This article outlines advances in developmental and differential psychology that may help understand how the child personality (a) is organized, (b) changes throughout development, and (c) might be assessed in clinical settings. Three major sections structure the paper. First, we present the integrative model proposed by McAdams and Pals (2006) that delineates three critical ingredients of personality: the " dispositional signature " (which mainly corresponds to the Big Five traits), characteristic adaptations (i.e. socio-cognitive mechanisms that influence the way children understand events and cope with difficulties), and narrative identity (i.e. self-defining life narratives). Second, we examine the developmental literature indicating that children's personality is shaped by multiple forces (from temperament to familial experiences) interacting over time within transactional mechanisms. This literature also demonstrates that children's personality, once under construction, becomes itself a driving force that orients developmental pathways. Third, we envisage how this theoretical framework could inspire a comprehensive assessment strategy in order to (a) integrate information from multiple sources and (b) guide educational and therapeutic intervention strategies.