difficult child

We now understand, thanks to work by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D. and a host of other researchers, that temperament of humans - the basic themes of how they react to their environment and the people around them - is a genetically determined, fixed trait. Levels of activity/passivity, irritability, and emotional reactivity or "lability" are just a few of the basic personality traits of humans that 1) make each of us a different person and 2) are demonstrably innate features that are lifelong.

If you have one (I do) then you know what I am talking about: the child who is temperamentally difficult to deal with from early in infancy and right through childhood - innately different from his sibs and other children in general. The one people say at the preschool "Why, we've never seen a child like this!" Stanley Turecki, M.D. is a child psychologist whose own experience with a very difficult daughter led him to study and reflect deeply on the innate temperament issues that make parenting difficult children such a trial. If you have a difficult child - find and read his book.

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