FOCUS ON THE FAMILY
Vacations tempt children to re-examine boundaries
By Dr. James Dobson
UESTION: Why is it that children are often the

Dr. Dobson

most obnoxious and irritating

on vacations and

Q

at other times when parents specifically try to please them? On those special days, you'd think the kids would say to themselves, "Wow! Mom and Dad are doing something really nice for us, taking us on this great vacation. We're going to give them a break and be really good kids today." Isn't that reasonable?

DR. DOBSON: Sure it's reasonable, but children just don't think that way. In fact, many boys and girls misbehave even more at these times. Why is this? One reason, I think, is because children

often feel compelled to re-examine

the boundaries whenever they

Pray for our nation to seek God

And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people. Matthew 4:23 Pd. Adv. think they have moved. In other words, whenever the normal routine changes, the tougher kids often push the limits to see if the old rules still apply.

QUESTION: So how can parents preserve their own peace of mind and maintain harmony during car trips and family holidays?

DR. DOBSON: Sometimes it helps to redefine the boundaries at the beginning of your time together. Let the children know exactly what you're doing and what's expected of them. If they still misbehave, respond with good, loving discipline right from the start.

No parent wants to be an ogre on vacation, but it helps to show a little firmness at the outset that can make the rest of the time together fun for the entire family.

QUESTION: What does research tell us about the personalities of newborns?

DR. DOBSON: One of the most ambitious studies yet conducted took a period of three decades to complete. That investigation is known in professional literature as the New York Longitudinal Study. The findings from this investigation, led by psychiatrists Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas, were reported in their excellent book for parents, "Know Your Child."

Chess and Thomas found that babies not only differ significantly from one another at the moment of birth, but those differences tend to be rather persistent throughout childhood. Even more interestingly, they observed three broad categories or patterns of temperaments into which the majority of children can be classified.

First they referred to "the difficult child," who is characterized by negative reactions to people, intense mood swings, irregular sleep patterns and feeding schedules, frequent periods of crying and violent tantrums when frustrated.

Does that sound familiar? I described those individuals many years ago as "strong-willed" children.

The second pattern is called "the easy child," who manifests a positive approach to people, quiet adaptability to new situations, regular sleep patterns and feeding schedules, and a willingness to accept the rules of the game. The authors concluded, "Such a youngster is usually a joy to his or her parents, pediatrician and teachers." My term for the easy child is "compliant."

The third category was given the title "slow-to-warm-up" or "shy." These youngsters respond negatively to new situations and they adapt slowly. However, they are less intense than difficult children are and they tend to have regular sleeping and feeding schedules. When they are upset or frustrated, they typically withdraw from the situation and react mildly, rather than exploding with anger and rebellion.

Not every child fits into one of these categories, of course, but approximately 65 percent do. Drs. Chess and Thomas also emphasized that babies are fully human at birth, being able immediately to relate to their parents and learning from their environments. I doubt if that news will come as a surprise to most mothers, who never believed in the "blank slate" theory, anyway.

It should not be difficult to understand why these findings from longitudinal research have been exciting to me. They confirm my own clinical observations, not only about the wonderful complexity of human beings, but also about the categories of temperament identified by Drs. Chess and Thomas.

Send your questions to Dr. Dobson, c/o Focus on the Family, PO Box 444, Colorado Springs, CO 80903; or to his Web site at www.fotf.org. These questions and answers are excerpted from books authored by Dr. James Dobson and published by Tyndale House Publishers. Dr. Dobson is the founder and chairman of the board of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of the home and Judeo-Christian values. Copyright 1997 James Dobson, Inc. All rights reserved. International copy secured.