Toddler Temperament

Recently I found a great parenting and resouce website lets you see more clearly your child's temperament and find parenting tactics that work for your child - The Preventive Ounce.
There is a short questionnaire and then loads of resources for you to use depending on your questionnaire outcome.

Well I decided to do the questionnaire twice. The first time I had had a tough day with Eoin and the second time I had had the dream day with Eoin and I wanted to see if my perceptions of his behavior changed. They didn't really and so the results were almost identical. The website predicts that our biggest issue with Eoin is going to be discipline. The site reckons that Eoin will frequently ignore being told to stop unacceptable behavior and that discipline will only work occasionally. Well that sounds about right to me! When Eoin is being good he is an angel and a delight to be with but he does have a very stubborn streak and it really doesn't matter what you do to distract him if he wants to do something he will. So I think we will just keep doing what we are doing - stick to our guns and be consistent.

A little side note to this. Eoin started to pull other kids hair last week and despite talking to him over and over about it and removing him from the situation he kept doing it. So I told him that this time on his third warning I would pull his hair. The parents around me were a little horrified and liken this to spanking a child and teaching them that 'violence' was ok. Well while I understood their point of view and certainly agree with it in certain areas I also had to believe that I knew my child the best. Eoin has learned many good behaviors from constant example and reinforcement. Eoin is a physical and tactile child and learns through hands on exploration. So sure enough I ended up having to 'pull' Eoin's hair. He complained for a second and then went about his business. In total I did this three more times over the following days and so far we have had two days of no hair pulling.

I think that sometimes as parents we forget that we know our kids the best. To often we are swayed by perceived judgments from other parents. We have to trust our own parenting skills and intuition. The biggest lesson I have learned in the last fifteen months of being a parent is trust yourself and listen to your gut. You do know what is best for your child!