevada County Libraries as well as the Buena Vista Family Resource Center, the San Juan Ridge Family Resource Center, and the Family Resource Center of Truckee.

Lindsay Dunckel, Ph.D. and Grass Valley mother of two, is the Program Coordinator for Parent Support and Education for First 5 Nevada County.