This book will help parents understand their child’s temperament and more effectively respond to challenges in raising their kids.
 
Effective parenting isn’t one-size-fits-all. Every child comes with an innate temperament, which includes emotional reactions, a motivational style, personal strengths, and needs that demand extra attention. And every family has its own values and culture. In this book, psychologists Liliana Lengua and Maria Gartstein teach you how to parent based on the unique temperament of your child and the specific needs of your family.
 
To help readers understand the innate nature of temperaments, the book provides a brief, accessible overview of the neurobiological systems that underlie a person’s temperament. While we cannot change our child’s natural temperament (nor would we want to!), we can impact their neurobiological arousal and self-regulation systems, nurture their positive behaviors, and promote healthy social and emotional development.
 
Based on this scientific understanding of temperaments, as well as the latest psychological theories and research on parenting and the authors’ own experience as clinicians and mothers, the authors present four broad parenting principles and then show how to apply these principles with children of different temperaments. In particular, they focus on a handful of temperament characteristics that, when very strong, can present challenges related to children’s social, emotional, and behavioral development and well-being. These include being very fearful, impulsive, inflexible, and easily frustrated.
 
With its simple practical advice, relatable examples, and two questionnaires to help you assess your child’s temperament and your own parenting practices, this book gives you the tools you need to parent more effectively and strengthen your relationship with your child.