Why Temperament Matters: Guidance Strategies for Young Children addresses early childhood behavior guidance strategies related to children’s specific temperament traits. There are nine temperament traits that influence a child’s behavior: Activity Level, Distractibility, Persistence, Adaptability, Approach/Withdrawal, Intensity, Regularity, Sensory Awareness, Mood. All nine temperament traits are grouped into three major categories of personality: easy/flexible, feisty/spirited, and slow-to-warm-up/sensitive. This book provides specific ideas about how a child care provider can adjust the early childhood program and environment to meet the individual needs of each child’s temperament. There is a specific emphasis on children who fall into the feisty/spirited or the slow-to-warm-up/sensitive categories because they are often the ones who are expelled with challenging behaviors. Why Temperament Matters explains where challenging behaviors may originate in temperament and provides strategies for meeting temperament needs that prevent or lessen challenging behaviors.

This work explores the differences between temperamental traits and psychological disorders. What is the difference between a child who is temperamentally sad and one who has depression? Can a child be angry by temperament without being mentally ill? Here, the author discusses the factors that can propel children with particular temperamental tendencies towards or away from more problematic trajectories.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR CHILD'S TEMPERAMENT From their earliest days some children are shy and others are bold. A brother may be flexible, while his sister is rigid. One child is highly active, another far less so. One may stick with a challenge for hours, while another gives up easily. All children display distinct profiles of nine largely inborn temperament traits that determine how they experience their environments and respond to them. These interactions have a major impact on children's physical health, development, social behavior, and school performance, and on the caregivers themselves. If adults learn to recognize and tolerate temperament traits, they will be able to manage them more harmoniously and care for each child's individual needs. "What an important book for parents to consider. Treating each child as an individual shows them the respect that will engender self-esteem in them later. This book about differences in temperament by Dr. William Carey, an esteemed pediatrician, will give parents the backup they need to treat each child individually." T. Berry Brazelton, M.D Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School Author of numerous books on child development and care. "America's favorite pediatrician" "This classic work is now more useful than ever. The too often neglected role of temperamental patterns is explained brilliantly, so that all adults who live or work with kids can understand and manage these all-important differences between them." Mel Levine, M.D. Professor of Pediatrics, University of North Carolina Medical School. Author of national bestseller, A Mind at a Time, and 10 other books about children's learning issues.

How can we better understand ourselves and others? The classical concept of the four temperaments - the four personality types characterized as the fiery choleric, the airy sanguine, the watery phlegmatic and the earthy melancholic - has been revered by many significant thinkers over the ages. In a refreshing treatment Dr Childs demonstrates how this ancient doctrine remains relevant to the present day. He shows us how we can recognize the temperaments in our fellow human beings as well as in ourselves, and how to understand their workings. A comprehension of their influence can boost personal development, as well as help improve interpersonal relationships. Conversational in tone and easily digestible, this book features fascinating discussions of the relationships between adults of various temperaments. Childs reviews matters of compatibility in partnership, family and workplace situations, liberally spicing his commentary with amusing examples of likely scenarios. He investigates the origins and manifestations of the temperaments in both their psychological and physiological aspects. There is also a section on the temperaments of children, with helpful and practical advice on dealing with individual issues. DR GILBERT CHILDS attended the Steiner teacher training course at Michael Hall after war service. He later studied at four universities, his doctoral thesis being entitled 'Steiner Education as Historical Necessity'. After teaching at State and Steiner schools he spent twenty years as a tutor in a further education college for severely physically disabled students. He is, in retirement, a full-time author and keen gardener. His published works include "Your Reincarnating Child" and "Truth, Beauty and Goodness".

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

This definitive work comprehensively examines the role of temperament in the development of personality and psychopathology. Preeminent researcher Mary Rothbart synthesizes current knowledge on temperament's basic dimensions; its interactions with biology, the social environment, and developmental processes; and influences on personality, behavior, and social adjustment across the lifespan. In a direct and readable style, Rothbart combines theory and research with everyday observations and clinical examples. She offers new insights on "difficult" children and reviews intervention programs that address temperamental factors in childhood problems. This book will be invaluable to developmental psychologists; personality/social psychologists; child clinical psychologists and other mental health practitioners. It will also serve as a text in graduate-level courses

For the past twenty years Keirsey has continued to investigate personality differences, to refine his theory of the four temperaments and to define the facets of character that distinguish one from another. His findings form the basis of Please Understand Me II, an updated and greatly expanded edition of the book, far more comprehensive and coherent than the original, and yet with much of the same easy accessibility. One major addition is Keirsey's view of how the temperaments differ in the intelligent roles they are most likely to develop. Each of us, he says, has four kinds of intelligence, tactical, logistical, diplomatic, strategic, though one of the four interests us far more than the others, and thus gets far more practice than the rest. Like four suits in a hand of cards, we each have a long suit and a short suit in what interests us and what we do well, and fortunate indeed are those whose work matches their skills. As in the original book, Please Understand Me II begins with The Keirsey Temperament Sorter, the most used personality inventory in the world. But also included is The Keirsey Four-Types Sorter, a new short questionnaire that identifies one's basic temperament and then ranks one's second, third, and fourth choices. Share this new sorter with friends and family, and get set for a lively and fascinating discussion of personal styles.