Understanding our Child's Temperament

I have always been interested in learning new tools to help get on with my daughter better, so you can imagine my delight in learning that our clashes are often the result of her having a different temperament to my own! There are many schools of thought to the 4 different temperaments and a number of different tests you can do to determine yours and your children's but more importantly, how to relate to them in relation to theirs.  There is even a clever concept by Evergreen Parenting, where the 4 different temperaments are compared to different trees.  Unfortunately these tests don't always show a clear cut conclusion as very often we have a combination of two or more temperaments, but hopefully you will be able to determine what the dominant one is.
 
I do not think it is by accident that God so often creates our children with very different temperaments to our own. How else would we get the opportunity to practice getting along with the rest of humanity, than with our own children, in the comfort and intimacy of our own home? 

If you have never considered the topic of temperaments, then I strongly suggest you look into this, as I am confident it will go a long way in smoothing all your relationships when you are equipped with this kind of knowledge.  When you know how to relate to your child's temperament, then the clashes will cease and you will all be a much happier and peaceful family!

Taming their Tantrums

There is nothing as frustrating as dealing with your child's tantrum - especially when the reason doesn't seem to make any sense!  There were many situations that left me bewildered as to why my daughter would explode for no apparent reason, and I often found myself making excuses for her behaviour. I blamed it on her either being tired or hungry, when the reason was obviously just her not getting her own way! 

The truth is that these excuses were more for my benefit! It comforted me to have a reason for the tantrum, because I felt that if there was no reason, it would highlight my obvious lack of control of her and of the situation.  Although my offered excuses may have intensified the tantrum, the bottom line is always just a battle of the wills!  

An important lesson to learn is that how you react to their tantrums will either make things worse or help to calm them down!  I often found that there was no right formulae to follow, as each situation was uniquely different, and therefore needed to be handled differently.  What did help me was to try and identify the emotion she was experiencing, acknowledge it verbally in a calm voice, and to present a distraction that would help alleviate the tension.  What you should never do is to shout back or dare I say it, hit them!  If they have a tantrum in a public place, be firm that that kind of behaviour is unacceptable - don't be tempted to pacify them with sweets, as they will only learn to identify that as a reward for the next time.  

Be consistent in how you react to the tantrum and remember to still love the child unconditionally, inspite of their behaviour!  Your child needs to feel that you love them, both in your words and in your actions. You have to learn to separate the behaviour from who they really are, and stop calling them naughty or bad - they are still your precious child that is simply behaving naughty. So often as parents, we take on a certain shame when our children get out of control in public, because we somehow feel responsible for their behaviour.  But the truth is we are not - our responsibility is only how we handle it.  By training our children what is the right and wrong kind of behaviour, and being consistent about it, will go a long way in raising a more tolerable child. 

However, we have to remember that perfect parents still do not necessarily create a perfect child, and no matter how hard we try, our child will still end up testing the boundaries, purely because they do not yet have the language skills to express their emotions, or have learnt yet how to handle them.  

Crying Babies

Yesterday I saw a 'chunky' baby and it reminded me of my precious angel when she was a baby! Since then, I've learnt that babies don't only cry when they are hungry...  As a new mother, I was naive to the sounds of her cries and it shames me to think I taught her to comfort eat at such a young age!

As a new mom, you need to know that babies cry for many reasons - they can even sense your mood, so if you are tearful and unhappy, they will be too!

Needing to be burped is a difficult problem to decode, other than perhaps some whiteness above the top lip.  Sometimes it is just the comfort of sucking that is required, which can be easily achieved through the use of a dummy or aptly named 'pacifier', or if you are against using these, and your fingers are clean, then try using your pinkie instead. 

As your baby grows, teething will be another problem that causes much crying, but may show no other symptoms.  Our favourite device for teething was a plastic teether that you could freeze.  Also if you are in South Africa, biltong shops now sell a piece on a string for just this purpose, which I can report, works brilliantly!

At the time my daughter was born, the books I was reading seemed to promote demand feeding, but I guess you need to know your babies hungry cry to achieve this successfully! If you are unsure, like I was, then my advice is to try everything else first and if the crying still persists, then go ahead and feed, but remember, breast is always best and check your times that your child is at least getting sufficiently fed! This can be tricky when you breast feed, but if you at least keep a record of your times, the Sister at the Clinic will be able to set your mind at ease.  Plus their weigh-ins will be able to tell you if you are under or overfeeding anyway! 

Enjoy and remember a crying baby, is not always a hungry one...

A Time to be Bored

One of the reasons for starting this blog was to be able to share my parenting mistakes with other mom's so they can learn from me and avoid them in their own lives.  So, allow me to share one of my biggest regrets... and that is not allowing my daughter to ever be bored!  

From a very young age, I have taken up the task of providing constant entertainment and activities for my daughter, whether it was traveling by car, eating out at a restaurant or just passing time during the day.  I guess I had bought into the lie that idle hands is the devil's work and in an attempt not to make her lazy, I went to extreme measures of keeping her entertained.  

However, I realise now what a mistake this was and now at 10years old, without the usual gadgets or TV, she does not know how to occupy herself.  Granted, she is an only child, which makes 'playing' a little more difficult, but I've since learnt that children NEED boredom in order to engage their creative minds and to learn how to entertain themselves without the use of technology.  

So it's okay for them to have to watch the scenery instead in the car or converse with us while we wait for our dinner and when you hear that whine of 'I'm bored', but glad and thankful for it...  Don't rush in with ideas for them, but allow them to find things for themselves to do.  Have a creative corner in the house where you can provide the materials and tools where they make things to play with.  And when all else fails, and you see them day-dreaming, smile to yourself and know that their brains are finding their own path to a better imagination with the added benefit of some calmness and peace... 

The Birds and the Bees

I don't know what the right age is to teach your children about the birds and the bees, but having had a heart to heart talk with my 10 year old daughter recently, I feel it should be sooner rather than later! You would be surprised at how many subliminal messages children are receiving from the media about sex, whether it is through an advert or a music video, or even in my daughter's case, straight from a friend! I was saddened and shocked to discover that my daughter thought sex was this disgusting act that couples did only to make babies.  It was through God's wisdom that I was able to correct this perception she had, and now, instead of fearing sexual intercourse, or as I like to call it, 'love-making', she awaits it as a special marital blessing!