{"id":125,"date":"2010-12-03T19:18:32","date_gmt":"2010-12-04T03:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/?p=125"},"modified":"2012-04-25T10:34:17","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T18:34:17","slug":"temperament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/2010\/12\/03\/temperament\/","title":{"rendered":"Temperament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Temperament refers to \u201cthe way people are.\u201d The definition of temperament refers to \u201cstable individual differences in quality and intensity of emotional reaction, activity level, attention and emotional self-regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas and Chess looked at nine areas of temperament\u00a0:<\/p>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"8\" cellpadding=\"8\" bgcolor=\"#ffcc99\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>activity level:<\/strong> the amount of time a child spends in active versus more quiet modes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>rhythmicity:<\/strong> regular or irregular eating patterns, bowel movements or sleep<\/li>\n<li><strong>distractibility:<\/strong> the child&#8217;s ability to stay focused on a task, even when something is happening in their environment.<\/li>\n<li><strong>approach\/withdrawal:<\/strong> the way a child responds to someone or something new in their environment.<\/li>\n<li><strong>adaptability:<\/strong> the ease and speed with which a child adapts to changes in their environment.<\/li>\n<li><strong>attention span:<\/strong> how much time a child spends on a certain activity.<\/li>\n<li><strong>intensity of reaction:<\/strong> how intensely (e.g., in terms of being more or less loud or forceful) a child responds to events in their environment.<\/li>\n<li><strong>threshold of responsiveness:<\/strong> how strong a stimulus or event has to be in order to get a response from a child.<\/li>\n<li><strong>quality of mood:<\/strong> a child&#8217;s general mood (i.e., predominantly &#8220;sunny&#8221; or positive, &#8220;negative,&#8221; or &#8220;labile&#8221; or up and down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><em>Three major categories define children\u2019s temperament.<\/em> This will mostly depend on how children react to changes in their environment and to new situations:<em> <\/em><\/p>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"4\" cellpadding=\"4\" bgcolor=\"#ffcc99\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>easy<\/strong> child: usually complacent, these children are generally joyful, adapt easily to changes in their environments and usually establish sleep and eating routines quickly.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>difficult<\/strong> child: usually with irregular sleep and eating routines, these children may react intensely to changes in their environments. At the same time, they tend to be careful; they are unlikely to jump into new situations without having first &#8220;testing&#8221; them out them carefully.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>slow-to-warm-up<\/strong> child: usually slow to react to changes in their environments, these children tend to have low-key responses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><em>Having \u201ceasy\u201d or \u201cdifficult\u201d temperaments is not just what makes it easier for those raising or working with children.<\/em> It\u2019s instead how parents can read their infant or child\u2019s cues and how well they respond to those cues. This is what child development experts refer to as the &#8220;<a title=\"This refers to the \u201cmatch\u201d between the temperaments of the adult\/caregiver and the child.\">goodness of fit<\/a>&#8221; (see full <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/files\/2012\/02\/ECI_Glossary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Glossary<\/a>).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For example, the parents of a child with a difficult temperament who are \u201cin-tune\u201d with their child\u2019s feelings and emotions and respond to them are likely to find less challenges. This child, in turn will have more opportunities to develop other positive qualities because their needs were met.<\/li>\n<li>In contrast, a child with an \u201ceasy\u201d temperament growing up in a <a title=\"This term refers to environments that do not meet children\u2019s needs for safety, affection, play and social interactions. This is even if children are fed, dressed, changed and put to sleep following routines.\">non-responsive environment<\/a> (see full <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/files\/2012\/02\/ECI_Glossary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Glossary<\/a>) may become more demanding because of not having their needs met during their early years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"4\" cellpadding=\"4\" bgcolor=\"#99ccff\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p align=\"center\"><em><\/em><em><\/em>Parents can fill out a very <a href=\"http:\/\/www.parentcoachplan.com\/temperament.php\" target=\"blank\">short temperament scale<\/a>, rate their own temperament in order to find out how likely they are to react to new situations and see how their own temperaments fit with those of their children.<br \/>\nTEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE:<br \/>\nHow would an easy, difficult and slow to warm up child react to the following situations?<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Temperament refers to \u201cthe way people are.\u201d The definition of temperament refers to \u201cstable individual differences in quality and intensity of emotional reaction, activity level, attention and emotional self-regulation.\u201d Thomas and Chess looked at nine areas of temperament\u00a0: activity level: the amount of time a child spends in active versus more quiet modes. rhythmicity: regular [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[160763],"tags":[162961,286022,438174],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1-3-social-and-emotional-development-temperament","tag-goodness-of-fit-model","tag-mood","tag-temperament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":289,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions\/289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}