Each child’s social and emotional development is guided by their family and by the wider community and environment in which they are raised. The culture that the child is raised in will also impact on their upbringing and the way that their family and community interacts with them and develops expectations of them.

However, every child also comes equipped with their own individual temperament that strongly influences the way that they react to the world around them. For parents, this can mean the child-rearing style that they wanted to follow before their child was born is not a good fit with the temperament that their child displays. It can also mean that that a child-rearing style that was developed through the experience of parenting their first child and worked well with that child, does not work as well with subsequent children.

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In May this year, the fifth major revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-V, will be published. The American Psychiatric Association publishes the DSM, setting a common standard and language worldwide for the full range of mental disorders, including autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Classifications in the DSM are determined on the basis of symptoms and the level of impairment that children experience as a result of symptoms. For example, if the child’s symptoms are an impediment to them making friends, that could be considered an impairment.