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Blame it on the Brain: The Truth about Temperament
120 Plays6 months ago
In this engaging episode, join us on a journey to explore the temperament of young children, the fascinating connection to brain development, and the various categories it encompasses. Delve into insightful discussions on the concept of 'goodness of fit' and its profound influence on our interactions with the world around us. Whether you're an early interventionist or caregiver seeking to understand young children better or simply intrigued by the complexities of human nature, this podcast offers enlightening conversations and valuable insights.
Visit https://veipd.org/main/index.html or https://www.vaimh.org/ for more information.
Resources:
Infant and Toddler Temperament Tool: https://www.ecmhc.org/temperament/index.html
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome everyone to Meaningful Moments Connecting Infant Mental Health to Early Intervention. This podcast is a collaborative effort from the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services and this is through a contract with the partnership
00:00:28
Speaker
for people with disabilities at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Meet the Hosts: Lisa and Tracy
00:00:33
Speaker
My name is Lisa Terry. I am an Early Intervention Professional Development Consultant at Virginia's Early Intervention Professional Development Center at VCU.
00:00:43
Speaker
for the Department of Education at the Partnership for People with Disabilities. I am also endorsed as an infant mental health mentor in research and faculty. I still go out and provide developmental services to kids as well, but I really am responsible for doing all the training and early intervention for early interventionists.
00:01:03
Speaker
And I'm going to go ahead and let my co-host introduce herself. Go ahead, Tracy. Yeah. Hey, Lisa, and happy Monday, everybody. We're so glad to be here with you. My name is Tracy Walters, and I'm the state coordinator for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health here at DBHDS.
00:01:20
Speaker
And I am lucky to get to work with Lisa. I am also an infant family specialist. And also I'm currently the VAME president. So definitely look at VAME if you're not already involved. We would love to have you.
00:01:34
Speaker
explore that territory with us. So happy to be here, happy to get started on another important topic, Lisa. Yes, and you know, I guess I should mention too, I am also one of the co-facilitators for the Division of Early Childhood in Fitment to Health Community Practice, as well as a 023 Growing Brain Trainer. And so I'll be happy to share some of this information today.
Understanding Temperament in Children
00:02:00
Speaker
But we are going to talk about blame it on the brain, the truth about temperament. So we're going to really break down temperament today. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I always think that this is like a fascinating question. So here's one thing to ponder. When we think about young children, and you and I have worked with young children and families like our entire careers, since we were babies, I say, have been doing this work. So what is the one thing that a child takes with them wherever they go?
00:02:29
Speaker
What do you think is the one thing you think of all the things children carry with them? Yeah. And I think everything that they are carrying with them is who they are. It's themselves. It's how they are in the world, right? How they respond to different situations, different settings. Absolutely. So what we're really getting down to is temperament.
00:02:49
Speaker
they bring their temperament with them wherever they go, right? It's not like something that we can shed. So I just want to start off by a definition. So it just kind of frames the conversation. And then like you said, Lisa, we're just going to take it in all different directions to really bring clarity to what temperament is. So I want to just give you the definition that's on
00:03:09
Speaker
the Cephal and Vanderbilt resource page. So it says a child's temperament describes the way in which he or she approaches and reacts to the world. It is his or her personal style, if you want to call it that. Their temperament influences their behavior and the way that they interact with others. So when we think about children's interactions, right, with the parents,
00:03:31
Speaker
teachers, peers, that's what we're thinking about. And while temperament does not clearly define or predict behavior, understanding a child's temperament, I know we're going to go into this, can really help providers and families better understand how to relate to their children. And that is a really important element of this. So information about temperament can also guide the parents and caregivers to really identify their strengths and support them
00:03:57
Speaker
through the relationships and in the environments where the relationships are occurring. So I think this is really important information for practitioners and for any parents who are tuning in today.
00:04:09
Speaker
Yes, Tracy. And I am so glad that we are talking about temperament because I feel like this is something everybody should be talking about. We should be really looking at every single child's temperament, trying to understand it and helping parents understand how to support their child. When we think about temperament, right, this is a person's biological disposition.
