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.