INSIGHTS into Children's Temperament

INSIGHTS into Children's Temperament is a comprehensive temperament-based intervention for kindergarten and first-grade students, particularly those at risk for academic and behavioral difficulties in low-income urban schools. The program includes three integrated components: teacher sessions, parent sessions, and classroom sessions. Teachers and parents attend 10 two-hour facilitated sessions (one joint session, others separate) where they learn to recognize children's temperament based on four empirically derived typologies (including 'Coretta the Cautious' for shy children), reframe perceptions positively, and select temperament-responsive strategies like the scaffold-and-stretch approach. The classroom component consists of 10 weekly 45-minute lessons delivered to students, using puppets representing the four temperament types, workbooks, flash cards, and videotaped vignettes to teach empathy and problem-solving skills. Students learn to understand their own temperamental strengths and challenges and practice resolving dilemmas. The intervention aims to enhance goodness of fit between children's temperaments and their classroom environments.