I remember we were having a hard time with one of the girls. It was like nothing we did worked. Every instruction went in one ear and out the other. We were determined to get to the bottom of this. Even her day care had said maybe it had something to do with her hearing.

As soon as we could we organised her to see the nurse and expectantly waited to confirm our suspicions. However the test came back as normal. We struggled with these results and asked them to repeat the test, but there was nothing wrong with her. Her hearing was exceptional.

After joining Whanau Marama Parenting and learning more skills about parenting I became aware of Traits and Temperament. After doing a bit of reading and discussions with Elizabeth I realized there is nothing wrong with my child.

The way the traits and temperament theory works is that we are born with certain inherited characteristics from our parents or other ancestors. One of the trait lines refers to how perceptive or how distracted we tend to be. What this means is that some people are more distracted or less easily distracted by things they see or hear, depending on where on the trait line they are positioned.

Now back to my child. If I send my daughter to her room to get her shoes she will forget on the way and bring back two toys or not even come back at all, staying in her room and playing. What I thought was something wrong was not a problem at all.

As a matter of fact my girl is exactly like her father. I have gone in the shed many times to grab something only to see something else and forget entirely. I realised I was growling my child and thinking something was wrong with her when in reality she was perfectly fine and was just like her dad.