TEMPERAMENT SERIES PART 2: INTENSITY
Welcome back! This is the second of several posts about temperament! I am so excited to dig into this topic with you because gaining an understanding of your child’s unique temperament is going to help you significantly with parenting.
As a refresher, what exactly is temperament? Temperament can be defined as how one’s nature affects their behavior. Understanding that we are all born with different, innate temperament traits is crucial. Why? Because we often believe we can “change” our children. That if we only yell louder, punish harder, or show our disappointment more we can will our kids into being something different from who they are. However, the more we try to change our kids into something they’re not, the more we end up in an endless cycle of friction-shame-blame-friction. The goal here is not to change your child, but to understand who they are and to help guide them to be the best possible version of themselves. By seeing, really seeing your child at this deep level you offer the most meaningful validation there is.
There are nine temperament traits. Last month we looked at persistence (you can find that blog post here) but today we’re going to focus on intensity. This temperament trait can leave you feeling like you’re on a rollercoaster ride, always at the mercy of your child’s behavior. So many parents tell me they feel like their child’s emotions run their household - that they feel held hostage by their child’s big, powerful emotions. Often we feel blindsided by our child’s reactions, feeling like they’ve suddenly gone from 0-60 with no warning. This constant state of being caught off guard and unprepared is exhausting, draining, and discouraging. If you have an exceedingly intense child you are not going to change them into the chill, go with the flow kiddo you have seen moseying around the park. However, like with persistence, intense kids have some much to offer the world! They are passionate, enthusiastic, and expressive, making them great leaders and performers. Fortunately, there are very effective strategies you can employ to help lessen the frequency, duration, and intensity of your child’s reactions to move you and your child from a place of chaos to one of harmony.
How do you know if you have an intense child? If any of the following sound familiar, you likely are dealing with some degree of intensity:
Never just cries, rather wails or explodes
A living staircase of emotion, up one minute and down the next
Every reaction is deep and powerful
Shouts with glee
Easily frustrated
Goes from 0-60 with no apparent warning
Although the reactions of intense kids seem to appear out of nowhere and leave us scratching our heads (before we pull our hair out), there are always triggers that have occurred an hour or even a day or week before that are building up inside your intense child and coming out like a fire hose. Paying attention to patterns in order to understand what these triggers are for your unique child will help defuse the situation before a huge blow-up occurs. The two most frequent triggers I see are lack of sleep and hunger. Whatever the trigger is for your child, the following strategies will help you turn challenge into success and bring down the temperature in your family:
Pickup on Cues - Although we often feel that our child’s blow ups are unpredictable, if we really tune in we can often see their behavior start to simmer before it comes to a full boil. Cues to look for include:
Whining
Asking for help for things he/she can usually do independently
Less sure-footed (bumping into things, stubbing toes)
Inability to make/maintain eye contact
Lack of focus
Frenzied, chaotic actions
Rigidity/inflexibility
When you see your child start to exhibit these behaviors, this is your opportunity to help them deescalate rather than escalate further. Often it feels inconvenient to stop what we are doing to help our child when they are merely whining or seemingly irritated, but taking the following steps (rather than pushing through to the next activity) will end up actually saving you time in the long run.
Connect Before Correct - When our kids are feeling out of control they look to us to be their emotional anchor. When they are pushing our buttons by rolling their eyes, saying “no!” to everything, etc. they need us more than ever to connect with them rather than push them farther into the loneliness of their big feelings. When you see your child start to struggle, take the time to empathize and validate with how they are feeling in that moment. You don’t have to agree with their behavior, but when you acknowledge their struggle instead of minimizing it (“Oh my goodness, it hurts so much to stub your toe! It’s the worst! Let me rub it!” rather than “Again? If you wouldn’t run around like a maniac that wouldn’t happen.”), you instantly bring down their intensity. You can read more about connect before correct here and here.
Soothing/Calming Activities - When you see your child ramping up with either the cues I mentioned above or their own unique cues, employing some soothing/calming activities will help move their minds and bodies from a state of dysregulation back to a baseline of calm and control. Some effective techniques include:
Changing the scenery - move from inside to out, upstairs to down, outside to in
Water! Bathtime, sprinklers, a shower.
Rest time/positive time out. Sometimes our kids need us to tell them they need to take a break.
Sensory play - using play doh, silly putty, dry beans
Physical movement like jumping on a trampoline or with a jump rope
Deep breathing with long exhales - automatically brings the heartrate down
Humor - a funny dance or voice can work wonders
Please let me know if you have a chance to try one or more of these strategies with your intense child. I love your feedback and input!
Next month we’ll cover… sensitivity!
Sending curiosity your way,
Morgan