More of a general temperament question...why do we use a standized questionnaire to determine temperment? What is the importance of this and could we get the same answers from observing?
I have a five year old boy in my early childhood class who is in his second year in our classroom.He will go to kindergarten in the fall. He is very slow to adapt and we spend lots of time preparing him for transistion or change.His big issue is sharing. At this time he does not share and everyday playtime is a traumatic event.
If he is playing with the blocks and another child approaches him he will pick up the blocks and move them away from the child. If the other child takes a block he will scream (loud!) and take the block back and scoop all the blocks around him to protect them. When we sit with him and tell him to share he is completly anxeity ridden at the thought of sharing and screams "no, they are mine!". If we keep persisting he continues screaming and will often hit or kick at the teachers or the other child. You can just see the panic in his eyes if another child approaches the toys he is playing with. Usually at age 5 children begin to under stand the concept of sharing and can engage in cooperative play.
What can we do to ease his fear? What can we do to help him learn to share? I feel like after two years in the same room with the same teachers he should be comfortable in school, but yet you can just feel his anxeity and see the fear on his face. I feel so bad that he gets so upset everyday over the same thing. Any ideas?
Feisty kids tend to be less flexible and more intense than other kids. They also tend to be slow to accept change. This may lead to behavioral problems if they are pressured or challenged!
Do you think that children work better with adult's who seem to have a feisty temperament; can they sense this out in adults? Or do you think that adult's who have a feisty temperament subconsciously feel more comfortable around children with this temperament, leading them to connect on a deeper level with these children?
What is the best way to handle a group of three two-year-olds, who feed on each other, and within a minutes time they are totally out of control. Thier attention span is about one second to zero, and they laugh looking at the teacher while they are climbing on high furniture, throwing hard blocks, spitting thier food and so on. One of them bites and scratches quite often, she can almost be one-on-one. This are just some of the things they do all day on a daily basis. Thier teacher is going out of her mind. She is a very nice educated person who is running out of ideas.
Wow - what a lot of awesome questions. Amroach - it sounds like the three year olds you are talking about are highly active (at minimum). Kids with a very high activity level have a great need to move (hence the climbing, throwing, and hitting) and their strong emotions often come out in physical ways (hence the biting and scratching and hitting). One thing that tends to help children with that characteristic is giving them lots of opportunity to use those big muscles - building gross motor time into the day frequently regardless of the weather, giving alternatives to quiet activities when they can sit still no longer, reading their signals (fidgeting, touching the person next to them, etc) and encouraging a more appropriate way to move instead. A child wants to feel that their natural inclinations and reactions to the world are good and acceptable. If the teacher can find ways to make this strong need for physical activity a good thing (instead of treating it as a disturbance)they are more likely to find better ways to channel it.
Summer, I would say you are describing a rather typical child. We use these classifications not as labels to put kids in boxes and apply a specific formula to them, but as a way to help ourselves generate ideas for how to work with them. If you are insightful enough to realize that a child reacts differently in different situations, you will be able to prepare him better and react to him more positively throughout the day. There are few of us who are so easy to figure out that we are a perfect match for any classification at ALL times.
Are you finding that children can be "labeled" with ADHD when they may just be a fiesty child? How can parents who believe their child fits within the normal range of behavior address this issue with a teacher who is "labeling" the child ADHD? (I don't like to use the word "label" but I can't think of alternative right now.) Karen D (227)
Yes, this does happen frequently. Feisty behavior can be abrasive and create difficulty for the caregiver. This may lead to the thought that there is something wrong with the youngster and that it may be ADHD. In young children who have so much maturing to do, it is unfortunate that many are labelled this way, even medicated!
Feisty refers to the group of children who exhibit some of a group of traits that caregivers find challenging, including high emotional intensity, high activity, low adaptability, negative mood, etc. So many feisty children are intense but some children who are feisty may be average in intensity or other traits.
I work at a daycare with toddlers. We have this one child that is very very active. He usually doesnt play with toys, if he does he will play for about a minute or two and then move on. Once he moves from the toys he usually goes straight to one of the kids and either hits, pushes, tackles, or bits the other child. Do you have any ideas for me that I could do with this child so he is not so rough to the other children and teachers? Once he has done this action he will run away and laugh about his actions, we have tried to talk to the mom to see how he is at home but she just laughs and doesn't give us any information.
So if a child is mis-labeled with a disorder such as ADHD or ADD, is there any way to correct that behavior? If the child is just feisty, is this something that he or she will grow out of?
I know in some situations adults find a feisty child amusing and laugh. By laughing at a feisty child who is acting out, is the adult encouraging the behavior? What can a teacher or parent do to help the child to cope with traits that might get in the way a peer relations and learning?