00:04:32
Speaker
and it's stable across time, and it's going to be something that's generalizable across different situations. Now, you already mentioned temperaments defined as how children are approaching the world. We're really thinking about how they are taking in all of this information, and then they're going to respond to those experiences. For example, some children, they might rush into a new experience, while others, they might need a little bit more time to feel comfortable in those
00:05:00
Speaker
unfamiliar situations. You think about children when you walk in to do an assessment or IFSP development, correct? That they might be very clingy, they might be sticking by their parent side, while other children might just rush in and they're like ready to engage with you and see what you're doing and interact. And so sometimes some children might take more
00:05:22
Speaker
time to engage than others, but that's a piece of their temperament, right? And temperament is brain based. I think this is a really important thing to understand. It is not something that children choose. It is not something that parents create for their child.
00:05:39
Speaker
It's grounded in that child's biological makeup. So this is also going to be the foundation for their personality. So whether or not people are introverts, whether they're extroverts, but it's going to be influenced by their experience. And I want to say one thing about personality too. When you think about personality, because a lot of times people think
00:06:01
Speaker
temperament and personality are the same thing. They're not really the same thing. If you think about temperament, temperament is kind of like the art canvas, right?
Parenting and Social Pressures
00:06:11
Speaker
And somebody's personality, that's the paint that's going to go on that canvas to really create who they are. But I also want to think about the experience that children have. So when my son was an infant,
00:06:26
Speaker
I could tell right away. He was a little bit more reserved. He was a little bit more anxious in social situations. He used to do this thing even when he was like six months old where he would stick his tongue to the side of his cheek and push out every time he was in a situation that he was nervous in or he was feeling anxious or he wasn't sure what's about to happen. And so,
00:06:53
Speaker
You know, for us and our family, something that was really important to us was that we want our children to, you know, be polite. I mean, what parents don't, right? You want your child to greet other people, introduce themselves. And so we wanted him to be like, hi, my name is Benjamin. And so over time,
00:07:11
Speaker
We gave him the experience of that, right? So we modeled it. We showed him how to do it, shake people's hand, and great. By the time he was six years old, he finally was starting to do that. And it was like such a proud mommy moment for me to see him just delight in, you know, being able to do that. Now, I'm going to say he's 12 now. He is still there.
00:07:32
Speaker
very cautious because remember temperament is still brain-based. It's still who he is, but now he can adapt in those situations. Yeah. I think you bring up a good point too, right? Because as parents, when we're looking, we know our children best, right? Parents know their children best. And I always think of like what a predicament it puts parents in, right? There's kind of this social pressure, right? And I feel like
00:07:58
Speaker
no matter what end you're on, if you're the parent of the child who has the child who's just kind of feisty and in there and two feet in, or you have the child who's cautious and slow to warm up, you have these feelings about it as a parent. And I think that is so real, because you feel like if you have a child who's slow to warm up and cautious, you want to kind of get them out there, you know, and you're
00:08:22
Speaker
Like you said, you don't want people to think they're rude or they're standoffish, right? And so we can hear a lot of those mantras that have been passed down generationally, like you need to say hello, you know, you need to shake, you know, it is interesting to just think about and give your child the time like you guys did.
00:08:41
Speaker
to really help him grow these skill sets, right? Still with what he's comfortable, but also recognizing what the temperament is, is so important because that way you're not violating your child's temperament. And I really, I hold a lot of respect for people's temperaments because it kind of is the driving engine, right? And so many ways of how they interact in the world. So yeah, I think your point about allowing, being,
00:09:09
Speaker
aware, but then acknowledging and then helping your child grow skill sets to offset that is really important. Yeah, I mean, really, the experiences that we offer can help support that child. That's why it's so important for caregivers to understand their child's temperament. Because then, once they understand that, they're like, okay, but these are the experiences that I can offer them. These are the learning opportunities that I can offer them to help support them in those situations.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, and I think also, Lisa, what's really important too is not to let it become an excuse for the child also, or an excuse for the family, like, oh, they're just shy. They don't want to participate. I think we have to really find that balance so that we are helping our child get in the group if they need support doing that so that they're having all the experiences that you're talking about. That's really important. We have to use
00:10:08
Speaker
that is the platform to see where they need to grow and how we can support them and do in that. I think as a parent, that's a big job. And as a practitioner, when you're working with these children in a classroom setting or home visiting or wherever, you're going to see the same thing.
