Raising your kid to possess great mental well-being will be incomplete without learning how to handle your child's temperament...
Raising your kid to possess great mental well-being will be incomplete without learning how to handle your child's temperament. The temperament is the personality trait of the child and explains how they interact with the world. Based on the difference in reactions to stimuli, your child's temperament may differ from what you are used to. Your child may have high or low-intensity reactions. Children with high reactions will have intense emotions for events, while those with low reactions will have muted emotions. Also, temperaments may be classified under distractibility, which involves how the environment can distract a person. A child with a high distractibility level can be easily distracted by minor incidents in their vicinity, unlike a child with a low distractibility level. Furthermore, activity levels may help to pinpoint your child's temperament and how to handle it. If your child has high activity levels, they will likely jump from activity to activity, seeming restless. On the other hand, a child with low activity levels will prefer calmer activities, and seem lazy.
Once you identify it, you should understand how to handle your child's temperament:
If your kid has high-intensity reactions, you will notice it through their expressive emotional outbursts. When bad things happen, they will wail and weep in loud tones. Contrastingly, they will rejoice in loud tones if there's positive news. They are always ready to react strongly in every situation. On the other hand, if your child has low-intensity reactions, you may find it challenging to understand their emotions. They rarely emote in response to situations, and when they do, they tend to do it mildly and gently. To handle your child's temperament, if they have high-intensity reactions, you must understand that they aren't reacting on purpose. They are simply interacting with the environment, and that's the best way they know how to interact when prodded. Similarly, you should handle a child with low-intensity reactions by listening to them and ignoring the part of you that thinks they aren't feeling anything. They are experiencing emotions but aren't big on showing the emotions. Thus, you have to help them express themselves.
A highly distractible child can quickly get blindsided by other items or events. They can't focus on projects for long if other things come into play. Therefore, you will notice that they tend to jump from one activity to the other because they got distracted by the new stimuli. Alternatively, a low distractibility level indicates that the child can focus on a task or an activity for a lengthy period. Due to their immense focus, they won't be blindsided by a noisy background or running pets; they'll still to their target till they complete the mission. For the proper protection of their well-being, you can help a highly distractible child by making the environment calm and free from distractions. This means you'll turn off the TVs, draw the curtains, and remove your distracting features so they can focus on the current activity. To handle your child's temperament, if they have low distractibility levels, you can help them learn how to move on from things. Due to their ability to focus on something, they may be unable to move on from painful incidents. However, with your help, they can achieve good emotional well-being.
With high activity levels, your child will seem like a restless, disruptive, and bubbly kid. Since they need to stay involved in activities constantly, they will tend to move from one energetic activity to the next, leaving you in fear for their health. If your child has low activity levels, they will pick the calm activities and beam in happiness at the slowness. They may not even like any activity, preferring to lie down without burning energy. By immersing them in high-energy activities, you can handle your child's temperament if they have high activity levels. Sign them up for sports or youth camps. Encourage them to have fun racing with like-minded friends. Also, ensure that they have safety equipment for all their activities. For a child with low activity levels, you need to help them access many low-energy activities like board games, novels to read, interesting facts to research, or puzzle games to play.
A highly adaptable kid will find it easy to switch between activities. They can also find it easy to understand new concepts before their peers. In the event of a location change, they will find it easy to integrate into the new location and continue to thrive. Contrastingly, a kid with low adaptability will find it difficult to switch between activities. Even the different periods of the day may be arduous for them to transition into because it takes their mind a while to settle into an activity. You can handle your child's temperament properly if they aren't adaptable by giving them warnings ahead. The alerts will enable them to understand that change is coming, giving them a head start to start the change before it comes. Instead of verbal warnings, you can make the process smooth by offering a written schedule so they may know all that will happen during the day. Armed with such information, they will be prepared to adapt as needed during the day.
When a child has a positive mood as their temperament, they will appear happy and content at all times. Even if bad things occur, they are optimistic and will consider the incoming positives rather than dwell on the negative. However, a child with a more negative mood will appear sad and gloomy. Although they can still feel positive emotions, their mood will rarely last in the happy moments before returning to the default state. Generally, it's expected that people should maintain a cheerful look in all situations. However, if you want to handle your child's temperament properly, you have to forgo societal expectations regarding their look. Ignore such expectations and let your child know they can feel however they want. Their mood is theirs and not others to control. Remind them that they don't have to look happy every day.
To ensure your child's mental well-being is in excellent health, you must correctly identify and handle their temperament. You can handle your child's temperament properly by working with the advice for the different temperament factors. Such factors include reactions, distractibility, activity levels, adaptability, and mood.
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/the_nine_traits_of_temperament_intensity_of_reaction
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/the_nine_traits_of_temperament_distractibility
https://raisingchildren.net.au/newborns/behaviour/understanding-behaviour/temperament
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/the_nine_traits_of_temperament_activity_level
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/the_nine_traits_of_temperament_adaptability
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/the_nine_traits_of_temperament_mood
I am a Licensed Professional Counselor, and owner of Overcomers Counseling. I'm dedicated to helping individuals find strength and healing through life’s challenges. With a deep understanding of mental health and years of professional experience, I specialize in fostering hope and resilience while equipping her clients with tools to thrive. Passionate about empowering others, she creates a safe, supportive space where everyone feels seen, valued, and capable of overcoming obstacles on their path to well-being.
Help your child by providing support and guidance, using positive language, highlighting the progress they have made, breaking down the challenge into smaller steps, and motivating them with positive affirmations.
