What is it called when a caregivers expectations are compatible with a childs temperament?

‘Temperament’ describes types of personality that influence how we respond emotionally to experiences. All babies (and children and adults too) differ in their emotional make-up.

Babies’ temperaments are partly influenced by the genes they inherit from their parents. Some aspects of a baby’s temperament are apparent soon after birth: how quickly baby becomes upset in response to something or somewhere new, how intense their upset is and how long it takes them to recover.

Some aspects of temperament will be lasting over time and others may change

• Some babies are very active and always on the go.
• Some cry easily and intensely.
• Some are able to pay attention to a toy for a long time.
• Some find it difficult to cope in new situations.
• Some wake to the slightest noise.
• Some find it difficult to cope with too much stimulation, such as a trip to the mall with bright lights, noise and lots of people and movement.

‘Easy-going’ babies

Some aspects of temperament contribute to babies being described as ‘easy-going’. These babies usually find it easy to adapt to new situations, have reasonably predictable sleeping and feeding schedules, show a mild reaction – whether it’s positive or negative – and generally have positive moods.

‘Reactive’ babies

Babies who are more challenging to care for may withdraw in new situations, have unpredictable routines and be highly reactive and irritable. This more reactive baby may also be the one who laughs out loud and shrieks with delight. And a baby with unpredictable routines may cope well with changes to the family’s routine, like going on holiday.

Parent–child temperament combinations

Some parents may find it easier to fit in with one baby’s temperament than their other babies. For example, a parent who doesn’t have consistent routines and likes spontaneity may find it difficult to fit in with a baby who thrives on consistent, predictable routines and becomes upset when these aren’t in place. When parents’ expectations and the environment fit well with their baby’s or young child’s temperament, this is called ‘goodness of fit’.

Interacting with different temperaments

How parents interact with their baby may influence some aspects of baby’s temperament. Parents may support their baby or young child with characteristics that are challenging. A shy child may need a parent to go with them to a birthday party and stay close by until the child indicates they are feeling more comfortable.

This child still needs plenty of opportunities to spend time with other children and go to new places, and with support from their parents may gradually become more comfortable in new situations.

The shy child may also be the one to play well on their own, developing imagination and creativity. It’s really important for whänau to focus on the strengths of each type of temperament and not see them in a negative light.

Accepting baby’s unique temperament

All babies need their parents to accept their unique way of being in the world, have realistic expectations and respond to their needs. If parents feel they are in a negative cycle of interacting with their baby or young child, they may find it helpful to problem-solve and find new ways they can react to them or adapt the environment.

Leaving baby with a trusted babysitter for a short time and having a break to ‘refuel’ can re-energise parents. If they’re really struggling, encourage them to seek professional help.

Environmental influences on temperament

Family environments have a huge influence on babies’ emotions and behaviour, and there may be factors in the environment that are stressful for baby, such as family violence. Babies who cry often or withdraw may be indicating they find it difficult to cope rather than these behaviours and emotions being typical of their temperament.

Summary

• Everyone has their own unique temperament.
• ‘Goodness of fit’ is when parents’ expectations and the environment fit well with baby’s temperament.
• Parents can focus on the strengths of different types of temperament.

Other resources

Book: Daniel J. Siegel & Mary Hartzell – Parenting from the inside out: How a deeper self-understanding can help you raise children who thrive(external link)

Personality

An organized combination of attributes, motives, values, and behaviors unique to each individual

dispositional traits: extraversion or introversion, independence or dependence

characteristic adaptations: more situation-specific and changeable ways in which people adapt to their roles and environment (motives, goals, plans, schemas, self conceptions, developmental issues and concerns, coping mechanisms)

narrative identities: unique and integrative life stories that we construct about our pasts and futures to give ourselves an identity and our lives meaning

-Self-Concept: Perceptions, positive or negative, or your unique attributes and traits as a person
-Self Esteem: your overall evaluation of worth as a person, high or low, based on all the positive and negative self-perceptions that make up your self-concept
-Identity: Overall sense of who you are, where you are and where you fit in society

