By Ogova Ondego
Published May 4, 2024
Born with selfish desires, every child has the potential to be delinquent if he or she is left to his or her own devices.
Beverly LaHaye, in a book titled Understanding Your Child’s Temperament, advises parents to learn the temperament of their children in order to help them attain their full human potential.
Children have four primary temperaments – talkative and fun-loving sanguine, independent and self-sufficient choleric, gifted and faithful melancholic and patient and easy-going phlegmatic.
Every one of these temperaments present special challenges for bringing up children. No child can have just one temperament.
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LaHaye’s book explains the changes parents experience when a child is born and how they try to cope. She discusses stages of development in a baby’s life and what parents should do to avoid being overwhelmed.
Understanding Your Child’s Temperament shows parents what to do in meeting the baby’s needs for food, warmth, sleep, bodily exercise, sensory and intellectual stimulation, and physical cuddling and stroking.
Issues like toilet-training, finger-sucking, eating habits, temper tantrums, spanking and educating with toys are tackled in detail. The author also discusses sex education, television watching and book reading.
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Understanding Your Child’s Temperament also tackles adolescence and issues such as conflict, rebellion, feelings of insecurity and the desire for freedom which are associated with teenage.
Presenting guidelines on dating and career choice, LaHaye says children have rights which parents should respect. These rights are parental love and nurture for their children to adulthood, provision of needs, being told No at appropriate times in life, and being protected from dangers that can destroy them.
Children should also be told that there are fundamental differences between boys and girls and should know that obedience is expected and is best for them.
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Among the guidelines for discipline outlined by Understanding Your Child’s Temperament are:
- Don’t disapprove of what a child is; disapprove of what he does
- Give attention and praise for good behaviour
- Encourage and allow discussion but remember that it is the parents who should make the final decision
- Punishment should be swift, reasonable, related to the offence and certain to occur
- Throw out all rules you are unwilling to enforce and be willing to change the rules if and when you think they need changing
- Don’t lecture and don’t warn
- Don’t feel you have to justify rules although you should try to explain them
- As your youngster grows older, many rules may be subject to discussion and compromise. The few rules you really feel strongly about should be enforced no matter what rules other parents have
- Allow a child to assume responsibility for his or her decisions as he or she shows the ability to do so
- Be honest with your youngsters; hypocrisy shows.
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LaHaye explains why children act the way they do and how parents can help them to develop their physical, intellectual and spiritual capacities. She also shows how parents can be caring and careful about their children without being overprotective.