00:10:23
Speaker
Right.
Types and Categories of Temperament
00:10:24
Speaker
Well, let's get into the different types of temperament because I think it's really important to understand that. And when we think about temperament, that can describe an individual's emotional intensity, activity level, frustration level, their reaction to new people, their reaction to change, whether a child is easy or flexible, you know, they tend to be happy. Their regular
00:10:47
Speaker
in their sleeping and their eating habits. They're adaptable. They're calm. They're not as easily upset. If a child is more active or feisty, children, they might be a little bit more fussy. They might have irregular feeding or sleeping habits. They might be
00:11:03
Speaker
fearful of new people or new situations. They can be easily upset by noise and stimulation, and they can have very high-intensity reactions, right? Now, children that might be slow to warm or cautious, they can be less active, they can tend to be fussy, they might withdraw, they might react negatively to new situations, but over time, they start to become more positive, right? With repeated exposure to a new person, an object, a situation.
00:11:32
Speaker
And so I'm going to go over the different nine categories that originally were developed by Chess and Thomas in 1956. So a long, long time ago. Let's go over those because I think it's really important to understand what the different categories are. So first we have
00:11:51
Speaker
activity level. That's going to refer to the general level of motor activity. So when someone is awake or whether they're asleep, so their motor activity, that's their large muscle movements and their small muscle movements. So running, jumping,
00:12:07
Speaker
rolling over, feeding themselves with utensils, picking up their toys, and then distractibility is the next category. That is the ease at which one can be distracted or their level of focus. So whether or not they can sit there and attend to a task is a part of their temperament.
00:12:25
Speaker
Intensity, that can refer to the energy level of one's emotional response. It could be positive or negative. So I might be a super intense person, right? We might know a lot of people that can have high intensity, right? And their responses.
00:12:44
Speaker
regularity. So that's going to relate to that predictability of biological functions. So eating, sleeping, right? Then their sensory threshold or sensitivity, that is also a part of their temperament. And that's going to describe how sensitive they are to physical stimuli. So
00:13:01
Speaker
light, sound, textures, right? The next category is approach withdrawal or approachability. So this is someone's initial response to new people, new places, new situations, or new things. And then we have adaptability. And that's going to describe how easily one adjusts to changes and transitions.
00:13:25
Speaker
So when you think about that, we work a lot in early intervention supporting kids that are transitioning, right? And then we have persistence. So persistence is going to relate to the length of time that someone's going to continue in activities in the face of obstacles. So we've seen the kids that will try to do a task and they just get frustrated and they'll leave it. And then we have kids that will sit there, they'll have a hard time completing that task, but they'll sit there and they'll continue to try, right?
00:13:54
Speaker
So that's also a part of their temperament. And then the final one is mood. So that is somebody's tendency to approach the world in either a positive or negative way. So we see this a lot, right? Especially I think with adults, you can really see where somebody's mood is, where they are always saying something negative, they're always finding something negative to say, or you have somebody that's always finding the bright side of things, right? And looking at it differently.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's exactly. So helpful. Yeah, exactly. And you know, I think, especially when we're thinking about behaviors, I always want to understand if somebody is persistent, will they sit there and attend to a task? Do they give up really easily? I want to understand their sensory threshold, their mood. And I really want to understand their intensity of emotions, right? Whether they have high or low levels of
Emotional Intensity and Child Interactions
00:14:47
Speaker
intensity. Like my youngest son, I will tell you, so I have five kids.