Infancy:The Emerging Self

-2 or 3 months: differentiate self from world, sense of agency: sense that they can cause things to happen in world
-First 6 months: Discover physical self, distinguish between self and rest of world, appreciate they can act upon other ppl and objects
-Joint attention at about 9 mo: infants and caregivers share perceptual experiences by looking at the same object at same time ,difference in perceptions can be shared
-Self-recognition about 18 months: ability to recognize one-self in a mirror or photograph

Categorical self: 18 - 24 months: classify themselves into social categories based on age, sex and other visible characteristics
-awareness of who they, physical self with unique appearance

self awareness based on cognitive development and maturation of certain areas of the brain
-depends on social interaction (toddlers who have secure relationship with parents better able to recognize self in mirror and know name and gender)
The looking-glass self: a "reflection"

18 mo.
-talk abt themselves, assert their wills, experience self-conscious emotions (pride upon mastering a new toy or embarrassment), coordinate their own perspective w/ those of other individuals (communicate w/ playmates by imitating their actions), cooperate w/ peers to achieve common goals

Temperament

Seen in infancy; Genetically based, environmentally influenced; Tendencies to respond in predictable ways that serves as the building blocks in later personality

3 categories:
easy temperament: even tempered, typically content or happy,
-open and adaptable to new experiences (ex. approach of a stranger)
-regular feeding habits & sleeping habits, tolerate frustrations and discomforts

difficult temperament: active, irritable, irregular in habits. react negatively to changes in routine, slow to adapt to new ppl or situations, cry frequently and loudly, tantrums and frustrated by events of being restrained

slow to warm up temperament: inactive, somewhat moody, moderately regulate in their daily schedules. slow to adapt to new ppl and situations, respond in mild rather than intensely negative ways. quiet interest in new foods, ppl, and places

Parenting techniques
Learning to interpret cues
Sensitive responding

differences in temperament rooted in genetically based differences in levels of certain neurotransmitters and in functioning of the brain as well as prenatal factors: maternal stress and substance use
-postnatal environment helps determine how adaptive temperamental qualities are and whether they persist or change

Changes in Self-Concept: age 8

Include psychological, social qualities, personality traits (funny, smart)
Increased Use of:
-Social comparison: how compare with other individuals to characterize and evaluate themselves,
-Hierarchy with self-worth on top (think they are the best at everything)
-self evaluations become more accurate
form ideal self: what they should be like. with age gap between real and ideal self increases ; older children think fall short of what they should be

social comparisons that do not always come out well, a widening gap b/w the real self and the ideal self increases and a tendency for parents and teachers to raise the bar, give older children more critical feedback, all contribute to a decrease in self-esteem

self-descriptions change b/w childhood and adolescence
-less physical more psychological ( have brown eyes-i am lonely)
-less concrete, more abstract (i love sports- i am a truthful person)
-more differentiated: perceived acceptance by peers, (by larger peer group, close friends, romantic partners) & act different around different groups
-more integrated and coherent
-greater self awareness (think more about themselves and become self conscious)

Marcia's Ego Identity Statuses
:procedure to asses where an adolescent is in the process of identity formation
:key questions whether and individual has experienced a crisis and wether he has achieved a commitment (resolved questions raised and settled on an identity)

Diffusion: the indiv. has not yet thought about or resolved identity issues, has failed to chart directions in life "i haven't thought much about religion, i guess i don't know what i believe exactly" (No crisis. No commitment)
Foreclosure: knows who he or she is, but has latched on to an identity prematurely and with little thought "I'll be a (Catholic, Democrat, doctor, etc.) because that's what they told me was right." (Commitment without crisis)
Moratorium: experiencing an identity crisis, raising questions, seeking answers "Who am I? What is right? Who will I become?" (Crisis, no commitment)
Identity Achieved: indiv. has resolved his/ her identity crisis and made commitments to particular goals beliefs and values "I can make my own life choices." (Commitment, evolved from crisis)

