You see classic examples of this on House of Tiny Tearaways. Children with major food phobias, really stressed about eating, who are much better when the parent or parents are not around them. Really amazing to watch how the stress of the parent really influences their child's behaviour. Often the expert of the show has to deal with issues with the parents in order to deal with the problems in the child.

In my personal experience I have generally found the parent has major influence on how calm the child is. Saying that though I am aware that it is not always the case. As for my situation, I so not have a calm child, people do comment that she is happy, but she is hard to handle. I am certainly not a calm person, I do stress and think about things too much.