Children in the age group 5-12 year are no more toddlers. They grow into individuals in their own right and start asserting their separate unique personalities.

Now they can express themselves with more clarity than before and have developed their own opinions over things, be it food or what programs to watch on TV. Yet they are still pretty young and need your supervision, support and help in developing them into independent mature adults.

At this stage, some distinct trait which is unique to each child manifests itself as inherent part of the child's separate individuality. Some children tend to be very sociable and they mix and mingle with others. There are some others who grow out to be pretty stubborn and some into lonely and sensitive beings. Some kids can grow out to be very argumentative and some start throwing tantrums at the drop of a hat.

Your response to the children should be in relation to the basic traits that they show.

Some children throw tantrums, or start screaming when their wish is not fulfilled. This is often the result of over pampering on the part of the parents. The power balance within the house has somehow gone askew and the child knows exactly what to do to get his way. Therefore it is time now to remedy the earlier mistakes and be firm with the child by not giving in to his/her tantrums. The child should know that he can't get his way by throwing a fit.

On the other hand, a child may grow into a tantrum child if you deny every wish of him. If child wants to play and you force him to sleep, if child is not hungry and you want him to eat, the child may start protesting by going wild with rage, throwing things at you or round the house or wail at the top of his lungs. The older children may have different way of showing their rage.

You have to understand that you should not deny children their natural impulses too much and let them flow with their inner instincts to play, be alone, to read, to sleep, to eat. This is the time when children can follow their impulses exactly the way they like, they can chases their whims and fancies and this is part of their self discovery too, so it is not a good idea to stop them from doing what they want if it is not too harmful or totally wrong.

Nail biting, breaking things, biting into other people's flesh, tearing things apart are some signs of anger in children. As parents you need to talk to children and find out the reason and then with love and care you can slowly weed out the reason.

Shweta as a 7 year old girl turned out to be very lonely. She was once snubbed by an older girl and from that day Shweta withdrew into her own shell. It affected her so much. Shweta is an over sensitive or lonely types. Her mother Kalindi had the good sense to help Shweta overcome this problem by talking to her, by inviting her friends to the house and very soon Shweta made few friends and started playing with them every evening.

If your child is growing into a lonely kind, work towards building his confidence; show him ways to make friends with other kids. Speak to his teacher or a counselor. However you should not be too quick in judging the loneliness. It may just be that he/she is that kind of person who likes to spend time alone, muse over things and do activities like reading or drawing. Being alone is not necessarily a sign of loneliness.

Yet you both as parents can show him how to make friends. You can invite some of his friends over lunch or be more creative and think of a theme to invite other children over …for example doing some crafts together, or playing with clay or cooking a breakfast.

Some children are restless and can't concentrate at all on one thing, be it study or anything else. Some children grow into crying types. You need to deal with every situation with love and care and take other family members, teachers, and other parents' help in dealing with it.

Children also tend to be whiney, weepy, fussy, and aggressive. Some kids may have inferiority complex. Analyze the main trait in your child and if you think it is not desirable or is negative, try and change it without making the child feel that something is wrong with her/him.

In all situations, praise the children for their right behavior and without snubbing or slighting them curtail their wrong behavior. This is the most critical phase of their lives and the best times to instill right values in them.

There are some serious behavioral traits that need to be dealt with intelligently. Some children turn out to be truants, for example they may start skipping the schools, lying or stealing. All these need to be tackled with extra sensitivity by going deeper into the cause of it.

On the whole you see to it that corners in your child's personality are smoothed so that your child develops in body, mind and spirit.