Influences on identity formation:
-cognitive development: adolescents who have achieved solid mastery of formal-operational thought, think in complex and abstract ways, self-directed, actively seek relevant information, and resolve identity issues
-personality- adolescents who explore and achieve identity tend to score low in neuroticism, high in openness to experience and consciousness, emotionally stable, curious, and responsible
-quality of relationships with parents: youth in diffusion state of identity formation sometimes neglected or rejected by parents and emotionally distant from them. foreclosure status, extremely close to parents who are loving but overly protective and controlling, few opportunities to make decisions and never question parents ideas. moratorium and identity achievement stage have warm democratic parents who foster self esteem (experience closeness and mutual respect, but also feel free to disagree w/ parents)
-opportunities for exploration- exposed to diverse ideas, encouraged to think through issues independently and explore different possibilities
-cultural context:

Moral reasoning, Cognitive development theory
moral reasoning: thinking process involved in making right or wrong decision

**Kohlberg: Moral Development

Level 1: Preconventional Morality: rules external to self rather than internalized. child conforms to rules imposed by authority figures to avoid punishment or to obtain personal rewards
stage 1: punishment-and-obedience orientation: goodness or badness of an act depends on is consequences
stage 2: instrumental hedonism: conforms to rules to gain rewards or satisfy personal needs, some concern for perspective of others but motivated by the hope of benefit in return

Level 2: Conventional Morality (some internalizing of moral values) strives to obey the rules set by others (parents, peers, government) at first to win their approval, later to maintain social order
stage 3: good boy or girl morality: what is right is what pleases, helps or is approved by others (other peoples feelings as well as own considered)
-reciprocity: consideration of yours as well as others perspectives
stage 4: authority and social order-maintaining: what is right is what conforms to the rules of legitimate authorities and is good for society as a whole (conforming not for fear or punishment, a belief that rules and laws maintain a social order worth preserving

Level 3: Postconventional Morality (principles of justice for culture)
Morality of contract (democratic principles for social welfare)
Individual principles of conscience: right and wrong by the basis of self-generated principles that are bored and universal in application (discovers, reflects, abstract principles for all individuals and their rights (takes perspective of each person group and social system, present or future that could be affected by the decision and arrive at a solution that is regarded for each chair)

The Adolescent

Changes in Moral Reasoning:
-Shift to conventional reasoning (individ. begin to express a genuine concern with living up to moral standards that parents and other authorities have taught them and ensuring laws designed to make human relations just and fair are taken seriously and maintained
-Identity includes moral and values

antisocial conduct: mugging, rapes, armed robberies, knifings, shootings
-most antisocial adults start in childhood and continue in adolescence
-some diagnosed as conduct disorder: a pattern of violating the rights of others and societal norms

-most adolescents who engage in aggressive behavior an antisocial acts, don't grow up to be antisocial adults

Two Kinds of Antisocial Youth:
1. small, early onset, seriously disturbed group ,recognizable in childhood through acts of hurting animals and children, antisocial across lifespan
2. larger, later onset, less seriously antisocial group that behaves more antisocially during adolescence due to peer influence and outgrow the behavior in early adulthood

highly aggressive, antisocial youth
--Less empathy for distress of others
--Little remorse for criminal behavior

Dodge's Social Information-Processing Model

-Individual's reaction to frustration, anger
--Not simply social cues
--Deficient information processing
--Aggressive kids show a bias toward attributing hostile intent/motive (react without thinking, respond automatically based on past experience) :hostile attribution bias: see world as hostile place all harm to them intentional
--aggressive response
--Rejection, abandonment, neglect, abuse in upbringing

table 13.2
1. encoding of cues: search for, attend to, register cues in the situation:
-response of aggressive youth: focus on hostile cues, ignore relevant info
2. interpretation of cues: interpret situation, infer other motive
-response: shot hostile attribution bias, assume person mean to do harm
3. clarification of goals: formulate goal in situation
-response make goal to retaliate rather than smooth relations
4. response search: generate possible responses
-response generate few options, mainly aggressive
5. response decision: access likely consequences of responses generated, choose best
-response see advantage in responding aggressively
6. behavior enactment: carry out chosen response
response: behave aggressively

nature and nurture

some individuals more genetically predisposed than others to have difficult, irritable temperament, impulsive tendencies that contribute to aggressive, delinquent, and criminal behavior

