The best parenting advice often doesn’t work because it doesn’t consider temperament. Just like we have different favorite colors and foods, we also have different temperaments. Understanding your own temperament and your child’s can help you be a better parent.
Takeaways
- Understanding your child’s temperament is key to effective parenting.
- Every child has a unique temperament that influences their behavior and emotions.
- A child’s temperament is not a choice, but it can be understood and supported.
- We can respond to our children’s needs more effectively by taking a short assessment.
When we think about parenting, a good place to start is by grounding ourselves in the three key factors that influence our attachment with our children. Attachment refers to the quality of the bond between parent and child. These early attachment styles have a lasting impact—they influence your child’s future relationships. It might feel like a lot of pressure, but it’s also an incredible opportunity. We can always learn, grow, and make intentional changes to strengthen that bond.
The three factors that influence attachment are:
Quality of Caregiving
This is all about how you interact with your child—the tools, methods, and approaches you use as a parent. As a coach, I help parents improve the quality of their caregiving, offering strategies to connect and communicate more effectively.
Emotional Climate of the Home
Think of this as the emotional “temperature” in your home. Is it warm and inviting, or does it feel tense and cold? Just like how you can walk into a room and sense its mood, your child tunes into the emotional climate of your home. Creating a positive, nurturing atmosphere is essential for building secure attachment.
Temperament
Today, we’re focusing on temperament—a crucial yet often overlooked part of the parenting puzzle. After reading, you’ll have a clear understanding of what temperament is, why it matters, and how you can better support your child’s unique temperament.
Temperament plays a big role in how children experience the world and interact with others. Learning about it can help you meet your child where they are, strengthening your relationship and setting them up for success. Let’s dive in!
Reframing “Difficult” Behavior
Have you ever heard someone describe a child as “just difficult”? Maybe it’s been said about your child, someone else’s, or even by you. But here’s an important question: are they truly a difficult child, or are you having a difficult time with them?
As a teacher, I’ve had students who challenged me more than others. Early in my career, I believed I needed to change them. But over time, I realized those moments were opportunities for me to grow. The biggest aha moment in this work was understanding that behavior is communication.
When a child exhibits difficult behavior, like a power struggle, they’re not being difficult—they’re having a hard time. This shift in perspective changes everything. Their behavior signals they’re struggling to regulate their emotions or energy. Instead of labeling them as difficult, I began to ask myself: What is their behavior trying to tell me?
For many children, difficult behavior points to challenges with regulation. When they’re overwhelmed, stressed, or stuck in a “red brain” state—fight, flight, freeze, or fawn—they need connection to help soothe their nervous system. Adding more stress or chaos in these moments doesn’t help; it only makes things harder.
This realization also connects to temperament. Children with difficult temperaments struggle more with added stress or pressure. Recognizing this allows us to meet them with understanding, helping them feel safe and supported as they learn to regulate. Instead of reacting to the behavior, we can respond to the underlying need.
Understanding Temperament Through Life’s Gaps
A few years ago, I joined a racing team to train for a half marathon. I was excited but also stressed. My biggest worry wasn’t about finishing the race—it was about how I’d be treated if I fell behind. What if there was a gap between me and the rest of the team? How would I be supported in that space where I felt separated from the group?
This fear of “the gap” is something many of us experience. When our sense of belonging feels threatened, it can trigger stress, pressure, and uncertainty. While I felt it during training, you might have noticed it in other areas of life. And here’s the thing: we each respond to the stress of that gap differently.
For my husband, the gap in a running group felt like a challenge—a positive compound of emotions. He experienced excitement, pride, hope, and accomplishment, seeing it as an opportunity to improve. For me, however, the gap triggered a negative compound. I felt anxiety, frustration, sadness, and even resentment. This difference in how we reacted comes down to temperament.
Temperament plays a big role in how we handle stress and challenges. For someone with a temperament like mine, added stress or pressure can feel like running with ankle weights and a heavy vest while a crowd criticizes from the sidelines. Even if their intentions are good, their pressure only makes the challenge harder.
