Can you identify your temperament? How about your child’s temperament?
During Professional Development Day on February 20th, we dug into the social-emotional development of a child in relation to temperament, taught by Jen Rothmeyer of Two Wishes Training. The day was dedicated to becoming insightful and knowledgeable educators on our journey of fulfilling our mission to “put good humans into the world and leave the world better than we found it.”
We are excited to share a few gems of information with you from professional development that we think are relevant to parents as well as educators!
Temperament & the Child
Temperament refers to the way we explore and react to the world; it is present from birth. Experts say there are three broad categories of temperaments: easy going, slow-to-warm, and active (previously called “spirited” or even “difficult”). During professional development, instructor Jen emphasized that all temperaments have traits that are positive. There is not one temperament or trait that is always negative or always positive. Respecting the child means respecting how they are wired!
In a classroom, and at home, it’s important to not just understand how your child is wired, but how you are wired, as lack of compatibility between temperaments can cause misunderstanding and friction. To reach compatibility you do not have to change your temperament, but you can parent, teach and guide with understanding and respect. It is “smart parenting” and “smart teaching”! For example, if you know your child is of an active temperament, you understand that it is unrealistic to ask them to sit still for extended periods of time. And so, you might bring a variety of activities to engage them during times where waiting is mandatory. If you have a slow-to-warm child, you take extra time to prepare them for transitions, and give confidence and patience when they struggle.
If you are a parent of multiple children, it’s also important to identify if your attention is equally distributed amongst all your children. Often, the easy-going personality types are overlooked in a classroom and at home, overshadowed by the slow-to-warm and active personality types that naturally demand more attention. It’s important to be intentionally about spending time with your easy-going personality child or student!
If you want to dig into this a little more, there’s a quiz you can take here!
Leading Yourself Well
Another session, led by instructor Tom Wood of Hinge Consultants, delved into becoming leaders – and the first person you lead is yourself! We learned 10 tips to lead ourselves well, including: thinking ahead, starting your day off right, staying away from unnecessary conflict, staying organized, taking care of yourself, looking at your day as a sprint (not a marathon), doing things for others, connecting with others, learning new things, and being grateful.
Tom also asked us a few key questions:
- What do you want “this” to look like in five years? What about ten years?
- What do you need to do differently NOW to get where you want to be THEN?
- What condition do you want to be in ten years from now? Choose today the lifestyle you need in order to make that happen!
- Who do you need to connect with today (life is a team sport)?
What are you thankful for personally and professionally?
Digging into More Learning
Last weekend we also went through training on:
- Classroom environment and management
- Health and safety policies
- Emergency procedures
- Abusive Head Trauma and Sudden Unexpected Infant Death Syndrome training
- Mandated reporter training
- Communication and customer service
- And we had guests from three area universities and colleges share about continuing education and scholarship opportunities!
It was so fun to collaborate on this event with our sister schools: Yellow Brick Road Early Childhood Development Centers & Seeds to Seedlings!
Here’s a video recap of Professional Development Day!