40%indiv. differences in antisocial behavior and environmental influences for the remaining 60% of the variation

through gene-environment interaction, children with certain genetic predispositions may become antisocial if they grow up in dysfunctional families, have poor parenting, experience abuse

MAO gene on the x chromosme affects our ability to control our tempers when threatened or provoked
-children w. low mao-a activity and abused/ mistreated readily attribute hostile intentions to others if provoked, cannot control their anger, lash out impulsively, show higher levels of antisocial behavior as adults

Emotions in Infancy

primary emotions: basic emotions that emerge within 6 mo.
-fear last emotion to appear
-self conscious emotions at 18 mo
- 2yrs pride shame guilt,
-2-3know feelings can be manipulated, can tease torment siblings

*Timing of emotions biologically programmed (fear and emotion) (emerge at same ages, displayed and interpreted same in all cultures)
-Tied to cognitive maturation
-Evolved to ensure that caregivers respond
*Social referencing by 9-12 months
-Monitor their companions emotional reaction to stimuli and use the info to decide how should feel and behave
-Modeling, imitation, reinforcement

*Emotion Regulation: the process involved in initiating, maintaining and altering emotional responses
-Learned throughout infancy and childhood
-can be accomplished by not putting self in situations that involve arousal and unwanted emotions, reappraising, or interpreting events or ones reaction to them, altering one's emotional response to events
-emotional regulation involves controlling neg emotions like anger and fear, increase positive emotional experiences

parents who are socially anxious train babies to be socially anxious
-parents socialize infant and childs emotions by talking about emotions in daily life
-parents can help by being sensitive, responsive, keep fear, anger and other negative emotions to a minimum

-as age, infants gain strategies to control their emotions
emotional competence: as children get older develop patterns of emotional expression, greater understanding of emotion and better emotion regulation skills
-also learn how to display rules for emotion: cultural rules specifying what emotions should and should not be expressed under what circumstances

Attachment

parents form emotional attachments to child before born

1.undiscriminating social responsiveness (b-2or3mo)
young infants responsive to voices, faces, other social stimuli, any human interests them, no clear preference for one person
2. discriminating social responsiveness (2or 3 mo-6,7 mo)
-express preference for familiar companions
-direct grins and enthusiastic babbles toward companions, friendly towards strangers
3. active proximity seeking or true attachment (6,7mo-3 years)
-form first clear attachments
-follow mother, protest when mother leaves, greet warmly when returns, attached to other ppl
4. goal-corrected partnership (3+)
-taking a parents goals and plans into consideration, adjusting their behavior to achieve goal maintaining optimal closeness to attachment figure

*Cases like "Baby Jessica"
-Children are resilient
-Negative early experiences rarely ruin them for life
*Close Relationships Provide:
-Learning experiences
-Social support (social convoy)
-Evident and important across lifespan

Effects of Social Deprivation

infants separated from parents due to illness, war, death, divorce, etc:
-Infants grieve when separated from caregiver
-Recover when reunited or upon forming new attachments

Separations
-long term separations for military families
-attachment disrupted can result in emotional
-A series of separations more harmful
-Romanian orphans (p. 447)
--Insecure, anxious
--Difficulty coping with stress
-Need sustained interaction with responsive caregivers - one or a few
-infants who spent their first 6 months in deprived orphanages displayed a host of negative effects, -poor growth, medical problems, brain abnormalities, delays in physical, cognitive, and social-emotonal development
-children adopted before 1 yr. have good chance of becoming as securely attached to their caregivers as other children

