This research paper is set to review and discuss key points relating to the temperament in children and studies that have been done in relation to how it affects a child’s personality and development. Temperament is a very large component of personality for a child at a young age. Early life influences can quickly shape how the temperament of a child begins to develop and how it evolves as they increase in age. Being introduced to positive or negative factors throughout the course of a young life can quickly determine the effects that it will have on a child’s personality and social interactions.
This could include the people they socialize with, to even the way their parents treat them. Temperament can cause a domino effect on a child’s social interactions, and how their behavior is shaped. It can affect how positive or negative they are towards life and can shape their overall personality as they grow into an adult. A child’s temperament can describe the overall way in which they approach and react towards certain situations in life. It is their own personal reactions to life’s common issues and interactions.
While temperament does not clearly show a full demonstration of a child’s overall behavior, reviewing a child’s temperament can help peers and the child’s family in better understanding how their young children react and relate to the world around them (Allard 2010). Information about temperament can also help peers and parents to identify children’s strengths and also the possible improvements they may need to succeed in their many relationships and environments around them.
There are a couple different traits that can be used to describe a child’s temperament. These traits can relate and reflect on a child’s level of physical activity, the way they adapt to daily routines, and also how they respond to new situations they have never faced before (Allard 2010). It also affects the child’s mood, how they may react to a certain situation (Allard 2010). It can show whether or not they may be sensitive to what is going on around them, and how frequently they may become distracted when doing a certain activity (Allard 2010).
Based on these several traits, researchers have come to categorize children’s temperament personalities into three different types: easy, difficult, and slow-to-warm up (Santrock, Mackenzie-Rivers, Malcomson, Leung & Pangman, 2014). The first article, written by Maha Al-Hendawi and Evelyn Reed (2012), discusses how temperament is an individual difference amongst children and it can either be protective on a child’s personality or it can result in risk factors that may possibly enhance or interfere with children’s healthy development and educational success.
The study that was carried out was used to examine the currently existing and also the predictive relationships between temperament and how it relates and effects children’s school adjustment and the academic achievement in children who are at-risk (Al-Hendawi and Reed, 2012). The research involved surveying a total of 77 children who were considered at-risk of having temperament negatively impact their development and educational success, ranging in ages from five to 11 years old.
The results for the existing relationships showed significant connections between children’s temperament and their school adjustment, where negative emotions are significantly connected with and even predicted a child’s school adjustment. It was shown that negative emotionality predicted all four adjustment outcome measures: school performance problems, internalizing problems, positive social behaviors, and externalizing problems (Al-Hendawi and Reed, 2012).
Children who tend to show more frequent negative emotions were more prone towards leading into intense emotions, such as the potential for intense crying or anger, which results in a response to frustration and extended emotional upset as a result of changes in plans, and a general tendency toward irritability (Al-Hendawi and Reed, 2012). Those negative emotion patterns were shown to be associated with both the internalizing and externalizing problems, which influenced the children’s overall adjustment to school.
When comparing the results to children’s academic achievement, the research shows that by assessing children’s performance on different subjects in school, such as; reading, math, writing, and science, while using two different methods: standardized achievement tests and teacher rated achievement, the results found that both methods show significant relationships with children’s temperament. The differences in these relationships may be due to the nature of each test, in that standardized tests tend to be objective measures of achievement, whereas teacher rated achievement tends to be a subjective measure (Al-Hendawi and Reed, 2012).
However, the method of using the teacher ratings of temperament have been found to be better at predicting the child’s achievement, which can be determined by either assigned grades or standardized tests. Teachers’ ratings may be influenced by the teacher’s observations of the child’s performance, and different from parent observations. This may particularly be true when teachers provide information on temperament as well as assigned grades. Environmental factors may influence the outcomes as well.
Some temperament characteristics tend to be found in the child’s home, whereas other characteristics are more likely to be found just in the school. For example, focusing on a task can be more common in the classroom than at home. In the classroom, the child interacts with multiple peers and teachers and is expected to work on tasks and complete them. Temperament traits may not be as noticeable in the home as they are in the classroom, which pre-planned activities and specific rules are in place.
