When children are misbehaving, their actions are habitual tries to get different reactions from their parents. Learn what children are after and how to teach them to express their emotional needs.

Different children are born with different dispositions, but born temperament is not written in stone. A child is not bound for life to her father’s irritable tendencies or her mother’s timid nature. Temperament is only the base, the prime material for the creation of the person’s character, which is developed over one’s life.

I am often approached by desperate mothers who are at a loss as to how to deal with their children’s temper. One will ask me in tears, “How can they be so tiny and yell so much?” Someone else, “Why can’t he be more easygoing, like my sister’s child?”

“The bottom line is, he got his father’s temper; my husband is very explosive,” she concludes with resignation.

Different children are born with different dispositions, but born temperament is not written in stone. A child is not bound for life to her father’s irritable tendencies or her mother’s timid nature. Temperament is only the base, the prime material for the creation of the person’s character, which is developed over one’s life.

The emotional landscape is first mapped out in the crib

Especially as a first-time mother, there are some things you should keep in mind to keep your child from growing into a little tyrant:

•    The speed and frequency with which you address your child’s signals of discomfort let it know about the world around it. Therefore, remember that your baby is going constantly cry to demand being hugged, touched, and held. Remember that it used to live in a warm place where he felt anchored and safe. The crib is cold and heartless; don’t be afraid to hold your baby. Arguments for not carrying babies too much often have more to do with the parents’ will and circumstances than with the babies’ needs. That said, at key times like naptime, try to lay your baby gently in its crib without talking too much; this way, your baby will learn that it’s time to sleep.
•    The baby will learn whether it can expect a response with the first scream, or whether it must cry desperately to have its needs met. Children are creatures of habit. If as a mother you decide to race to your child when you first hear its cry, then it will grow to expect that response. Therefore, you must decide early on if you’re going to let it cry for some time, or if you’ll promptly carry it in your arms. It all depends on the kind of involvement that you’re ready to have as a parent.
•    It may seem like we’re ascribing powers of judgment to children who are too young for it, but each child constructs her understanding of the world and of herself in accordance with the universe in which it develops. For a child to be calm and stable, she must feel welcome, loved, and accepted from day one. When the child senses rejection from a person in her life, she will respond in tears – her one method of control.

Remember: Your behavior towards the baby is part of an emotional feedback circuit, through which your baby perceives if there’s harmony and equilibrium in your relationship, or if there’s a state of upheaval which must be fixed. In this case, your baby will communicate with you through cries, irritability, and nervousness as beacons for attention.

The parent-child link must be tight and loving for the child to develop a sense of security and trust in its environment. It’s likely that children are born with definite emotional tendencies, but really it is their interaction with their surroundings that will determine whether those behaviors become permanent. Cultivating love in a child’s heart is the parents’ shared responsibility. No child is born spoiled. As a parent, you’re the single most important factor in your child’s emotional growth.