As a young child, I was sensitive, timid, and above all--obedient. I attended Saint Patrick' s School--a brick edifice across from my house with a huge parking lot for a playground. I remember clearly one afternoon in early spring when the children were all outside for recess. The temperature, having started out in the upper 60s, had climbed to near 80. All the children removed their sweaters and hung them over the chain link fence that bordered the playground. All that is, except for me. "Go ahead and take your sweater off, Sandra," Sister Margaret Mary urged as she watched me run by with flushed face. "Oh, no, I can't," I said, as I stopped to face her. "I don't have permission from my mother."

Lest you think that my mother was a tyrant who ruled my life with threats of dire actions should I waver from her commands, let me tell you that my mother was, and is, one of the meekest individuals ever to traverse this earth. But if I was sent to school with a sweater on, I did not take that sweater off when I went outside to play. I was simply wired that way. I remember consciously trying to figure out just what it was that was expected of me so that I could comply on every point.

The challenge, for my parents, was to work with this overly-sensitive, extremely vulnerable, compliant individual to encourage independent thinking, a tougher skin, and inner strength.

I went into motherhood expecting my children to be wired the same way I was as a child. Shy, fearful, compliant, obedient. I began to realize, the first time my two-year-old followed the mailman to every house for two city blocks, that possibly my expectations were not matched to reality. My thoughts were confirmed when I took my son to the beach and he took one look at me and began running for the far pier.

I wised up by the time I had my second child. Pushing his stroller confidently into the mall, I had his older brother attached to my wrist by means of a telephone cord velcroed to my wrist--hailed on the package as the answer to all of a mother's problems. By the end of the excursion I have been roped around two poles, a family of five, and a very irate police officer.

My challenge, in parenting my older child, is to work with a fiercely independent, outgoing, emotionally-charged child and encourage him to slow down, think things through, consider the consequences. In working with his brother, my challenge is to switch gears, remember that the person underneath the tough exterior is more fearful of new places, uncomfortable in crowds, craves routine.

Children. Each one is different. Each one is unique. What works for one does not work for another. There is no magic formula that can be applied carte blanche to each child for guaranteed results.

The job of parenting can be exhausting and challenging, particularly when the child you are raising is not naturally compliant. After writing an article on children with hyperactivity, I was shocked to receive more than 200 letters from mothers, fathers, and grandmothers pouring out their hearts to me. The letters were postmarked from all over the United States, as well as Sweden, Israel, the Philippines, England, Australia, Trinidad, and China! Listen to these words straight from the heart:

"By the time our third child was two years old, people were berating me for not 'controlling him, doctors (who saw him for just a few minutes) were telling my husband and me that he would 'grow out of this stage' or that we needed 'parent effectiveness training.' Our pastor laughed over his antics while I cried my heart out. (Looking back, some of the things he did were rather funny--if you didn't have to deal with 20 'disasters' a day.) By the time he was four, I felt like a total failure as his mother and was exhausted. He never even slept for more than 2 hours at a time (night or day) until he was five years old. . . . But our son's is a story of hope and victory. He is now a freshman in college and doing well. Are his problems all solved? No. But one thing we've learned through the years is lots of prayer and patience work wonders."

"I am a single parent who has struggled with my daughter from the day she was born. During her elementary school years, the school did not detect that J. had a learning problem. They labeled her through the years as a hopeless case, disobedient, lazy, and unmotivated. No child wants to feel inadequate. In her attempt to move on with the rest of the class, there was much pain, anger, and frustration. Expelled from the last school, she stayed home for about a month before I found a school where she was able to progress."

"My son has always had a problem with his temper. Recently, in the middle of one of his tantrums, I couldn't help but think--'How can he talk back like that? Where have I gone wrong?' Oh, the words that can flow out of his mouth--words that my husband and I may have thought toward our parents, but wouldn't have dared say--they pour out of S., despite almost 7 years of loving, conscientious parenting and clear, repetitive teaching about honoring and respecting us and God. All we can do is keep plodding on, keep putting it in, and hope for results over the long haul."

"My husband and I adopted nine preschool children over the past five years. [She actually enclosed a picture of all nine of them lined up on the porch to prove it!!} My son K., whose name means enthusiasm, is the personification of it, only in fast forward!! He has been running in wild, whooping circles ever since he learned to put one foot in front of the other!!"

"My son has a super high energy level and super low frustration threshold. The combination makes it hard for him to maintain friendships for very long. I've carried a burden around for so long about my son. It seems that we aren't invited to birthday parties and other events that some of the church families put on. He has seen them (and heard them) plan for events, and this has really hurt his already low self-worth. My heart goes out to him. . . "

Did you know that some children are more difficult to raise than others? Did you know that if you've been following the rules and not getting the same answers as everybody else, it's not because you've been failing, doing something wrong?

We have a way, as parents, of comparing ourselves and our children with others. It's almost as if we assume that we've all been given a comparable lump of clay to mold, and some of us are more expert craftsmen than others.

Let me tell you about a study.

In 1956, Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas began conducting the New York Longitudinal Study. Beginning with a sample of 133 children, they followed them into their early adult life. They conducted interviews with mothers, fathers, teachers, and the children themselves. They observed the children through the years. They had impartial researchers gather data. And they found some very fascinating things.

First and foremost, they found that babies are different--right from the start. In fact, they found nine different ways in which children typically differ.

Did you ever have another parent say to you, "All I did with my baby was close the door when she cried. She knew who was boss right from the start. . .?" The assumption of such a statement is that all children have the same make-up; all respond to a situation in the same way. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth!! We all have our own unique ways of interacting with our environment. Our challenge, as parents, is to work with the children God has given us. He never asks us to make a Peter into a John!!

If each child comes into the world with a set of "givens", then what is our responsibility as parents? As one parent put it, it's not that we have a lump of clay to mold--we need to find out what kind of a tree God has given us and then learn to prune it accordingly!!

DIFFERENCES IN TEMPERAMENT ARE BIOLOGICALLY DETERMINED. A CHILD'S PERSONALITY IS INFLUENCED BY THESE "GIVENS" AND HOW THEY INTERACT WITH THE OPPORTUNITIES, DEMANDS, AND EXPECTATIONS OF HIS ENVIRONMENT.