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Key factors in Infant Mental Health-Temperament
While the primary caregiver’s personality and experience plays a strong role in infant mental health, the individual child’s emerging personality, better known as temperament, also plays a role in how the child will interact with his or her environment and primary caregiver. Temperament is most widely identified as “…early-appearing patterns of observable behavior that are presumed to be biologically based and that distinguish one child from another” (Sturm, 2004). Research has shown that temperament issues early on can predispose a child to later behavioral problems. Temperament is not a sole predictor of later problems, but can be used as a guide to better predict how a child’s temperament style may affect how he or she interacts with the environment or specific stressors. Linking temperament style to a particular mental health or behavioral issue has been a more recent research focus. High negative emotional reactivity paired with poor control in adequately adjusting feelings and behavior responses has been identified as a risk for reactive forms of aggressive behavior. Timid behavior in unfamiliar circumstances may be related to later anxiety disorders. Clinicians can utilize the concept of temperament when working with parents to help them to better understand a child’s difficult or challenging behavior. And a focus on temperament can help a parent to detach from feeling personal responsibility for the child’s issues, and instead focus on how to adjust parental interactions and discipline techniques to the child’s individual style. With more research in this area, clinicians may one day be able to intervene early to minimize the intensity of a disorder before symptoms actually appear (Sturm, 2004).
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Contributor's Note
This is part of a series on Infant Mental Health.
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