In my previous blog post about temperament, I talked about how a child’s temperament can impact the bonding process between children and their parents.  My intent was to reassure parents who sometimes have difficulty soothing their children, to give a framework to understand why, and thereby make some changes.

I received a response from a troubled reader: Even colicky babies, she wrote, bond to their parents.  Don’t they?

It made me realize that I need to clarify what I was saying.  I wasn’t talking about the absence of an emotional bond, but that some children are easier to soothe than others.  And sometimes, there is a mismatch between parent and child temperament that needs to be addressed in some way so that it doesn’t negatively impact bonding.

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