Parenting 101: understanding temperment

“Outwit-Outlast-Outplay” – that’s the “Survivor” motto. What a snap shot of life with human dynamics at their purest. Each player’s temperaments and personality is what makes the show so interesting to watch – and what ultimately determines who gets ahead and who gets voted off.

Raising children is very similar to playing “Survivor” – parents and kids all try to outwit, outlast and outplay each other as they vie for attention and try to further their agendas.
A typical day in most families is really a dance of negotiations. We all have those times where we want to pull our hair out and others where we are surprised things went so smoothly. And, the biggest battles tend to be about the smallest things – what clothes to wear, brushing teeth, waking up, going to sleep, what to eat for dinner, and the last goes on. We expect our kids to react as we do and inadvertently not only add fuel to the fire but accelerator as well. We basically try to squash a square peg into a round circle – it’s no wonder that we sometimes clash with our kids and feel like we are talking to aliens.

It is hard for us as parents to always acknowledge that our kids are wired differently than we are – and have different styles. These differences in hard-wiring is called temperament and a bit of understanding about this very complicated topic will go a long way in helping you understand your kids better, minimize conflict at home, and encourage them to thrive in whatever they set out to do. We will be better parents in the end for really seeing who they are – and they will respect us more if we help them understand what makes us tick.

There are many models that all attempt to explain temperament and personality – including why people pick certain careers to how spouses and kids interact in a family. Likely the best well known and the most easily understood is the Kiersey Temperament sorter. Kiersey describes 4 basic groups of people that each have 4 subgroups: artisan, idealist, rational and guardian. If you look at the basic descriptions of each type in terms of what kind of parent or child each tends to be, we get a glimpse of why we either clash our gel with our kids:
*Artisans tend to be permissive parents and play oriented kids.
*Idealists tend to be very spiritual and strive for mutality.
*Guardians tend to be enculturing parents and conforming children.
*rationals tend to be individualizing parents and learning-oriented kids.

Kiersey’s web site, www.kiersey.com can give you much more detail if you are interested in learning more about each group. It is fascinating to read about but not too practical to execute given our busy lives. Instead, we need to internalize the take home message and learn to see our kids and ourselves for who we are. We all have particular characteristics and styles that may gel at some times and conflict at others. People are dynamic and change and grow – we need to allow that in ourselves as well as our kids. With a little attention and humility, we can ‘survive’ the battle of the will’s with our kids – and have them survive the battles they have with us.

So, before you enter the next battle or negotiation with your child, think about what type of child you really have and ponder a new approach. Past experiences are the roadmap for your success. You’ll hit some here and there but eventually you’ll find the door to communicating and interacting better with your child.

© 2005 Pediatrics Now.
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