Pillars in the Making - Sep 2012

“Easy”, “Difficult” or “Slow to warm up”??

Development of emotion

Photo: gagasisterhood.com

Do you know what emotion is? It can be associated and considered reciprocally influential with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation. Sometimes it can also be influenced by biological factors, e.g. hormones. But do you know when emotion actually occurs? According to a survey done in the USA, most of the parents found that their babies show five distinct emotional expressions: interest, surprise, joy, anger and fear. We can simply divide them into three types of babies; easy temperament, difficult temperament and slow to warm up temperament.

Three types of babies

1) Easy temperament babies

There are around 40% of babies  belong to this type of temperament. They are even- tempered, and they are typically in a positive mood, quite open and adaptable to new experiences. Their habits are regular and predictable.

2) Difficult temperament babies

There are around 10% of babies belong to this type of temperament. They are active, irritable, and irregular in their habits. They often react very unwillingly in changing routines and they react very slowly to new people or situations.

3) Slow – to – warm – up temperament babies

Around 10% babies are samples of slow to warm up temperament. These children are quite inactive, somewhat moody, and can be slow to adapt to new people and situations. Unlike difficult child, they often response to novelty mildly, rather than in negative ways.

Photo: babywisemom.com

Vicky Wong

Reference:
Firchow, Nancy M.L.S.. "Your Child's Temperament: Some Basics". http://www.schwablearning.org/articles.asp?r=495.