TODDLERS

Your Game Plan 

Most children become less distractible and harder to manage at about eighteen months. This can be a maddening time for parents, or it can be a wonderful time, watching your child blossom into a person in her own right, interacting with the world.  How difficult this phase is depends mostly on the parent's attitude.  Her rebellion will be inversely proportional to the freedom she’s given to do her developmental work.  

How much is he allowed to explore? To set his own pace?  To feel in control of his world?  To discover that he is a competent person?  Much of this depends on the parent.  Are you sensitive to your child's readiness for independence, supporting but not pushing? Can you appreciate your child's bids for independence without taking them as personal insults?  Can you give up some control so your child can develop some sense of mastery over her world?

Your Toddler's Developmental Tasks:
Rapid physical and brain development
Rapid acquisition of vocabulary and verbal rules
Development of Agency (sense of oneself as a powerful, competent person able to act upon the world).

Your Challenge:
Keeping your sanity while your baby grows into her own person.

Your Priorities:
Keeping your child safe.
Giving up some control so he can develop some mastery over his world.
Enjoying her emerging independence and curiosity.

 
What toddlers need from their parents:
1. The validation of her own agency.  She needs to learn that there are things she is in charge of, such as her own body, and she needs to experience herself as competent and powerful.

2. Structure, Limits and Security:  Toddlers are beginning to grasp that it's a big world out there.  Even their own  feelings seem overwhelming to them at times  .They need the reassurance that the parent is in charge and can keep them safe  -- from the world, and from their own big feelings and lack of self control.

3. Help understanding and structuring time so he feels less out of control and pummeled by circumstance ("After lunch it's naptime, and then we'll drive to Grandma's.")  Toddlers need to know what to expect and do better with a definite routine.

4. Your empathy: Look at it from his point of view, and you'll see it makes sense.  Even if you can't do what he wants, it will help him if you can understand and sympathize with his unhappiness.

Gameplan for a Fun Toddlerhood:

1. Let your child be in charge of toilet training.  They all get out of diapers sooner or later. Fights with your child about his or her body are fights you will never win.  Toilet training can actually be empowering for your child, an important step in independence, but it depends how you handle it.  "Potty Break" by Tracey Clark on the MomsRising web site is a great article on this.  If your child shows zero interest in toilet training, find opportunities for him to be around other kids who are using the toilet, and he'll quickly want to emulate them. For more on toilet training, click here.

2. Sidestep power struggles.  You don't have to prove you're right. Your child is trying to assert that he is a real person, with some real power in the world.  That's totally appropriate.  Let him say no whenever you can do so without compromise to safety, health, or other peoples' rights.  You'll be glad to know that since tantrums are an expression of powerlessness, toddlers who feel some control over their lives have many fewer tantrums.

3. Pre-empt tantrums.  First, know that tantrums are normal for kids this age.  Second, since most tantrums happen when kids are hungry or tired, think ahead.  Preemptive feeding and napping, firm bedtimes, enforced rests, cozy times, peaceful quiet time without media stimulation --  whatever  it takes to calm down and rest --  prevent most tantrums, and reground kids who are getting whiny. Learn to just say no  -- to yourself!  Don't squeeze in that last errand.  Don't drag a hungry or tired kid to the store. Make do or do it tomorrow.

4. Try to handle tantrums so they don’t escalate.  If your kid does launch into a tantrum despite your best preventive efforts, remember not to sever the connection.  Stay nearby, even if he won't let you touch him.  He needs to know you're there, and still love him.  Be calm and reassuring.  Don’t try to reason with him. 

Think about what you feel like when you’re swept with exhaustion, rage and hopelessness.  If you do lose it, you want someone else there holding things together, reassuring you and helping you get yourself under control.

He also needs to know that as soon as he's ready, you'll help him recollect himself.  Afterwards, make up.  Take some “cozy time” together.  

Two important points: 

First, make sure that your child gets enough “cozy time” with you that he doesn’t have to tantrum to get it. 

Second, don't give in to the original demand that prompted the tantrum, or you'll be teaching them that tantrums work to help them get their way. Kids need to be reminded when a tantrum is brewing that if they have a tantrum you aren't allowed to even consider their request.  Unless they are really at the end of their rope, this message usually helps them pull it together enough for you to address the situation (i.e., “I guess we can’t do a big shop today.  We’ll just get the milk and bread and go home.  And here’s a cheese stick to eat while we wait in line.”)