Later Outcomes

Securely Attached Child
-more curious, self-directed, eager to learn
-Cognitively and socially competent (more able to initiate play activities, more sensitive to needs and feelings of other children, more popular
-positive emotional development, capacity to cope with stress and regulate emotions
-less reactive to stress
Insecurely Attached Child
-Withdrawn, dependent, fearful
-Less competent
-Patterns last through adolescence

Some Conclusions

-Attachment to fathers, grandparents, etc.
--Can compensate for poor attachment, insecure mother-infant relationships
-Secure attachments may change
--Stressful events: divorce, illness
-Insecure attachments may change
--Lifestyle improvements

Romantic Relationships

first look for similarities in physical appearance, race or ethnicity, education, socioeconomic status religion
Homogamy: similarity greatest influence in mate selection
complementarity: partners different from them but have strengths that compensate for their own weaknesses or complement their own characteristics
Consummate love vs. Companionate love
LOVE
Passion: sexual attraction, romantic feelings, excitement
Intimacy: feeling of warmth, caring, closeness, trust and respect in the relationship, emotional togetherness communication, happiness
Commitment: deciding one love the other person then committing to a long-term relationship

consulate love: high levels of passion, intimacy and commitment

companionate love: friendship like, affectionate love, high intimacy and commitment but not much passion

ch.18?
More family Diversity
-more single adults (never married, divorced, widowed adults) empty nesters included
-more unmarried parents: giving birth without being married 41% births in 2010, 1/2 living w/ father of baby
-postponed marriage, fewer children
-20% childless
-more years without children
-more women working: 70% mothers under age 18 in labor force
-more divorce: 40-50% newly married can expect divorce
-more remarriages, reconstituted families (blended families, include at least a parent, stepparent, child
-more years without children, more multigenerational families, fewer caregivers for aging adults
-more children living in poverty

After the divorce
-genuine crisis: period of considerable disruption lasts 1-2 years
-wife usually angry, depressed, distressed as well as relieved
-husband distressed if doesn't want divorce and feels shut off from children
-feel isolated from former friends and unsure of themselves in romantic relationships
-divorced women with children usually financially stressed
-divorced adults higher risk of depression and psychological distress, physical health problems, even death

-adjustment poor if have little income, do not find a new relationship, take a dim view on divorce, do not initiate the divorce

-children suffer through divorce: often more angry, fearful, depressed, guilty, especially if fear responsible for parents divorce
-whiny dependent, disobedient, disrespectful

-stressed custodial mothers more impatient and insensitive to childs needs, less accepting and responsive, less control
-less authoritative and consistent in their discipline
-ocassionally try to seize control of their children with a heavy-handed, authoritarian approach
-fail to carry through in enforcing rules and make few demands that their child behaves maturely

-noncustodial fathers, overly permissive, indulging their children during visitation, good coparenting becomes difficult

-childrens behavioral problems make effective parenting more difficult, deterioration in parenting aggravates children behavior problems and adjustment difficulties in school

Parenting Styles

Two Dimensions of Parenting
Acceptance/Responsiveness (AC): extent to which parents are warm, supporitve, sensitive to childs needs, willing to provide affection and praise when meet expectations
-affectionate, smile at, praise, encourage children
less accepting, responsive, quick to criticize, belittle, punish, ignore children
Demandingness/Control (DC): how much control over decisions lies with parent opposed to child
-set rules expect child to follow, monitor child to make sure followed
-less c and demand, make fewer demands, allow children great deal of autonomy in exploring environment, expressing opinions, making decisions
Baumrind's Parenting Types
Authoritarian: AC=low, DC=high:restrictive parenting style -impose many rules, expect strict obedience, rely on power assertion: physical punishment to gain control
Authoritative: AC=high, DC=high : more flexible, demanding, exert control, sensitive to their children, set clear rules and consistently enforce them, explain rules, responsive to childs needs and points of view, involve children in family decision making, reasonable and democratic in approach, respect children
Permissive: AC=high, DC=low: child centered, few rules and demands, encourage children to express feelings and impulses, rarely exert control over behavior
Neglectful: AC=low, DC=low