00:14:51
Speaker
I don't know if I've shared that before, but my oldest, he's 23, and then my youngest is now 10. And he is the only one of all my children that has a very high intensity of emotions. And I am telling you, when he is upset, my neighbor's 10 doors down can hear it.
00:15:12
Speaker
When he is happy, my neighbor's ten doors down can hear it. Because that is how he expresses his emotions. He just feels them a lot more intensely. And I think that's a really important thing to understand about children. Yeah, it's really how children show up in the world. Right? And I imagine, you know, when we're thinking about this, like, whether you're thinking about your family, or you're thinking about your classroom of children,
00:15:40
Speaker
If you observe the children, you really begin to see just by the way they walk in the door, right? Or if you're going into the home, for example, you know, let's say you're in Part C or home visiting and you go into the, you're going to find out if that child is going to approach you, if they're going to stand back, the activity level, the intensity, all of the things that you just went over. You're really going to be able to see this within the child. And I know that all of our colleagues that are tuning in, too,
00:16:10
Speaker
are working with children with very temperament styles right now. So, you know, you really get a mixed bag of children when you're out there working. And I was just wondering, Lisa, do you have any like specific stories or experiences either with your own children or others that kind of demonstrate, you know, temperament and how it shows up? Yeah, sure. Gosh, I'm trying to think of like, what do I have right now? That's a lot of choices.
00:16:38
Speaker
I do. I see such a vast majority of differences in children. I have this one child that I see right now and his temperament, he's very laid back. He's kind of go with the flow. He's super chill, but he's not persistent at all. His level of intensity is very low.
00:17:03
Speaker
He doesn't always show how he's feeling in a wide variety of different emotions. And so we have to really figure out what is it that excites him? How can we help support him and give him those learning opportunities? Even climbing the stairs and taking steps up, he's so relaxed and that he just, he's like, ah, I'll get there eventually. That's his approach to everything. And so sometimes it's slow progress.
00:17:31
Speaker
You know, and I do want to say, I think in understanding that for me as an early interventionist, it kind of lets me know, because sometimes you're going to see that progress and it's going to take a lot longer. But again, it's because of that child's temperament, you know, too. And I think as early interventionists, we can easily, you know, internalize that. Like, is it us? Is it something I'm not doing? But really, in us even understanding that child's temperament, we can see a difference.
00:17:58
Speaker
Now on the flip side, I see a lot of kids with behaviors too. And so I had a little boy who has a very high intensity of emotions, right? And he has a hard time regulating himself, calming down.
00:18:13
Speaker
And he thrives on routine. Like he really does need that predictability. He needs a lot of social stories to help support him in understanding what's going to happen next during transitions. And so, you know, there's a childcare. I will say, I'm going to throw this out there. Tracy, I don't know. Let's not go into whole, but I'm going to throw it out there. But there was a childcare. And, you know, he's two.
00:18:38
Speaker
But he bit it, okay? And that is developmentally appropriate for him. And... Absolutely. Biding is okay up until three. I'm just gonna say it. Biding is okay up until three. Yes, we still need to address it and we need to replace it and support that child. But the reason he's doing it is because he's feeling these high levels of emotions and he's just using his body to respond, right? That's how he's communicating his message.
00:19:07
Speaker
Absolutely. You're right. That is how he is messaging to the world around him right now. When we think about two-year-olds, that's the quickest way to communicate, honestly. They are putting words together. Of course, they're accessing the language that they have.
00:19:27
Speaker
But it also depends on like how much language can they access right now? What is their expressive language? So I might send some message real quick, right? Like you said, we're going to work with that. But this is where like understanding temperament on it, educators and parents can really support you, right? Because I've worked with so many families over the years. And let's just take an example just like that. You will get a parent who says, that's just a bad kid.
