It has happened to all of us before. We walk into a family gathering and rather than saying hello, our child darts the other way and tries to hide behind us. This can make us feel self conscious. To make things trickier, the more we want our child to engage, the more they burrow into our legs. This is temperament at work. Temperament is a child’s inborn way of approaching the world — the “why” that explains the meaning of her behavior.