Dr. Stella Chess and her husband Dr. Alexander Thomas spearheaded the classic New York Longitudinal study in the early 1950s to track hundreds of children over a 30-year period to understand the tendencies that babies are born with and how they influence their lives, and from that research they developed the 9 Temperamental Traits.[i]

The traits are:

1. Activity Level: how active is your child most of the time?
2. Distractibility: how easily do outside influences distract your child?
3. Intensity: how much intensity does your child have in her responses?
4. Regularity: does your child vary in her eating or sleeping patterns?
5. Sensory Threshold: how sensitive is your child to physical sensations?
6. Approach/Withdrawal: how does your child respond to strangers?
7. Adaptability: how easily does your child adapt to changes in his day?
8. Persistence: how long will your child work to solve something that is hard?
9. Mood: is your child a glass half empty or half full kind of person?

5 Chess, Dr. Stella, and Dr. Alexander Thomas. TEMPERAMENT: Theory and Practice. Psychology Press, 1996.

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AIn this episode, I talk about Core Values as a strategy to build awareness about who you are and what are the deeply held beliefs that guide your life. Here are a list of Core Values that you can use as a starting point for selecting your 5-7 most powerful Core Value words.

Ability

o   Acceptance

o   Accessibility

o   Accomplishment

o   Accuracy

o   Achievement

o   Adventure

o   Ambition

o   Appreciation

o   Assertive

o   Authenticity

o   Authority

o   Balance

o   Beauty

o   Bold

o   Brave

o   Calm

o   Capable

o   Careful

o   Challenge

o   Charity

o   Collaborative

o   Community

o   Compassion

o   Competency

o   Connection

o   Contribution

o   Cooperation

o   Courage

o   Creativity

o   Curiosity

o   Daring

o   Decisive

o   Dependable

o   Determination

o   Diligence

o   Duty

o   Eagerness

o   Education

o   Efficient

o   Empathetic

o   Encouragement

o   Energy

o   Entrepreneurship

o   Environment

o   Ethical

o   Excellence

o   Fairness

o   Faith

o   Fame

o   Family

o   Fearless

o   Flexible

o   Freedom

o   Friendships

o   Fun

o   Generosity

o   Grace

o   Gratitude

o   Happiness

o   Hard working

o   Helpful

o   Honesty

o   Hopeful

o   Humor

o   Impact

o   Impartial

o   Independent

o   Innovative

o   Inquisitive

o   Inspiring

o   Integrity

o   Intelligent

o   Intuitive

o   Joy

o   Justice

o   Kindness

o   Knowledge

o   Lawful

o   Leadership

o   Learning

o   Listening

o   Logical

o   Love

o   Loyalty

o   Meticulous

o   Mindful

o   Moderate

o   Openness

o   Optimism

o   Order

o   Organized

o   Patient

o   Patriotic

o   Peace

o   Pleasure

o   Persistent

o   Philanthropy

o   Play

o   Positive

o   Practical

o   Prepared

o   Private

o   Productive

o   Professional

o   Realistic

o   Reliable

o   Resilient

o   Resourceful

o   Results-oriented

o   Religion

o   Reputation

o   Respect

o   Responsibility

o   Security

o   Self-Respect

o   Service

o   Spirituality

o   Simplicity

o   Stability

o   Status

o   Success

o   Thoughtful

o   Trustworthiness

o   Truth

o   Understanding

o   Unique

o   Wealth

o   Wisdom

WWonder