Yes, Sheryl, we often encourage (and discourage) behaviors unintentionally by our reactions. Our facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, words and actions all provide a child with feedback on their actions. That means that it's important to be aware of the child's behaviors and reactions - AND our own. When children do have behaviors we would like to change, we are best at helping them change when we understand what caused the behavior. Was it their stage of development? (If so, then our response is going to be one of patience and gentle teaching) Was it the environment? (If so, we might mix up our schedule/routine or change around the physical space or think about which kids we put beside each other, etc). Is it that they haven't been taught age-appropriate social skills? (If so, then we spend time teaching - both during group times and individually) Is it their individual differences or reactions? (If so, they we acknowledge their feelings/needs and try to create a goodness-of-fit by adapting the environmentand expectations while also teaching them some coping skills to gain control over their reactions.
Feisty behavior is not the problem; it is the behavior problems of feisty children that need to be changed! So paying attention to feisty normal behavior is fine, but laughing at problem behavior will tend to communicate to the child that this is a way to get attention-not what we usually want! Behavior is part temperament, but also part environment. If the environment is structured but also supportive feisty children rarely have behavioral issues.
Is spanking considered a good punishment now-a-days for children who don't behavior well, especially in public? If not, what would be the best alternative?
Is spanking considered a good punishment now-a-days for children who don't behavior well, especially in public? If not, what would be the best alternative? (ECE 150)
Thanks, Sean, for your comment about the importance of environment. Can you give us some suggestions to structure the environment in a way that supports fiesty children?
Cassandra - in most licensed child care settings, spanking is not allowed. In Minnesota it is considered corporal punishment and a licensing violation.
What are some ways from stopping a feisty child from disrupting the classroom? Also ways that will help from focusing the others attention on the particular student that is being feisty? Mary Nielsen 227
Jeflesner talked about the little boy who was upset when asked to share blocks. I think it is important to remember as we work with spirited children that we respect who they are and at the same time teach them the skills they need to be successful living and working with others. So for this little boy, I would recognize that his sense of space and personal ownership are very important to him. Learning to share is going to be tough. First he has to feel emotionally and physically safe in school. So initially I may say to the other children, right now ….. needs to have all the blocks. Then after a few days or weeks I would begin talking to the child about the importance of letting other children use the blocks too. So we might make a picture planner that shows him setting aside some blocks that other children can use while others are in his “safe” pile that no one will touch. We would read this “plan” together and then have him set aside a few. Once he can allow other children to come to the pile set aside for others, I might begin to “nudge” him by saying is this the day you would like to try allowing … so to play with one of your blocks? If he says, “NO” reply, “OK” maybe tomorrow, but soon you’ll be ready to try it because that is how we work with our friends. This continues, until the day he says, OK, I’ll try it – which he will. Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
In the daycare that I work in we have a set of twins that seem to be most feisty children I have ever met. Could some of that possible come from being a twin and having to share everything with someone else? They are also expecting a baby brother or sister. Do those factors affect the "feisty-ness" of a child? (kim 227)
What are some things that you can do in order to guide the child to a less "feisty" temperament? Also what are some things that you can do to deal with that particular type of student in a class room setting? ECE 150
The answer to my question of whether or not children work better with adult's who seem to have a feisty temperament? The answer that I found in one of my Psych. books was yes, for this reason: Social development beins with attachment, the strong emotional bond formed between an infant and his mother or primary caregiver. Harry Harlow studied infant monkey's and surrogate mother's to find that contact comfort, and not reinforcement from nourishment, is the crucial element in attachment formation.
The sensitivity of the caregiver tot he infant, and how well an infants temperament matches the child-rearing expectations and personality of the caregiver are inportant to attachment formation. This type of attachment has been linked to higher levels of social competence and cognitive funcionting during childhood.
A time-out I think would be the best way ethically to punish your child, but in a manner that leaves your child knowing they have done something wrong. Holding them accountable for what they have done is good during this time-out punishment, this give the child a quiet few minutes to reflect on what is going on in the situation. Ask, "Why am I upset with you right now?, Make sure they know why they are being punished.
When caring for young children, and you have a mixed group of sensitive and feisty children, how do you come up with activities that will be fun for both types of children to do?? There has to be a way other than separating them into two different groups and doing two separate activities... Also how can you get those feisty kids to stop picking on the sensitive ones? Its seems as though they target them... and I don't know what to do to stop it.
37 comments:
Do feisty children have more difficulty in settings such as school? Or does it depend on how the child is taught?
More of a general temperament question...why do we use a standized questionnaire to determine temperment? What is the importance of this and could we get the same answers from observing?
How do you classify a child as fiesty? Is it the child that constantly is out raged at the world, starts fights on the playground?
How do you classify a child as fiesty? Is it the child that constantly is out raged at the world, starts fights on the playground?