00:19:55
Speaker
Or another teacher who says, it's a bad kid. No such thing. There's no such thing as bad kid. Well, that's what I was going to tell you, Tracy, too. With this child, he was suspended for two days. All right, you're going to take me down a whole different real road track. I know. Like, we're not going to go in a hole, because we are going to have a whole podcast episode about suspension and explosions and child cares. We're going to sit on our hands. We're going to sit on our hands. But that is why it's very important to understand a child's temperament, even in child care and school settings.
00:20:24
Speaker
caregivers to understand that so they can help advocate for their children as well as understanding just child development, right, too, and how a child's brain works and how it's developing because a child under three is just reacting based off of how they're feeling, just off of their emotions. There's no logic involved yet. Like we wouldn't expect that until around age three is when that serves.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's just really typical for a child that age to have that kind of behavior in the classroom. I will say when I was raising my daughter, and now it's interesting because it's generational because I have a grandson, but she was very slow to warm up. She was a very cautious kid. And when she was growing up, it seemed to me everybody around her was in this feisty category, this active or feisty category.
00:21:15
Speaker
And I just used to worry like, oh my gosh, she's going to be so trampled and she's going to be this and just, you know. But I was looking through some of the resources when we were putting this together and I was just looking at some of the statistics and they said roughly 65% of children can be categorized into one of these types. So they had 40% are easy or flexible children. 10% seemed to range out in that active or feisty category.
00:21:43
Speaker
And then 15% could be categorized as slow to warm up or cautious. So I don't know, were there any surprises there for you, Lisa? I felt like based on my personal experience, I was like, oh, I knew way many more active, feisty kids.
00:21:59
Speaker
So that's what we work with, right? That's what we tend to see. But yeah, but when you think about like, I mean, I think that's about right. Because like, when you think about like my five kids, right? Yeah, I got one that is very active, very feisty.
00:22:17
Speaker
I have one that is very, like, slow to warm or cautious. And then my other three, my oldest three, like, they are very easily, they are very flexible, and they're kind of go with the flow, kind of gets super, super easy to raise. Yeah. I think that's interesting as a mother of multiple children, right? Because I only have one.
00:22:38
Speaker
And I can look at the difference, of course, in all the children that I've worked with and look at the differences. But like even just in my own family, now seeing my grandson, he is not slow to warm up at all. He's two feet in, right in the beginning, very active. And it's interesting to see that, which brings me to the thing that when I was really thinking about the infant mental health piece of this,
00:23:02
Speaker
can take kind of a darker turn and I think can be a concern. And I have seen this with families that I've worked with, is this idea of goodness to fit and what that is, right?
The Concept of 'Goodness of Fit'
00:23:15
Speaker
So I'll give you a quick example of this. You know, when we're thinking about goodness to fit, and we're going to go into that more, but it's really how a parent
00:23:24
Speaker
and a child are matched, right, with their temperament, what that looks like. And there can be misattunement or mismatch with that. So if you've got, and I'll tell you, I have neighbors that I adore across the street, and their kids are a little bit bigger now, they're about 10 and 8. But I've watched them grow up, you know, since they were just babies, and
00:23:47
Speaker
The parents are like, really go, go, go all the time. I mean, they are never in that house. I look at them like, they don't need a house. These people are on the road all the time. And their son was really slow to warm up, very cautious. He would really never leave the house unless you made him. And it was really difficult for them and for him. Because it was just this, all of this work
00:24:14
Speaker
the transition, getting him out of the house to go do anything. And they wanted to constantly be on the go. So how that kind of translated was, there would be tears, there would be tantrums, you know, the parents would be like, you're taking all the fun out of everything we try to do, we're doing this for you, this should be fun, you know. And I just think we're thinking about that goodness to fit, whether we're talking about a parent and a child, Lisa, or we're talking about a practitioner and a child.
00:24:40
Speaker
you've got to be thinking about this because this can really do some harm.
00:24:47
Speaker
if we're not really acknowledging it, being aware of the things that we're bringing through the podcast today and then trying to find some balance. I mean, do you see that too? Oh, absolutely Tracy. And I think especially like for example, with a child that has very high intense emotions, it is very easy for caregivers to yell, to scream at them all the time, physical punishment.
