Influence of Child Temperament on Behavioral Problems among Preschoolers

Temperament is implicated as a possible precursor to behavior problems. In order to study the influence of temperament on behavioral problems among preschool children, a study was conducted on preschool children of both rural and urban localities of Dharwad district. A multi stage random sampling method was employed where three talukas out of five were randomly selected from Dharwad district and from these selected talukas, two villages each were selected. A total of ten anganwadi's from five villages with 213 children and from six urban anganwadi's from three cities of the selected talukas with 121 children formed the sample. The prevalence of behavioral problems was studied on 334 preschoolers while the influence of temperament on behavioral problems was carried out on a sub sample of 206 children nominated by teachers and peers. The ASEBA Child Behavior Checklist was administered to the class teachers to assess the behavioral problems. The prevalence of behavioral problems revealed that, 47.0 percent of preschoolers were in the borderline and 13.8 percent were in the clinical range while only 39.2 percent were in the normal category for behavioral problems. The children's behavior questionnaire by Putnam and Rothbart (2006) was to measure the child temperament and its dimensions, viz., surgency/extraversion, negative affectivity and effortful control. The results highlighted that, child temperament and its dimensions had no significant association with behavioral problems among rural preschoolers as majority of children in the clinical range were found to be normal on surgency, negative affect and effortful control. Among the rural preschoolers, surgency was found to be a contributing factor in predicting the behavioral problems while among urban preschoolers, both surgency and negative affect predicted the behavioral problems. Hence, to manage the temperamental effects among preschool children, primary health care professionals and school counselors may collaborate with parents using behavior modification techniques and different therapies.