In 1960, Dr. Stella Chess and Dr. Alexander Thomas published their research on Temperaments and Behavior Disorder in Children at the New York University Press.
The research is still widely used in pediatric psychiatry.
I love their research too.
It is a study that scientifically proves the Korean word “natural nature is difficult to repair (天性 亂改 천성 난개)”.
Let me introduce more of that study.
Their research shows that children are born with the following nine temperaments:
1. Activity level
The level of activity, such as how active or passive each child is, is determined according to the level of activity of the motor nervous system and musculoskeletal system that each child has from birth.
2. Rhythmicity/regularity versus irregularity
They are born with the temperament that determines the rhythm of life, such as the interval between the hungry and eating, the interval between each breastfeeding, the interval between bowel movement and urination, the interval between sleeping and waking.
3. Approach and withdrawal
They are born with a temperament that determines how easily accessible or atrophic they are and when they first encounter a new food, the toy, or approach a stranger for the first time.
4. Adaptability
Adaptability is the temperament that determines how easily a child can adapt to a new environment, how hard he can adapt, or how fast he can adapt or the degree to which he can adapt slowly.
5. Intensity of reaction
The temperament determines the degree of intensity of how strongly or weakly reacts to an environment.
6. Threshold of responsiveness
They are born with a temperament that determines how high the threshold to react and how low the threshold to not react.
7. Quality of mood/positive mood versus negative mood
They are born with a temperament that determines the quality of a positive mood that can play well, cheerful, and follows others well, and a negative quality of mood that cries out and hides strangers.
8. Distractability identifies
They are born with a temperament that can determine how much or less your current behavior is affected by external stimuli.
9. Attention span and persistence
They are born with a temperament that determines the duration of attention they are able to do one activity continuously and the persistence attention and they can continue to do when they encounter a disability while continuing the activity.
All children are born with these nine temperaments from birth.
The level of innate temperaments, such as accessibility, atrophy, adaptability, the intensity of reaction, and quality of mood, can determine whether it is easier or more difficult to raise and care for the child.
Children with stronger responses from birth will have a greater change in emotional intensity, and the more atrophy, the more difficult it is to tolerate new changes.
The more negative the quality of their mood, the easier it is to be nervous, more easily avoided, and less loved by their parents or others.
In this way, each child has a different degree of innate temperament from birth.
It is very important for parents to analyze and find out the degree of their children’s 9 natural temperaments as early as possible and to properly raise their children according to their natural temperament.
Depending on your natural temperament, some children are easier to raise and more accessible, while others are difficult to raise and more difficult to reach.
Depending on their natural temperament, some children love more and others loveless.
Parents of children who are easy to raise naturally and who are more accessible will grow better healthy if parents are more actively raising their children.
Parents of children who are difficult to raise and difficult to reach will not grow up soundly when parents are more passively raising them.
However, no matter what the 9 natural temperaments are, whether it is easy or difficult to raise them, if you give them more of a better environment and more true unconditional love, train them with love, and nurture them well, they can grow into productive and healthy members of our society.
Knowing the 9 natural temperaments you have when raising your children, and in addition to your children’s temperament, there are a 25 percentile personality and a 75 percentile personality, actually the range of 1 percentile personality to 100 percentile personality. If parents know children’s personalities well, they will help to raise their children even more.
I will explain the 25 percentile personality and the 75 percentile personality in following chapter.
Photo 12. Depending on their natural temperament, there are children who are more accessible and more easily acquainted with others. These two infants were born as fraternal twins and have different innate temperaments. Copyright ⓒ 2012 John Sangwon Lee, MD., FAAP
Photo 14. Depending on their natural temperament, some children like to play more, play more cheerfully, and enjoy more. These two infants are fraternal twins and are born with different temperaments. Copyright ⓒ 2012 John Sangwon Lee, MD., FAAP7.
Children should not be raised with harmful love and wrong love. Do not give harmful love and wrong love to your children
Unfortunately, many parents give possessive love to their children without knowing it,
and also love the seductive role, role reversal love, and carious love.
Possessive love, seductive love, role reversal love, and carious love are called false love.
In fact, this kind of child love is an extremely harmful method of love in parent-child relationships.
Still, many parents love and nurture their children in that way.
Parents take away all their children’s rights just as they own their children, and they raise them as if they were owned by their parents. This love is called possessive love.
To love a child in this way is false love. Children who are raised with such love have a lot of trouble getting through the harsh world.
Even after they reach adulthood, children are tied to their parents so that they can’t go anywhere on their own or make decisions on their own when they do anything, so that they can always hang on to their parents. How poor parent-child relationship is.
We say possessive love, but possessive love is in fact not even belong to love.
Children raised by just possessive love can be the following types of adults.
I also saw examples of parents bringing their 26-year-old children to the United States, leaving them at relatives in the United States, asking them to feed them well and educate them, and then return to Korea. These examples are examples of heritages that grow up with possessive love.
There is also a sexually tempting way to love your children. That too is false love. Parents raise their children by sexually seducing them.
The truth is one kind of child abuse, not love.
Role reversal love land nurturing is a false love that is harmful to children.
Parents should be in a position to love their children so that they grow up with sound pride. Parents should not be in a position to be loved by their inexperienced children directly or indirectly.
Unknowingly, there are parents who raise their children with possessive love, seductive love, and role reversal love. Parents think they love their children right, but in fact, such love is false love.
It is a method of love that is extremely harmful to growing and developing children.
Even after children have grown up with this wrong love, they cannot have a full happy life and can become the main reason why they cannot live a healthy social life.
Some parents do not directly or indirectly give their 30-year-old son or daughter the right to seek a partner to marry.
There are also parents who don’t even give them the right to choose a job. Some parents have all the power to make decisions for the well-being and peace of their children who reached adulthood a long time ago.
It is an example of possessive love to have a parent-child relationship by commanding this to do this and that to do that, and to guide the adult child according to the parents’ thoughts and claims.
Some parents deprive their children of economic power if their children aged 30 to 40 do not comply with their parents’ words. You must truly love your children without the condition. And parents cannot own children.