Personality and Self in Motivation

I really enjoyed reading chapter 9. I liked it for personal reasons. I enjoy very much reading about genetics, personality, and nature vs. nurture. I kept comparing the readings to myself and my children. I would say, "That's how my son acts" or "This is so me!", or "So that's why my daughter acts that way". As for my son, he is a total "sensation seeker" but not the kind of seeker that likes to ride scary rides or sky diving(who knows, he may be like that when he gets older:). He falls under the umbrella of sensation seekers as "boredom susceptibility"(pg 213). He plays a lot of sports and has many friends. We are always on the go. We spend a lot of our time between sports, at the local rec or at the park, where most of his friends are. He also spends time with my nephew. He is always doing something, so on those rare occasions when we are doing nothing at all, he acts just as chapter 9 states, "Individuals with this factor have a low tolerance for boredom and become restless in such situations."(pg 213) My daughter and I are ok with doing nothing, but he will walk around saying that he is bored about 100 times until someone plays with him. I think "stimuli" is his middle name :)

Now I say to myself, maybe I am the one that helped make him this way. I like taking my kids out and getting them involved and we go on many day or weekend trips and vacations. Have I desensitized my kids to exciting novel stimuli? But then I think about the section of "Temperament, Personality, and Behavior" because my daughter goes just about everywhere with my son and myself and when we have nothing to do all day, she couldn't be happier. She will sit in her room for hours playing with her toys and to my knowledge I have never heard her say that she is bored.

Both of my kid have completely different temperaments and personalities. My son can be thought of as an extravert and my daughter as the introvert, as their personalities help set the mood, other known as "trait-environment correlation"(pg 220). Even though I encourage both of them to play sports and play with other children in the park, they both choose where in the park they want to go and who they will play with and most of the time my daughter will only choose 1 or 2 children or no one at all. My son likes rounding up a group of kids and playing until I say it's time to go home.

I find it fascinating that my kids(as well as all kids) have completely different personalities when I am basically the only one raising them and the one that has the most influence in their lives at this point of our life together. I am very certain that my kids are not who they are strictly do to genetics. Even though all 3 of us are usually together doing the same things, the environment has helped shaped their personality, such as their school, teachers, mentors, and their friends.

Here is a video of identical twins being separted at birth (pg 210 chapter 9)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yTCShemS_0&feature=related

Here are some links about children and personality:

http://www.ehow.com/info_8180903_different-personality-styles-children.html

http://family.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1037/~/can-parents-remake-the-personalities-of-their-children%3F