I have been wondering, what would you classify a child who at times demonstrates a "feisty" temperament, and at other times demonstrates "fearful?"
I have a five year old boy in my early childhood class who is in his second year in our classroom.He will go to kindergarten in the fall. He is very slow to adapt and we spend lots of time preparing him for transistion or change.His big issue is sharing. At this time he does not share and everyday playtime is a traumatic event.
If he is playing with the blocks and another child approaches him he will pick up the blocks and move them away from the child. If the other child takes a block he will scream (loud!) and take the block back and scoop all the blocks around him to protect them. When we sit with him and tell him to share he is completly anxeity ridden at the thought of sharing and screams "no, they are mine!". If we keep persisting he continues screaming and will often hit or kick at the teachers or the other child. You can just see the panic in his eyes if another child approaches the toys he is playing with. Usually at age 5 children begin to under stand the concept of sharing and can engage in cooperative play.
What can we do to ease his fear? What can we do to help him learn to share? I feel like after two years in the same room with the same teachers he should be comfortable in school, but yet you can just feel his anxeity and see the fear on his face. I feel so bad that he gets so upset everyday over the same thing. Any ideas?
Feisty kids tend to be less flexible and more intense than other kids. They also tend to be slow to accept change. This may lead to behavioral problems if they are pressured or challenged!
Do you think that children work better with adult's who seem to have a feisty temperament; can they sense this out in adults? Or do you think that adult's who have a feisty temperament subconsciously feel more comfortable around children with this temperament, leading them to connect on a deeper level with these children?
What is the best way to handle a group of three two-year-olds, who feed on each other, and within a minutes time they are totally out of control. Thier attention span is about one second to zero, and they laugh looking at the teacher while they are climbing on high furniture, throwing hard blocks, spitting thier food and so on. One of them bites and scratches quite often, she can almost be one-on-one. This are just some of the things they do all day on a daily basis. Thier teacher is going out of her mind. She is a very nice educated person who is running out of ideas.
Wow - what a lot of awesome questions.
Amroach - it sounds like the three year olds you are talking about are highly active (at minimum). Kids with a very high activity level have a great need to move (hence the climbing, throwing, and hitting) and their strong emotions often come out in physical ways (hence the biting and scratching and hitting).
One thing that tends to help children with that characteristic is giving them lots of opportunity to use those big muscles - building gross motor time into the day frequently regardless of the weather, giving alternatives to quiet activities when they can sit still no longer, reading their signals (fidgeting, touching the person next to them, etc) and encouraging a more appropriate way to move instead.
A child wants to feel that their natural inclinations and reactions to the world are good and acceptable. If the teacher can find ways to make this strong need for physical activity a good thing (instead of treating it as a disturbance)they are more likely to find better ways to channel it.
Summer, I would say you are describing a rather typical child. We use these classifications not as labels to put kids in boxes and apply a specific formula to them, but as a way to help ourselves generate ideas for how to work with them.
If you are insightful enough to realize that a child reacts differently in different situations, you will be able to prepare him better and react to him more positively throughout the day.
There are few of us who are so easy to figure out that we are a perfect match for any classification at ALL times.
Is there different sensory that can be used to help children with fiesty temperaments? Do walks, swinging, anything in motion help?
Are you finding that children can be "labeled" with ADHD when they may just be a fiesty child? How can parents who believe their child fits within the normal range of behavior address this issue with a teacher who is "labeling" the child ADHD? (I don't like to use the word "label" but I can't think of alternative right now.) Karen D (227)
Yes, this does happen frequently. Feisty behavior can be abrasive and create difficulty for the caregiver. This may lead to the thought that there is something wrong with the youngster and that it may be ADHD.
In young children who have so much maturing to do, it is unfortunate that many are labelled this way, even medicated!
What is the distinguished difference between "feisty" and high intensity on the "intensity" trait? (ECE 150)
Feisty refers to the group of children who exhibit some of a group of traits that caregivers find challenging, including high emotional intensity, high activity, low adaptability, negative mood, etc. So many
feisty children are intense but some children who are feisty may be average in intensity or other traits.
I work at a daycare with toddlers. We have this one child that is very very active. He usually doesnt play with toys, if he does he will play for about a minute or two and then move on. Once he moves from the toys he usually goes straight to one of the kids and either hits, pushes, tackles, or bits the other child. Do you have any ideas for me that I could do with this child so he is not so rough to the other children and teachers? Once he has done this action he will run away and laugh about his actions, we have tried to talk to the mom to see how he is at home but she just laughs and doesn't give us any information.
So if a child is mis-labeled with a disorder such as ADHD or ADD, is there any way to correct that behavior? If the child is just feisty, is this something that he or she will grow out of?
