Motivating your phlegmatic child (and yourself?)

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File:Thomas Couture - Daydreams - Walters 3744.jpg
Daydreams by Thomas Couture (Wikimedia Commons).
After I wrote a post with tips for your choleric child, a readers asked if I would write one for phlegmatics as well. I’ve been thinking hard about how to motivate phlegmatics, as I work with C, age 8, who is phlegmatic/sanguine. Since I am phlegmatic/melancholic, I have also looked closely at what works for me.

In reading Fr. Conrad Hock’s book about the four temperaments, I was disappointed by his treatment of phlegmatics. He takes about two pages with each of the other three temperaments, but his main section about phlegmatics says only this:

The training of phlegmatic children is very difficult, because external influence has little effect upon them and internal personal motives are lacking. .....
Not very encouraging for parents, is it?
Continue reading at Contemplative Homeschool.

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