Poster #203 - Forces of nature: Are there strengths that underlie the challenges of a difficult temperament?

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

BACKGROUND: Approximately 10% of infants can be classified as difficult (Thomas & Chess, 1977) (also irritable, fussy, temperamentally frustrated, or unsettled). Such terms refer to a constellation of traits related to difficulties with self-regulation and heightened reactivity resulting from low sensory thresholds and higher levels of emotional intensity (Rothbart, 2011). Temperamentally difficult infants typically have eating and/or sleeping problems (Novosad et al., 1999), are more reactive, and less able to calm down without assistance (Calkins et al., 2002). As a result, parents experience higher rates of stress (e.g. Oddi et al., 2013), depression, and anxiety (e.g. Britton, 2011).
Popular parenting discourse has identified various positive aspects of a challenging temperament. These constructions (e.g. active/alert, Budd, 2003; highly sensitive, Aron, 2002; high needs, Sears & Sears, 1996; spirited, Kurcinka, 1999) highlight both the challenge and the potential value of difficult traits. While parents of temperamentally-intense children report significant problems with sleep, self-soothing, and tantrum behaviors, they also report high levels of alertness, perceptiveness, empathy, and precocious verbal and/or motor ability (Kurcinka, 2011). Are there, then, potential “upsides” of difficult infant temperament that have been overlooked by the existing focus on risk factors?

METHODS: Parents of infants (ages 6- to 18-months, n=404) and children (ages 2- to 6-years, n=452) were recruited through announcements on large Facebook groups and newsletters of national parenting organizations to participate in an online survey. Respondents (n=844, mean age: 32.44) were largely white and college educated. Subjects were divided into two groups based on responses to the Fussy-Difficult subscale of the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (6- and 24-month versions; Bates, Freeland, & Lounsbury, 1979): high difficult (z ≥ 3.0 on scale norm; n=261) and low difficult (z ≤ scale mean; n=214).

RESULTS: Many findings were consistent with research on the known negative sequelae of difficultness. Mann-Whitney U tests showed that the high difficult group had significantly higher levels of self-soothing difficulties, emotional intensity, reactivity, as well as on difficulties with initiating and managing bedtime and nighttime sleep (p=.0005). These parents also reported significantly higher levels of emotional and physical fatigue over the past week (p=.0005).
Underlying positive traits were also identified. Despite their reported physical and emotional challenges, high difficult parents also had significantly higher levels of parenting self-efficacy/perceived competence (U=5168.5, z=9.58, p=.0005). Difficult children differed significantly on questions of emotional and sensory sensitivity, perceptiveness, persistence, desire for interaction, and sense of fairness (p=.0005). Analysis of qualitative data indicated that parents of difficult children do not uniformly experience challenging behaviors as negative, but use terms like determined, big feelings, and force of nature to describe their challenging child.

DISCUSSION: Further analysis of these results may provide an important first-step to broadening the lens on “difficult” temperament to encompass positive traits that present challenges for parents in the early years. Given that parental perceptions of temperament influence outcomes (Pauli-Pott et al., 2000), a better understanding of both the positive aspects of a difficult temperament may help parents cope with the higher level of parenting stamina and skill these children require.

Author

• Macall Gordon, Antioch University, Seattle
  Presenting Author