I know in some situations adults find a feisty child amusing and laugh. By laughing at a feisty child who is acting out, is the adult encouraging the behavior? What can a teacher or parent do to help the child to cope with traits that might get in the way a peer relations and learning?
Yes, Sheryl, we often encourage (and discourage) behaviors unintentionally by our reactions. Our facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, words and actions all provide a child with feedback on their actions. That means that it's important to be aware of the child's behaviors and reactions - AND our own.
When children do have behaviors we would like to change, we are best at helping them change when we understand what caused the behavior. Was it their stage of development? (If so, then our response is going to be one of patience and gentle teaching) Was it the environment? (If so, we might mix up our schedule/routine or change around the physical space or think about which kids we put beside each other, etc). Is it that they haven't been taught age-appropriate social skills? (If so, then we spend time teaching - both during group times and individually) Is it their individual differences or reactions? (If so, they we acknowledge their feelings/needs and try to create a goodness-of-fit by adapting the environmentand expectations while also teaching them some coping skills to gain control over their reactions.
How do we keep our children from acting up out in public if they see other children their age acting up? (150)
Feisty behavior is not the problem; it is the behavior problems of feisty children that need to be changed!
So paying attention to feisty normal behavior is fine, but laughing at problem behavior will tend to communicate to the child that this is a way to get attention-not what we usually want!
Behavior is part temperament, but also part environment. If the environment is structured but also supportive feisty children rarely have behavioral issues.
Is spanking considered a good punishment now-a-days for children who don't behavior well, especially in public? If not, what would be the best alternative?
Is spanking considered a good punishment now-a-days for children who don't behavior well, especially in public? If not, what would be the best alternative? (ECE 150)
Thanks, Sean, for your comment about the importance of environment. Can you give us some suggestions to structure the environment in a way that supports fiesty children?
Cassandra - in most licensed child care settings, spanking is not allowed. In Minnesota it is considered corporal punishment and a licensing violation.
Have you found that there is a correlation between temperament and learning styles?
What are some ways from stopping a feisty child from disrupting the classroom? Also ways that will help from focusing the others attention on the particular student that is being feisty? Mary Nielsen 227
good morning
Jeflesner talked about the little boy who was upset when asked to share blocks.
I think it is important to remember as we work with spirited children that we respect who they are and at the same time teach them the skills they need to be successful living and working with others. So for this little boy, I would recognize that his sense of space and personal ownership are very important to him. Learning to share is going to be tough. First he has to feel emotionally and physically safe in school. So initially I may say to the other children, right now ….. needs to have all the blocks. Then after a few days or weeks I would begin talking to the child about the importance of letting other children use the blocks too. So we might make a picture planner that shows him setting aside some blocks that other children can use while others are in his “safe” pile that no one will touch. We would read this “plan” together and then have him set aside a few. Once he can allow other children to come to the pile set aside for others, I might begin to “nudge” him by saying is this the day you would like to try allowing … so to play with one of your blocks? If he says, “NO” reply, “OK” maybe tomorrow, but soon you’ll be ready to try it because that is how we work with our friends. This continues, until the day he says, OK, I’ll try it – which he will.
Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
In the daycare that I work in we have a set of twins that seem to be most feisty children I have ever met. Could some of that possible come from being a twin and having to share everything with someone else?
They are also expecting a baby brother or sister. Do those factors affect the "feisty-ness" of a child?
(kim 227)
What are some things that you can do in order to guide the child to a less "feisty" temperament? Also what are some things that you can do to deal with that particular type of student in a class room setting? ECE 150
The answer to my question of whether or not children work better with adult's who seem to have a feisty temperament? The answer that I found in one of my Psych. books was yes, for this reason: Social development beins with attachment, the strong emotional bond formed between an infant and his mother or primary caregiver. Harry Harlow studied infant monkey's and surrogate mother's to find that contact comfort, and not reinforcement from nourishment, is the crucial element in attachment formation.
The sensitivity of the caregiver tot he infant, and how well an infants temperament matches the child-rearing expectations and personality of the caregiver are inportant to attachment formation. This type of attachment has been linked to higher levels of social competence and cognitive funcionting during childhood.
A time-out I think would be the best way ethically to punish your child, but in a manner that leaves your child knowing they have done something wrong. Holding them accountable for what they have done is good during this time-out punishment, this give the child a quiet few minutes to reflect on what is going on in the situation. Ask, "Why am I upset with you right now?, Make sure they know why they are being punished.
When caring for young children, and you have a mixed group of sensitive and feisty children, how do you come up with activities that will be fun for both types of children to do?? There has to be a way other than separating them into two different groups and doing two separate activities... Also how can you get those feisty kids to stop picking on the sensitive ones? Its seems as though they target them... and I don't know what to do to stop it.
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