As parents, it’s natural to want to motivate our kids when we see them struggling or “falling behind.” We adults all want our children to succeed, and have a good relationship. Sometimes we add pressure, thinking it will help, but for some children, this only increases their stress. Instead of pushing harder, we can pause and recognize their temperament.
By understanding temperament, we can tailor our support to what they truly need—helping them navigate their gaps with less stress and more confidence.
Understanding Temperament: A Car Analogy
Let’s visualize temperament in a way that’s simple to understand and easy to explain—a car. On the outside, most cars look pretty similar, but once you get under the hood, you realize they can function in different ways.
For example, I drive a Subaru Crosstrek. It looks like any other car, but mine has a manual transmission, which means it requires a clutch and gear shifts to operate. Learning to drive it was a whole new challenge for me. This is a great way to think about temperament. From the outside, you might not notice anything unusual, but once you dig deeper, you begin to understand the unique way a person “drives.”
Temperament is like the engine and transmission of a car. Some cars run on gas, others on diesel, and now we even have electric cars. They all look the same on the outside, but each one requires different fuel and maintenance to operate smoothly. Similarly, some children are like automatic transmissions—they navigate stress and transitions with ease, shifting gears almost effortlessly. Others are like manual transmissions, requiring more attention, skill, and energy to manage stress and regulate emotions.
Connecting to ADHD and Autism
This analogy can be especially helpful for parents navigating diagnoses like ADHD or autism. If one child in the family seems to handle challenges easily while another struggles, it’s not about better or worse—it’s about recognizing that they are built differently. Supporting a “manual transmission” child requires attunement, patience, and a willingness to adjust your approach, just like learning to drive a stick shift.
And here’s the thing: when learning something new, stress can amplify frustration and big reactions—whether it’s driving a car or supporting your child. Adding pressure in these moments doesn’t help; it stalls progress. Instead, slowing down, offering the right supports, and meeting your child where they are can make all the difference.
By understanding temperament as unique as the car someone drives, we can start to see that every child has their own needs and strengths. Our job is to be the kind of driver—or parent—who helps them run safely and efficiently in a way that works best for them.
What is Temperament?
Temperament is how we take in information, process it, and respond through our behavior. It’s shaped by our nervous system’s natural ability to handle internal and external stimuli—what’s happening both inside and outside of us. This is innate, meaning we are born with it. Just as a child doesn’t choose to be a “manual” or “automatic” car, they don’t choose their temperament.
The nervous system, often called the body’s command center, plays a critical role. It sends signals between the brain and the body, helping us sense, process, and react to our environment. For example, environmental triggers like smells, lights, or weather can signal us to pay attention. You might smell cookies and feel joy—or caution if you have dietary restrictions and need more information. Internal triggers, like hunger, sleepiness, or mood, also influence how we react.
Just like you can’t tell what kind of engine a car has by looking at it, you can’t tell a child’s temperament at a glance. It’s hidden, inviting us to get curious and observe how they respond to different situations. Temperament shapes their behavior and how they interact with the world, and understanding it helps us better support their unique needs.
3 Common Myths About Temperament
Just a phase
While some behaviors may shift as children grow, temperament itself isn’t something they outgrow. It’s innate and reflects how a child processes and reacts to their world. For example, a child sensitive to lights or transitions won’t simply “outgrow” this sensitivity—it’s part of how their nervous system operates.
Same as personality
Temperament is the inborn system that governs how energy flows and regulates (like how an engine works), while personality develops over time through experiences (what the engine does and prefers). It Can sets the foundation, but personality grows from the interactions between temperament and the environment.
Fixed and unchangeable
While the core traits of temperament remain consistent, how we support them can evolve. With proper tools, coping strategies, and supportive environments, children (and adults) can adapt and thrive despite challenges. Think of it like running a race with ankle weights—you can’t remove them, but better shoes, hydration, and encouragement can make all the difference.
