Temperament: Improving Goodness of Fit
Temperament: Improving Goodness of Fit (p. 155)
Goodness of fit involves creating child-rearing environments that recognize each child’s temperament while simultaneously encouraging more adaptive functioning. Ask students to consider the following scenarios:
Aiden is a difficult 2-year-old whose parents both work long hours for low pay and do not have reliable child-care arrangements. They sometimes use angry, punitive discipline, and Aiden typically reacts with defiance and disobedience. His parents respond inconsistently: Sometimes they reward his noncompliance by giving in to it, but at other times they continue their coercive tactics.
Identify some changes that might improve goodness of fit for Aiden and his parents.
Answer preview
Personality development in early childhood developmental stages is critical in addressing difficult temperaments. The goodness of fit entails the compatibility of a child’s character with the surrounding, and that encourages adaptive functioning. The most significant problem in Aiden’s scenario is that parents have no time and attention to understand Aiden’s nature. This results in incompatibilities, and Aiden lacks adaptive…
(350 words)