Celebrating our Feisty and Gentle Students
There are times when groups of kids are simply really hard work, right?
Sometimes you get a class that is particularly challenging (Other times, you get one that’s particularly easy) and often it’s largely influenced by the personality dynamics in the group.
These dynamics have so much to do with temperament. I like to think of temperament as a spectrum or continuum, with ‘roosters’ at one end and ‘lambs’ at the other…let me explain.
A classroom with lots of roosters in it can be exhausting, both physically and emotionally. As educators, we need to be mindful that these strong, feisty kids can be yearning to have more power and influence and often feel they have a strong sense of their own importance. They like to rule the chook yard!
At the other end of the temperament continuum, are our lambs. Gentle, often caring lambs, are generally quieter children, more accommodating and content with life. They make their parents and teachers look like we’re doing a fantastic job.
I often say to parents that their role is to help put a little bit of lamb into their rooster and a bit of rooster into their lamb. As in most areas of life, balance is the goal.
As key influencers in our students’ lives, it’s hugely helpful if we, too, can better understand the traits associated with various temperaments and how we can work with those traits to get the best out of our students.
Roosters
If most nights you collapse on your couch from exhaustion because of the high energy levels of the students in your care, you most likely have some roosters in your class.
Typical roosters tend to (be):
- independent.
- stubborn.
- argumentative.
- selfish.
- power-driven.
- self-important.
- dislike sharing.
- impatient and impulsive.
- fast learners.
- energetic.
- entertaining.
- adventurous.Roosters have a powerful character and can be highly spirited. They’re not better or worse than lambs; they’re just different. It is good to give them small opportunities to develop autonomy and independence, perhaps allowing them to be your ‘special helper’ to feel important and valued.
The challenge for the children with rooster tendencies is the need for parents and educators to invest time and energy to build the ‘caring’ traits of emotional awareness, empathy and understanding before age five or their children will tend to be dominant, bossy or even a bully. This can cause problems when building friendships.
Rooster children often love challenge, change and adventure. They can get excited when these opportunities occur and can get frustrated if they others struggle with the same opportunities. Give them plenty of opportunities to diffuse energy — especially in nature — whether that be through movement doing sport, exploring, bike riding or even in creative pursuits such as dance or music.
One frustrating trait of roosters is that they tend to question the choices made by parents and educators — and they question it often. If you can, bear in mind that this questioning is not because this student wants to frustrate you, but rather because they are seeking clarification of the choice you are making on their behalf. This can cause angst, especially if we have an expectation that children are meant to do as they are told and not question our authority as an adult.
Ironically, if we want our students to grow up, value themselves and their choices and to encourage self-assertiveness, we need to value and respect their needs and wishes by truly hearing them.
Lambs
Some of the characteristics of sensitive lambs are that they:
are sensitive to discipline. • tire easily.
• distress easily.
• dislike loud noises.• like solo time.
• often withdraw.
• tend to be shy.
• struggle with large social situations. • are patient.
• prefer routines.
• are easy going.Lambs can often be ‘slow to warm,’ so even with people they know they can take a while to be comfortable interacting. Forcing children to connect or interact before they have ‘warmed up’ can be quite stressful and often make them more fearful. The same goes for shy children. Slowly build confidence by respecting their sensitive nature.
As lambs often lack personal courage and confidence, it is important for those who live with or work with them to help build these emotional competences while they are little.
Lambs often need extra time building comforting patterns and attachment, and are particularly susceptible to social dislocation like new staff, changes to routines and even extremes of weather! Encouraging our lambs to take risks in their play and learning while ensuring they have opportunities to build their capacity to be assertive and capable socially, can really help lambs become stronger and more resilient.It is best to avoid forcing a lamb to do something they are reluctant to do. Be mindful lambs are not necessarily weaker than roosters – they just prefer not to be the centre of attention. They can be just as stubborn as a rooster student!
Often children born with a lamb temperament have the deep- seated desire to help others, whether they are animals or people. They have a natural degree of empathy from an early age and can sometimes become worried when things happen, even across the world. They can be often helpers in class, which can be a really positive thing.
It’s good to be mindful of their sensitive nature when you’re covering challenging or frightening content in your lessons. Importantly, you can affirm and encourage the caring side of their nature while teaching them to be careful not to be manipulated or used by others.
A Delicate Balance
All children, regardless of temperament, need a strong, loving connection with their parents and key caregivers to ensure they can bloom and develop a strong sense of their own identity. A good teacher always puts relationship first.
In my classrooms, I found a few techniques very helpful in building relationships, a sense of classroom safety and connection, and giving roosters and lambs each a chance to shine.
One of the ways I did that was having structured, paired sharing opportunities – a technique I learned from Jack Canfield when I trained with him in 1998.This is where students pair up and take turns to share information on a particular topic such as what their favourite place is, most embarrassing moment, things they hate doing, places they’d love to see, etc.
With a time limit, each person takes their turn to speak so lambs get a chance to talk while roosters listen, and vice versa.
Jenny Mosley’s, ‘Circle Time,’ was also really useful with the larger group and gave all the students a chance to be heard. This is a structured opportunity for the whole class to think, speak and listen – and is often used to work through an issue in class.
It encourages listening, looking, speaking, concentrating, thinking, turn-taking and respect, and it can certainly build empathy and cooperation as students get to hear each other’s perspectives. Again, roosters need to learn to sit quietly and listen as others take turns in talking about an issue, and lambs are encouraged to be brave and have the space to share their feelings and views with their classmates if they wish.
We can work with temperament to our students’ advantage, provided we consider it as a factor when working with children and young people – and knowing that it is never a completely fixed or final destination.
It is also useful for us as educators to access our own rooster and lamb traits as we need them, so we can build empathy and better understand the diversity of the precious students whom we teach and influence every day.