00:25:13
Speaker
because it heightens them as well. They have to understand their own temperament and their level of emotions and how they might respond and looking at that. And so let's go into like what goodness of fit really is. So this is going to refer to how well the child's temperament matches the caregiver's temperament, right? Or even a teacher's temperament. And this also shows up
00:25:38
Speaker
in terms of environments and routines. You know, that goodness of fit is the compatibility between a caregiver and a child. You know, you wanna think about it like you were going to a brand new doctor, right? And let's say that you have something that you were really concerned about too, right?
00:25:56
Speaker
And so you're going in there, you're already, let's say you have high level intensity. And so you're feeling super heightened already going in. And let's say that that doctor is very short, they're abrupt, they're not listening to you. That's a mismatch, right? And so there's no goodness of fit there. And so it's okay sometimes that you might need to get a different doctor, right? Because that's not something that you want, that's not a good fit for you. Now, it's important for caregivers to understand that their temperament
00:26:27
Speaker
what it is, how they respond to situations themselves, and they have to tune into their own preferences and really approach the world so that we can use this insight to manage our own reactions to children. Because as adults, that's what we can do, right? We can control ourselves
00:26:47
Speaker
because we have the executive functioning skills our brain is developed a lot further than a child and we are responsible for really supporting that child who cannot really regulate themselves they're still reacting based off of their emotions right and so children are going to rely on that parent
00:27:08
Speaker
They need that from their caregivers. And goodness of it, it also contributes to attachment security. You know, when we're looking at the research, it's really important to understand that that is contributing to attachment. And that goodness-of-fit framework that's really going to have children's positive outcomes are going to depend on that match between parent behavior
00:27:32
Speaker
and temperament and warmth actually predicts higher empathy. Now, I do want to kind of talk a little bit about parenting because parenting is hard, right? It is a hard job. It is a stressful job in itself, right?
00:27:50
Speaker
Parents really do require assistance in kind of adjusting their own parenting behavior to their child's specific needs. You know, I have five kids. I just talked about this, right? I work in this field, but I would still benefit from somebody kind of coming in. And when you think about the reason for that, it's because, you know, that's a different perspective that somebody kind of looking out, helping to support you.
00:28:16
Speaker
And sometimes even things that I know, you don't always think about it in the moment, right? And parents are just doing the best that they can, but it's so hard, especially when you think about those other variables. We talked about stress and how that impacts families, right? And it's just very beneficial to help support them.
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think too, Lisa, when you're talking about like being in your own family, I just was in a session the other day and someone was talking about the fact like I do this professionally, like I'm paid to work with children. But when I'm in my own family, I can't navigate it the same. Like it seems like the information goes out. You know, parents just need to recognize that your emotional bond with your child
00:28:58
Speaker
sometimes gets in the way of seeing objectively, right, about what's happening. So when we can discover and can think about their temperament in times that are not
00:29:11
Speaker
you know, a lot going on. It's not an intense situation. We can be removed from it. It's a good time to be thinking about who our child is right and what their temperaments like so that when they are having a moment of crisis, you know, they're really having a difficult day. We can really do exactly what parents
00:29:30
Speaker
all over the place are trying to do. We want to make sure that we're responding, not reacting. Yeah. Well, when we think about that, we know that parent-child relationships, they're bi-directional.
Parent-Child Behavioral Influences
00:29:44
Speaker
So a parent's behavior can influence a child's behavior and a child's behavior can influence a parent's behavior.
00:29:50
Speaker
Now, interesting, when we look at the research, children who exhibit behavioral styles that are consistent with the caregiver's expectations and their preferences, they're going to elicit more parenting behaviors that are positive. They're characterized by warmth, right? Versus children whose behavior style might violate a caregiver's expectations, they're going to elicit more harsher punitive parenting interactions.
