Biting IV
Temperament

Stress factors, such as the arrival, or the pending arrival of a new baby in the family can contribute greatly to children's anxiety levels. Stress is a normal and natural part of daily life and often contributes to optimal performance or, what we may refer as "working best when under pressure". However, when stress becomes too overwhelming it impacts negatively on performance and may trigger inappropriate behavior.

Young children can have an extremely low tolerance to stress due to their limited social and emotional skills. However, there exists another factor that influences how children respond to stress, as well as how they engage and interact with the world around them. This factor, temperament, represents an particular emotional response that children express through characteristic or habitual behavior. These peculiar behaviors we might describe in terms of a child being generally "laid-back", "easy-going", "sensitive", "impatient" or "short-tempered". Our experience with children and observation of their emotional responses over time provide insight into temperament and how we might expect children to behave under certain conditions. In addition, experience and knowledge of children's temperament will support our efforts and intuition on how best to address problem behavior.

Developing social and emotional skills help children manage habitual behavior. For example, teaching a two year-old the process of how to appropriately engage with a peer in cooperative play can help compensate for a natural tendency for shyness (under-engagement) or for frustration and anger (over-engagement). Helping and supporting toddler's and two's in the acquistion of social and emotional skills will be the most important intervention in addressing biting and other behaviors. Toddler's and two's are not always open to direct instruction, so an indirect approach is often best. "Teachable moments" provide caregivers with numerous opportunities throughout the day to acknowledge and reinforce skills and behavior.

My next post will discuss environmental factors that affect stress, particularly the importance of schedule and routine in supporting children's behavior, as well as more about teachable moments.