Temperament is the oldest and least fashionable idea in this area, and it is worth knowing because it takes a lot of blame out of the room. Researchers in the 1950s followed children from infancy and found the differences were there from the start, before anybody had done any parenting at all.
The rough groupings
| Pattern | What it looks like | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | Regular, adapts to change, mostly cheerful | Not much. Most systems work |
| Slow to warm | Hangs back, needs time before joining in | Warning before transitions. No pushing |
| Difficult, or "spirited" | Intense, irregular, reacts hard to change | Predictability, and credit for the hard things |
Around one child in ten falls in the third group, which means most schools and most advice are written for the other nine.
Why the label is worth having
Not as an excuse and not as a diagnosis. It is worth having because it explains why the same approach produced a calm child in one house and a standoff in another, and that explanation is usually the first thing a parent of a spirited child has been offered that is not an implied criticism.
What it changes practically
Intensity is not defiance. A child who reacts hard to small things is not choosing the volume, and a system that treats the volume as the offense will spend all its time on it. The thing worth measuring is what they did, and for this child the coming back after a storm is the hardest thing they do all week, which is a good argument for it being worth the most.