Research on Temperament
Thomas and Chess, two researchers who studied temperament extensively in the 1970s, found that every child is unique in how they react to their environment. These reactions, or temperament, are innate—present from birth and unlearned. While every parent also has a unique personality, the compatibility or “goodness of fit” between a child’s temperament and their caregiver’s personality can influence the quality of their relationship.
In my parenting courses, I focus on building this goodness of fit. We explore your parenting style, your child’s temperament, and how well they align. Are they frequently in conflict, or do they naturally accommodate one another? When caregivers learn how their child’s temperament works and adjust their approach, they can create an environment that supports their child’s natural tendencies—making life easier for everyone. My program includes tools like the nine-trait assessment to help you classify and understand your child’s temperament (easy, slow-to-warm, or difficult) and build a tailored approach to parenting.
By expanding your parenting toolbox to support even the most sensitive children, you create a framework that works not only for your family but also for navigating the diverse temperaments you’ll encounter in the world.
Does a ‘good’ kid mean ‘good’ parenting?
When we talk about parenting, we often focus on the foundations versus the details. I frequently hear parents, caregivers, and even teachers describe the “fantasy” of the perfect child—the child who listens well, follows instructions without fail, participates in all the activities their parents want them to, does their homework on time, and is just overall a joy to be around. This image of the “good kid” often includes a child who is in total control of their emotions, is always happy, and makes good choices without any difficulty. We may even envision children who are well-behaved in public, sharing and being kind to others.
If this vision of a “good kid” resonates with you, you’re not alone. Many parents and caregivers share this ideal. However, I want to remind you that this is only part of the picture. In my world of positive parenting, I firmly believe that there is no such thing as a “bad kid.” When people talk about a “good kid,” it’s natural to wonder, “Well, if there’s a good kid, does that mean there’s a bad kid?” The truth is, behavior is communication. When we focus on the relationship between parent and child rather than strict compliance, we realize that there is no “bad” child, just as there is no such thing as a “bad” parent.
This resonates deeply. When we see a child acting out, pushing back, or struggling, it’s not that they are being difficult on purpose. What it signals is that they are having a tough time. Unfortunately, when we view their behavior from an adult perspective, it’s easy to take it personally and think, “They’re giving me a hard time.”
I want to encourage you to shift your perspective. The idea is that when we feel better, we do better. I know that when I’m feeling good—when I am calm, regulated, and grounded—I’m better equipped to handle the challenges of my day and the people in my life. But when I’m stressed or facing challenges, everything feels more difficult. The same holds true for our children. If we can understand this concept in ourselves, we can also apply it to our interactions with them.
So, rather than focusing on the image of the “good kid” and what we think our children should be doing, let’s shift our focus to understanding their needs and the deeper roots of their behavior.
Exploring the 9 traits of Temperament
To help us better understand and assess both our own temperament and our child’s temperament, I will direct you an assessment from the book Raising Your Spirited Child. This assessment was developed by researchers Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess, who spent years studying child temperament and identified common traits.
After only nine prompts you will have an understanding of your temperament, I invite you take the assessment of yourself and your child on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 representing a mild response on the lower end and 5 representing an intense response. As I describe each trait, think about where you would rate yourself and your child. This will allow us to see how our temperaments match up, as well as how we can better understand our children and ourselves. Let’s dive into these traits to start building a clearer picture of how temperament plays a role in our daily lives and relationships.
Intensity
How strong are your child’s emotional reactions? Do they laugh and cry energetically, or are their reactions more soft and mild? On the mild end, reactions tend to be low-key and calm. These children are more go-with-the-flow and generally handle emotions with ease. On the intense end, however, they may be easily frustrated, have emotional explosions, or experience emotions deeply.
Persistence
How determined is your child to follow through with their ideas? If your child is engaged in an activity and you ask them to stop, do they do so easily, or do they resist and fight to continue? A child who is persistent has a clear idea in their mind and is determined to make it happen, no matter what.