00:30:16
Speaker
And another thing research shows us is that marital quality can also impact parenting behaviors, because high marital quality, it shows higher quality of co-parenting. Lower marital quality, that's going to show fewer of those characteristics, including undermining strategies and a lot less supportiveness. And so when we think about child temperament, that is one determinant of the quality of parenting, and it has a small association with attachment status.
00:30:46
Speaker
because of parenting sensitivity. And the other just last little research thing I was going to throw out there is that child temperament also correlates with child language. So that child effort will control their insurgency. It's positively correlated and negative effect is negatively correlated with a lot of those language abilities. And those parents of children with delays, they actually report themselves as being
00:31:14
Speaker
significantly less nurturing and more punitive in their discipline, which is so interesting. And aggression and withdrawal, those are common behaviors for children with limited verbal skills. Yeah. I mean, I think all of that is really fascinating. And I do think it's, again, why this idea of goodness to fit is so important for us to be thinking about and to be talking about, right?
00:31:41
Speaker
And this may be new terminology for some parents. This may be, or new practitioners. But it really does play so much into the child's overall development. When you talk about that marital quality, that kind of hits on those, all of those social determinants of health, right? What is going on in the family sometimes can be like a pressure cooker, right? So if you already have this mismatched, you know,
00:32:06
Speaker
temperament happening in the house, that's a stressor in and of itself, right? Because it's hard to get that attunement going when you're on opposite ends of that scale. So really looking at it as a how can we get more to the middle with this? If I'm this person and my child demonstrates this temperament, how can we get more to the middle, right? Because that's going to bring more harmony and the household more attunement between child and parent is really critical. I know we did talk about some
00:32:36
Speaker
examples of that mismatch. And I think we covered that pretty well. But I was just wondering, like, when you're thinking about your child, Lisa, when you're thinking about the child, what are some of the things we should be thinking through?
Strategies for Supporting Temperament
00:32:46
Speaker
Because, you know, we want to recognize what it is, what their temperament is, how we can go to the middle, meet them in the middle, it's going to change some things in the home, right? We talked about how
00:32:56
Speaker
different tools work for different children, like warm up time before you go somewhere, if you have a slow to warm up child, visual schedules help, right? So all these different things really support that. But what are some other things that that you're thinking about? You know, so I
00:33:12
Speaker
I'm going to share a few things because I think there's a lot of strategies that you can really put in place. But I'm going to share a tool about that. But I think the three important things that you want to consider, you want to consider what are those parent expectations about the child.
00:33:28
Speaker
This is really important, and I don't think we always ask it enough, right? Because you want to make sure that there's a match there, too. Because the content of these expectations, that's going to include temperament-specific expectations, so their irritable mood, their activity level.
00:33:44
Speaker
And that's going to relate to children's behavioral style, as well as you want to think about those non temperament specific expectations. So what is our relationship expectation? What is our achievement expectation for their child? And that's going to relate to specific content in different domains of behavior. And then the second thing that we want to consider is the way that parents cope with
00:34:07
Speaker
child development problems. How are they handling that? How are they internalizing it? How are they responding in those situations? And then the third thing is that goodness of it, because that's going to contribute to that attachment security, but we want to look at that match versus mismatch, right? And you know, some of the questions you think about, like, how does my child react to the sensory stimulation?
00:34:30
Speaker
How much stimulation can my child handle, right? Does he react with a little stimulation? Does he need a lot of stimulation? How does he express his feelings or how does she express her feelings? Are they high, low, moderate?
00:34:45
Speaker
You know, how often do I find myself helping my child calm down? But there is a tool that you can use. There's the IT3 tool that you can use that I do a lot with all my families. You can actually print it out. We'll add it as a resource. So you can go to the link directly, but it's from birth to 36 months. It's broken down birth to 18 months and then 19 to 36 months. And so you can go to it, you complete it, but it looks at that goodness of it.
