Perhaps you have spent time with many young children. How were they alike? How did they differ? How do you compare with your siblings or other children you have known well? You may have noticed that some seemed to be in a better mood than others and that some were more sensitive to noise or more easily distracted than others. These differences may be attributed to temperament. Temperament refers to the innate characteristics of a child such as mood, activity level, and emotional reactivity. These characteristics are often noticeable soon after birth.

In a 1956 landmark study, known as the New York Longitudinal Study, Chess and Thomas evaluated 141 children’s temperament based on parental interviews. Infants were assessed on 10 dimensions of temperament including:

1. Activity level
2. Rhythmicity
3. Approach/withdrawal
4. Adaptability to situations
5. Intensity of reactions
6. Threshold of responsiveness
7. Quality of mood
8. Distractibility
9. Attention span
10. Persistence

Based on the infants’ behavioral profiles, they were categorized into three general types of temperament (table 6.1). As can be seen the percentages do not equal 100 percent as some children were not able to be placed neatly into one of the categories.

Table 6.1. Types of Temperament.

Think about how each type of child should be approached to improve interactions with them. An easy child requires less intervention but still has needs that must not be overlooked. A slow-to-warm-up child may need to be given advance warning if new people or situations are going to be introduced. A child with a difficult temperament may need to be given extra time to burn off their energy.

A caregiver’s ability to work well and accurately read the child will enjoy a goodness-of-fit. This means that their style matches the child’s style and communication and interaction can easily flow. Parents who recognize each child’s temperament and accept it, will nurture more effective interactions with the child and encourage more adaptive functioning. For example, an adventurous child whose parents regularly take her outside on hikes would provide a good “fit” to her temperament.

Figure 6.5. This adventurous child’s parents provide a good “fit” to her temperament.

Not only do parents affect their children, but children also influence their parents. This type of relationship represents a process of influence known as bidirectionality. A child’s characteristics, such as temperament, affect parenting behaviors and roles. For example, an infant with an easy temperament may enable parents to feel more effective, as they can easily soothe the child and elicit smiling and cooing. On the other hand, a cranky or fussy infant elicits fewer positive reactions from his or her parents and may result in parents feeling less effective in the parenting role (Eisenberg et al., 2008).

Over time, parents of more difficult children may become more punitive and less patient with their children (Clark et al., 2000; Eisenberg et al., 1999; Kiff et al., 2011). Parents who have a fussy, difficult child are less satisfied with their marriages and have greater challenges in balancing work and family roles (Hyde et al., 2004). Thus, child temperament is one of the child characteristics that influences how parents behave with their children and can influence the type of attachment that is formed.