If, at the age of three, you learn that you’ll be the first to go down the slide if you’re aggressive and push the other children, then, at thirty, you’ll be one of those men who jostle and clench their fists (ready to fight) to get into the subway first.
Childhood is the subject psychologists always turn to most. They believe that most adult problems stem from childhood. This is because, in the first years of life, a person builds his or her attitude to the world, as well as his or her character as a whole.
Personalization is a process that takes place mainly through the messages we receive from parents, relatives, teachers and friends.
Therefore, it’s very important that the child receives the right messages from an early age, so as to get the right criteria for right and wrong, what to do and what not to do.
It’s important to understand that a child, even in the playground, is placed in a small model of society and the world we live in. There are rules on the playground, written and unwritten, that must be followed.
What’s the difference between a child’s temperament and character?
Temperament can be defined as a set of characteristic behaviors that are innate and generally persistent throughout life.
Our temperament is determined by our unique neurological characteristics. Such a set of innate ways of behaving and reacting determines the child’s (and our) way of experiencing and approaching the world around them.
Being able to recognize temperamental characteristics in ourselves, in our friends and colleagues, but also in our children, is an important tool for understanding the behavior and needs of others.
It also helps parents guide their children in a way that respects their individual differences and needs.
By understanding the temperament of others, we can work with them instead of trying to change them.
Recognizing temperament also helps us to better understand a child’s behavior, as well as to anticipate and understand the child’s reaction.
Research has identified nine main temperament traits: activity level, harmony or regularity (refers to biological needs), approach or withdrawal (adaptability to new situations), adaptability (general), richness of sensations, quality of mood, intensity of reactions or responses, distraction and persistence or duration of attention.
These temperament traits are generally grouped into three different patterns or combinations: as an “easy” child, as a “difficult” child and as a “cautious” child.
The “easy” child
A flexible, easy-going child is characterized by :
- regularity of bodily functions, e.g. regular bowel movements, hunger occurs at roughly the same time, the child’s sleep and wakefulness alternate regularly, the child is always asleep at the same time…
- positive approach to most new situations and people
- adapts easily to change
- intense light or moderate mood, which is mainly positive
As babies, these children very quickly adopt regularity and schedule in eating and sleeping, easily accept new foods, smile at strangers.
In early childhood, they adapt easily to new situations such as going to kindergarten, a new teacher (or their changes), going to school, adapting easily to changes in the daily schedule of activities and accepting less frustration without too much protest.
These children are generally calm, happy, adaptable, not easily disturbed and have solid habits for meeting their biological needs.
However, because these “easy” children demonstrate their needs in a calm, quiet way, they may receive less attention than children who demonstrate their needs in a more forceful way.
This child’s needs may be just as important and powerful as those of a louder child, but he or she only shows them in a quieter way.
With such children, parents must specifically schedule time to talk to the child about his frustrations, fears, hurts and suffering, because the child alone won’t ask for it.
Such pre-planned and deliberately planned conversations are particularly necessary to strengthen relationships and rapport with parents, and to reveal what their child is thinking and feeling.
The “difficult” child
- A difficult-to-raise child is just the opposite of an easy-to-raise child. It is characterized by :
- irregular bodily functions
- negative repulsive reaction to most new situations and people
- high level of activity (energy, alertness)
- intense expression of mood, often negative
- low sensory threshold
As babies, these children generally have irregular sleep and feeding schedules, are unable to establish a regular rhythm, and are very slow to accept most new foods.
They also need a much longer period to adapt to a new situation. In early childhood, these children express their successes and failures loud and clear, and may respond to frustrations with angry outbursts.
Their energy and vivacity often seem to know no bounds!
These children are generally noisy, fearless, easily upset by noise or agitation, extremely tense, have irregular habits to meet their biological needs and very intense reactions.
The “cautious” child
Cautious children do not accept, i.e., react negatively to new situations or people, and adapt very slowly.
Unlike “difficult” children, they will prefer to show a mild reaction rather than a strong one, and are less inclined to develop irregularities in eating and sleeping.
When frustrated or upset, these children will prefer to withdraw from such a situation, calmly or with mild resentment, and will not explode as “difficult” children do.
When such a child adapts to a new situation, he or she will feel at ease and show more positive and open behaviors and reactions. These children are usually slow and somewhat anxious, with a characteristic withdrawal in new situations.
Over time, however, they respond positively to changes in nature. Perseverance in the daily routine, while providing sufficient time for bonding in new situations, is necessary to develop the child’s independence.
What is temperament?
Temperament contains the traits we are born with; it is determined by the unique neurological characteristics of each individual and cannot be altered.
Unlike temperament, character is a combination of temperament and life experience, and is largely shaped by environmental influences, although very often these terms are carried over.
When we speak of character, we mean individuality, a personality that concerns a set of characteristics of a particular person, which make us unique and different from others, and relate to moral qualities, ethical standards and principles.
Unlike temperament, character is not well inherited. That is, character traits develop under different influences, change over the course of a lifetime and mature into adulthood.
Character is made up of life values, goals, beliefs about oneself and the environment, and ways of coping with different situations in different circumstances.
In the formative process, a person doesn’t really have much influence on his character, but is influenced by his parents, other adults and the environment, i.e. the social environment in which he finds himself.
Character traits reflect attitudes towards oneself (such as self-confidence, self-esteem, self-criticism), attitudes towards others (such as aggressiveness, loyalty, honesty, altruism, selfishness) and attitudes towards work (such as diligence, ambition).
Character development is in fact influenced by many factors, such as
- impact of heritage
- influence and modeling by significant adults (parents, older siblings, close and extended relatives, educators, teachers)
- peer influence
- general physical and social environment
- content, i.e. what is learned at school or in other institutions
- specific situations and roles that provoke and require appropriate behavior
- personal experience
Temperament is biologically determined, while character is a product of the social environment.
The basic characteristics of temperament can be recognized from early childhood, while character is formed in the later stages of development.
Individual differences in temperament traits such as fear, extraversion and introversion, irritability, can also be recognized in animals, whereas character is exclusively a human privilege and trait.
Temperament determines the style, the way of behaving, while character determines the content of behavior.
Unlike temperament, character and personality relate to and involve the overall function of human behavior.
The society in which we live, how it functions and its quality depend to a large extent on the character of each individual. Every society faces a number of different problems, and to solve them we generally look to the school for solutions (and guilt).
It’s important to understand that school plays an important role in the development of an individual’s character, but that family, community and society play an even more important role because their influence is longer and stronger than that of school.
Aggression feeds on itself!
It’s not good when your child mistreats an animal.
It’s not good for a child to be aggressive when lining up for a slide, nor is it good to push a child in front of them to hurry them along.
It’s not good when your child hits another.
It’s not good when your child takes other children’s toys without asking.
And it’s not good when your child throws sand in another’s eyes.
It’s not right when your child uses the swing for half an hour, even though other children are queuing up.
It’s not nice if your child doesn’t know when to say “sorry”.
Above all, it’s not good if such things happen in front of parents, grandparents, who don’t interfere in any way and don’t teach the child the right behavior.
Children can’t know what’s right and what’s wrong if they’re not told. Children can’t be educated because they don’t know the criteria of a good upbringing – patience, compassion, caring for others, sharing a common territory with others – unless they learn how.
The playground is a world that children know. It’s where they construct much of their behavior among others. And they’re preparing for life with adults.
Parents, if you’ve taught your children to be kind to others, and they know they won’t always get what they want, then you’ve done a great job.