00:35:15
Speaker
On that, for example, a family might say, OK, there's two rows or two columns. Where am I as a caregiver? Where is my child? And so for activity level, the family might say, well, I have a very low activity level. I just tend to sit around. I don't feel like I'm highly active.
00:35:38
Speaker
versus their child who may be very highly active. So that's already a mismatch, right? And it shows you right there. But the beautiful thing about this, once you complete it and you identify where the parent is and where the child is, it gives you the strategies right then and there on how that parent can support the child. And so then we have great conversations around it. So I love that tool.
00:35:59
Speaker
I don't know if you've heard of that tool already Tracy to before, but it's a great tool to use. I think it's a good tool. And I think it really does give you a good baseline Lisa. So I would highly recommend that if anybody wants to just go on and even take a look at the tool, right? Just go on there and take a look and see what you think and see if it'll fit into the work that you're doing. I think it's I think it's a valuable tool. Sometimes people use the tool with their own trial to or their partner. Absolutely.
00:36:25
Speaker
Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Use it as many ways as you can. You can find a good way to use it. I think get get get in there and take a look at that. I think it's another golden nugget. So yeah I think it's a great tool and I think it seems to have served you well and I think it serves a lot of people well to use it.
00:36:44
Speaker
Absolutely. So that is going to kind of bring us down. So Tracy, what is your kind of like last minute call to action piece? Last minute call to action would be, excuse me, observe your child's needs and reactions, right? Really be looking, listening and looking. Just sit back, just take a look at how they're showing up in the world. Then with some of the information we've given you and you'll have some resources,
00:37:13
Speaker
Try to identify what their temperament is. What do you think their temperament is? You can also talk to your practitioners that are working with your child, your childcare teacher, your early interventionist, your home visitors, whoever's working with your child. Talk to them about your child's temperament and say, what do you see showing up in the classroom or when you come, how do you view this? I think it's really important. And then identifying your own temperament, I think, is really important, right? Because when we get back to that goodness effect conversation,
00:37:42
Speaker
If you feel sometimes really challenged by your child, I'm wondering if this might be part of it. So take a good look at that. And then find your rhythm with your child. This is really getting back to that attunement. Once you look at their temperament and yours, you can really get into a rhythm with your child. Look at things like your schedule, your transitions, you know, how you're communicating with your child, how you're helping them process and work through information that they need
00:38:10
Speaker
through interactions with you and others. And then most importantly, Lisa, is really just finding joy, finding joy as a child throughout the discovery process of this information. You can learn a lot about yourself. You can learn a lot about your child. And you can also learn a lot about your family dynamics when you start looking at this. And on the practitioner side, yes, really use that information to look at what that parent-child relationship is like.
00:38:39
Speaker
or that peer-to-peer, those peer-to-peer relationships in a classroom environment. It's invaluable information, but the biggest part is just really to find joy in the child however they're showing up in the environment.
00:38:53
Speaker
Absolutely, Tracy, I love that. And you know, the last thing that I will leave for early intervention is I will just say I think it's really important for everyone to feel comfortable understanding all the different categories.
Conclusion and Resources
00:39:07
Speaker
So thinking about those nine different categories, really knowing what they are, what they mean,
00:39:12
Speaker
And if you feel comfortable using the IT3 tool to help support that goodness to fit with families. But I really do see how it's going to impact everything. Like even if you are just working with a child with motor delays, for example, because this is not just behavior. This is whether or not a child will even sit there and attend or try
00:39:35
Speaker
to stay with the task, right, for a long period of time. You know, we're always working with these learning opportunities, but sometimes children go away. And so understanding their temperament and then understand how children or how caregivers can support them. So, all right, that is it for today's episode of meaningful moments, connecting infant mental health to early intervention. Thank you so much for listening to us. Join us again next time.
00:40:01
Speaker
and make sure that you are, excuse me if I can talk, subscribing to the podcast on iTunes or Spotify, or it's even available by video on YouTube. So for more information, visit the EIPD's website for resources, tools, archived webinars. You can also visit Vame for additional resources. Thank you, everyone.