On the mild end of persistence, children can transition easily. If you tell them it’s time to move on from an activity, they’ll happily stop and shift to the next thing without much resistance. They can handle hearing “no” without much fuss. For example, if they ask for more screen time and you say no, they’ll accept it and move on, possibly with little more than a “maybe tomorrow.”
On the intense end, persistent children will lock in on their ideas and are hard to sway. They find it difficult to hear “no” and struggle with disappointment. For instance, if plans change or something doesn’t go as expected, they may have a meltdown because they’ve become so attached to their vision of how things should go.
Persistence is all about how easily your child can transition, handle disappointment, and shift gears when things don’t go according to plan.
Sensitivity
How aware your child is of their environment, including things like sounds, emotions, textures, temperature, and even your stress levels? A sensitive child might react to things like the tag in their shirt, the sound of the vacuum, or even the taste and texture of certain foods. They are keenly tuned in to the world around them, which can have both positive and challenging effects.
On the mild end of sensitivity, children are usually not very affected by external stimuli. These children might be able to sleep through noisy environments or tolerate the hum of a vacuum without disruption. They may not be bothered by scratchy textures in clothing or picky about what foods they eat. They’re generally flexible with their environment and able to adapt easily to changes.
On the intense end, sensitivity is much stronger. A child who is highly sensitive may need things to be ‘just so’ in order to feel comfortable. They may require their sock seams to be perfectly aligned, or they might avoid certain textures, fabrics, or even smells. Noises that others barely notice could overwhelm them, and they might struggle to process bright lights or loud sounds. As a result, their emotional reactions could be more intense, and their behavior may communicate that they’re having difficulty coping with the environment. A picky eater or a child who seeks out specific textures in food could be displaying signs of heightened sensitivity.
Perceptiveness
How much does your child absorb from their environment? A child’s level of perceptiveness is evident in how they notice the world around them. Do they notice changes in their surroundings, like colors or sounds? Do they get distracted easily by things that catch their attention, like a shiny object or a new noise? This trait can help us understand how well a child can focus and stay on task.
A child on the mild end of perceptiveness is less likely to be distracted by their surroundings. They’re the child who might not notice if the sheets on their bed have been changed or if someone is standing nearby. They can stay focused on a task at hand and tend to follow through with what’s been asked of them. This child is able to lock into the task, remembering directions and following through without being pulled off course by other distractions.
On the intense end of perceptiveness, children are much more aware of their environment. They pick up on small details that others may overlook. For example, they might notice the smallest changes in a room or comment on things like, “This is what the doctor’s office looked like last time.” While this heightened awareness is a great strength, it can also cause challenges, as these children can become overwhelmed by all the information they take in. They may forget multiple instructions because they are distracted by everything around them, from the colors and sounds to the tiniest changes in their environment. This type of child may struggle with focus as they constantly absorb more than others around them.
Adaptability
How well does your child adjust to changes in their schedule, routine, or unexpected surprises? How do they cope when things don’t go as planned or when they’re faced with a sudden shift in their day?
A child on the mild end of adaptability can handle transitions easily. They’re quick to shift from one activity to the next without much fuss. For example, if it’s time to leave for school, they’ll smoothly make the transition from home to the car without resistance. Surprises don’t throw them off—they might even enjoy the unpredictability and be flexible with changes in plans.
On the more intense end of adaptability, children take longer to adjust to changes. They may feel upset when their routine is disrupted, especially if something unexpected happens. They might say things like, “This isn’t what happened last time” or express frustration with new plans. These children thrive in environments with structure and predictability, and sudden changes can be overwhelming. They need more time and space to adjust to transitions and may resist surprises, preferring a sense of control over their routine.
Regularity
Refers to the predictability of your child’s daily rhythms, including sleep, meals, and bodily functions.
A child on the mild end of regularity follows a consistent pattern. They go to bed at the same time each night. Get hungry at predictable intervals. Their body functions follow a rhythm as well. For example, you can easily anticipate when it’s snack time, when they’ll need a bathroom break, or when they’ll be ready for a meal. This regularity makes it easier to plan and structure their day, helping them feel secure and supported.
