How understanding temperament improves parenting

Psychologist Fay Van Der Kay-Levinson, PhD, explains how understanding your child's type of temperament can help you to become a better parent
How To Improve Parenting By Understanding Child's Temperament
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How understanding temperament improves parenting

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Understanding your child's temperament is key to your child's development on many levels. Number one, if you understand temperament, you do not have to turn a natural characteristic into something that is wrong with your child, or wrong with your parenting. So, for example, if your child is very active and your style is very passive, it just means that you're at opposite ends of the temperamental scale. It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with your parenting style or anything wrong with your child, and you can learn to accommodate that. It's key to understand temperamental style, because that is the way that children understand that their parents love them. And, of course, it's lovely as a parent to hug your child, to kiss your child and to say, "I love you." Yet when 9 and 12-year-olds were interviewed and asked, "How do you know your parents love you?" Their answer was a version of, "They get me. They understand me." And that means those parents understood the temperamental style and honored it.

Psychologist Fay Van Der Kay-Levinson, PhD, explains how understanding your child's type of temperament can help you to become a better parent

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Fay Van Der Kar-Levinson, PhD

Psychologist

For more than 30 years, Dr. Van Der Kar-Levinson has helped parents to navigate the maze known as parenting. She acts as both a guide and a resource for parents as they deal with the joys and challenges of raising children.

Dr. Van Der Kar-Levinson’s passion is to help parents to help their children thrive at each stage of development. She works to identify each child’s unique temperament and learning style in order to create and implement effective behavior strategies. Dr. Van Der Kar-Levinson is an expert at helping families deal with life changes such as birth of siblings, changing schools, divorce, and death.

Dr. Van Der Kar-Levinson also guides parents through the process of determining the best school for their children, and has co-authored two books on that topic, Choosing the Right School for Your Child and Secrets to School Success.   

For the past three decades Dr. Van Der Kar-Levinson has lectured and consulted at private as well as public schools. She has served as an adjunct professor at both the University of California at Los Angeles and Pepperdine University.

Dr. Van Der Kar-Levinson earned her PhD and MA at the University of California at Los Angeles where she studied and trained with some of the nation’s top researchers and clinicians in the fields of child development and clinical psychology. She is a lifetime member of the American Psychological Association.

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