Types of Child Maltreatment

Parenting

Physical abuse

Child neglect

Sexual abuse

Emotional
abuse

Infliction of physical injury

Failure to provide basic needs

Fondling child's genitals, sodomy, intercourse, incest, exhibitionism, rape, and commercial exploitation

Acts or omissions by parents or other caregivers that have caused, or could cause, serious behavioral, cognitive, or emotional problems

Context of Abuse

child abuse: mistreating or harming a child physically, emotionally, or sexually
child maltreatment: abuse and neglect of a child's basic needs
of these victims: 75% neglected, 16% physically abused, 9%sexually abused, 7%emotionally or psychologically abused, 8% other

-children and adolescents batter, rare cases, kill their parents
-brothers abuse one another in countless ways, especially if there is violence elsewhere in family
-spousal or intimate partner abuse most common form of family violence
1/3 of women beated, coerced into sex, emotionally abused by their partners

15% of couples experience physical violence in a year from pushing to use of weapons

-men batter female partners to control them
elderly adults also targets of family violence: frail, impaired older ppl physically or psychologically mistreated, neglected, financially exploited, stripped of their rights most often by stressed adult children or spouses serving as their caregivers

millions of children witness domestic violence and harmed by what they see

No single factor is total cause
Violence in American culture through media, etc.
Poverty
Perpetuating history: parents abused as children
Lack of social support/ life changes
Developmental consequences
Emotional and relational/attachment problems
Personality problems and risk of suicide
Aggressive behaviors and substance use/abuse

***The Abuser

1 child abuser in 10 has a severe psychological disorder

Typical child abuser
-Young, single, poor, unemployed mother
-many appear to be typical, loving parents except for their tendencies to become extremely irritated w/ their children
-child abusers tend to be abused as a child 30%

intergenerational transmisison of parenting : passing down from generation to generation of parenting styles abusive, etc.
adults more likely to end up in an abusive relationships or marriages if abused or witnessed abuse as a child
-some may learn through experience violence is not a way to solve problems

-abusers often insecure with low self-esteem
-their unhappy experiences in insecure attachment relationship w/ parents, reinforced by negative romantic relationships may lead to negative internal working models of themselves and others
(these adults see themselves as victims, feel powerless as parents, find normal challenges of parenting stressful and threatening)
-abusive parents have unrealistic expectations about what children can do at different ages, twisted perceptions of normal behavior of infants and young children
-tend to have been exposed to harsh parenting and abusive relationships, to be insecure find caregiving more stressful and ego threatening

-hard to identify a kind of person who is typically an abuser

The Abused

abusive parent singles out one child as a target
children at risk: medical problems, difficult temperaments

many difficult children not mistreated, many seemingly cheerful and easy going are

high risk parent and challenging child

-powerless parents higher levels of stress, higher cortisol, faster heart rates when interacting with unresponsive children

Often disabled or sickly
Parent feels powerless
Parent feels threatened

abuse most likely to occur when parent under great stress, little social support, loss of job, disruptive family functioning can contribute to neglect and abuse

abuse higher in deteriorating neighborhoods, poor, transient, socially isolated, lacking in community serves and informal social support

Effects of Family Violence

physically abused and maltreated children have many problems:
-physical injuries, health problems, impaired brain development, cognitive deficits social emotional behavioral problems and psychological disorders
-academic difficulties and intellectual deficits common
-social, emotional, behavioral problems
-tend to be explosively aggressive youngsters, rejected by peers
-higher rates of depression, anxiety
-toddlers read to distress of peers much as abusive parents act to their distress , attack a crying child

-many maltreated children resilient, turn out fine
(if have genes that protect them from negative psychological effects of abuse and other neg life events, makes them stress resistant, and cope effectively) (environmental factors , attachment to one non-abusive adult contribute to resilience)

Lack of normal empathy - young children
Emotional development disturbed
Problematic for normal development

What is it called when a caregiver's expectations are compatible with a child's temperament?

What are the 3 types of temperament profiles?

Why is it important for caregivers to know about temperament?

What is goodness of fit in temperament?