On the more intense end, a child struggles with irregularity. Their sleep times, meal times, and bathroom habits are unpredictable, making it challenging to establish a consistent routine. This lack of regularity can lead to difficulties in managing daily tasks and transitions, leaving both the child and caregiver feeling frustrated or out of sync. Without a rhythm to rely on, it can be harder to create a sense of stability for them.
Energy
How much physical activity and movement your child needs to feel comfortable and engaged?
A child on the mild end of energy is generally quiet and content to sit still. They can focus for long periods of time, whether it’s doing schoolwork, watching a movie, or playing quietly. Even on rainy days when outdoor play isn’t an option, they’re often content to read a book or entertain themselves. These children can handle extended periods of calm, stationary activities without feeling restless.
On the more intense end, energy is abundant. These children are constantly on the move, needing to run, jump, and use their whole body to feel good. Sitting still for long periods, such as in a classroom, can be challenging, and they might struggle when it’s a rainy day with no space to release that pent-up energy. These children often need regular physical activity to help them maintain focus and emotional balance. Taking away opportunities for movement, like recess, can actually worsen their behavior and create frustration. This is a misunderstanding many parents and educators face, where the child’s need for movement is seen as disruptive, when in fact, movement is essential for their well-being and success.
Mood
What is your child’s general emotional disposition throughout the day?
A child on the more mild end of mood tends to be upbeat and positive. They may wake up in a good mood, eager to start the day with a cheerful attitude, and seek connection with others. These children often appear happy, content, and optimistic.
On the more intense end, a child may have a more serious, analytical, or solemn outlook. They might not be as quick to express happiness, and may even appear grumpy in the mornings. These children can be more focused on flaws or challenges, taking a more thoughtful or critical approach to situations. This doesn’t mean they’re unhappy, but they may process the world with a more serious lens, needing time to adjust emotionally before jumping into the day.
Understanding your child’s mood helps you support them in a way that aligns with their natural emotional rhythm.
Interpreting the score
Children closer to a 9 on the scale have an “easy” temperament, adapting well to changes, handling transitions smoothly, and managing emotions easily. They’re typically happy, flexible, and have regular sleep and eating patterns, making their behavior easier to guide.
Children closer to a 45 tend to have a “difficult” temperament, struggling with change, sensory sensitivities, and emotional regulation. They often need more time to adjust and may have irregular routines, requiring extra support and patience to manage their responses and cope with challenges.
This is such an important distinction! The idea that a child with a more difficult temperament is not deliberately giving us a hard time but is instead having a hard time themselves is a profound shift in perspective. Understanding that a child’s behavior is a signal of their internal struggles rather than intentional defiance helps us approach them with more compassion and patience.
As parents, teachers, or caregivers, it’s crucial to recognize when our child is struggling and how we can support them through their difficulty, instead of adding pressure or punishment that may escalate the situation. It’s about leaning into compassion, staying calm, and offering tools and strategies to help them regulate themselves, so they can grow in a safe and supportive environment.
This shift requires moving away from traditional mindsets of punishment and urgency, and instead focusing on connection, understanding, and support. Compassionate responses build emotional resilience and trust, which are essential for navigating those difficult moments.
The Best Parenting Advice: Learn about Temperament.
Understanding your own “engine”—how your energy runs and regulates—is key to being a more intentional parent. For many of us, this self-awareness doesn’t develop until adulthood, but once you start exploring, it’s a powerful tool for growth. Ask yourself: How well do you know your engine? How well do you understand your child’s engine, especially if you have more than one? Each child likely needs a unique approach tailored to their temperament.
Reflect on moments where parenting felt aligned and smooth versus times when it felt stalled or chaotic. Those tough moments are opportunities for compassion and curiosity—places to learn and grow.
If any of this resonates with you. I encourage you to explore the courses available to you right here on this website!