5. Don’t take it personally.  Your toddler will at times reject you or be hurtful in some way.  Don’t take it personally.  She’s learning from you how to modulate her anger.  This is your opportunity to grow, and teach her at the same time.

6. Allow time in your schedule for your toddler's need to explore the world.  Rushing toddlers is one of the common triggers of avoidable tantrums.

7. Cultivate empathy for your child.  Social skills start with your empathy.  Kids begin to develop empathy for others (and therefore, the ability to share, not hit, etc.) as they themselves feel understood. 

8. Don't force her to share.  Instead, encourage taking turns.  Let her put her favorite toys away before another child visits.

9. Use age-appropriate discipline.  For toddlers, that means distraction, reasonable limits, redirection. This is where violence starts: Are you unwittingly teaching your kids that might makes right? (If discipline is an issue for you, see Positive Discipline, on this web site.)

10. Be the person you want your child to be. Children learn to interact with others by experiencing relationships, and then they recreate them.  Remember that your toddler is learning both sides of any relationship she’s in.  If you don’t want her to tantrum, don’t lose your temper at her. If you yell at her, you're teaching her by example that tantrums are ok.

11. Eliminate visual electronic media.  I know we’re told that Sesame Street is good for our children, but it creates a watcher, not a doer. It starts an addiction in kids who are prone to it. When they’re a little older, they'll want to watch other TV. And before they’re much older, you'll wonder why they flip on the TV instead of reading a book. Not to mention that you will have stopped being able to monitor what they watch by the time they’re eight.  The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under the age of two not watch TV or videos at all because they have other important developmental work to do and because it impacts brain development.  The AAP recommends that older children watch AT MOST an hour or two per day of nonviolent, educational TV. For more on TV, see the Parents Forum entry on this site, and Why TV Compromises Academics.

12.  Feeding is the toddler’s job.  You provide the healthy food.  She feeds it to herself.  Put a mat under the high chair.   Don’t obsess about how much she eats. Kids don't starve themselves. Many toddlers are too busy during the day to eat enough and ask for food at bedtime.  This can drive a parent around the bend, unless you build a bedtime snack into the schedule – which also often helps kids settle down and sleep better.  You can combine it with the bedtime story if you’re short on time.

13. Forget about stimulating your child's brain by teaching her the alphabet.  The intellectual work of toddlers is about talking and being listened to, observing the world, being accepted, validated and acknowledged. Emotional self-management lays the foundation for intellectual development. It's never too early to develop a love of books, but that doesn’t happen by learning the alphabet.  If you want your child to love reading, then read to her and tell her stories.

14. Pre-empt whining.  Whining is an expression of the child's feeling of powerlessness.  It can become a habit.  To nip whining in the bud, avoid letting your child have opportunities to learn that whining gets her what she wants.  In other words, try to avoid making whining necessary, and if it does happen, try to avoid rewarding it. Click here for more on how to pre-empt whining.

15. Use routines.  Kids develop self discipline partly by living in a safe, predictable structured routine where they know what to expect.  When you disrupt routines with travel,  Grandma’s visit, or simply exceptions for your own convenience, you can expect tantrums, difficulty falling asleep, and other challenges. Grandma, of course, is worth it, but choosing disruptions wisely is part of protective parenting.

16.  Give her the opportunity to experience competence. Toddlers tantrum less and cooperate more when they feel more powerful.  How can you help your toddler feel more powerful?  Three key ways: Listen to her, Let her make decisions whenever possible, and give her the opportunity to experience competence.

Toddlers need daily experience with work to gain confidence in their own capabilities and begin to think of themselves as competent people.  I don’t mean burdensome work, I mean work in the spirit of Maria Montessori, and Tom Sawyer making the other kids think that white-washing the fence was the world’s best game. 

Start with household tasks, not because they can really help you at this point, but because they gain skills for the future, because it's what you are engaged in anyway so you can help them and bond over the task, and because toddlers see these daily tasks as important work, so they take them seriously.  

What kinds of household tasks?  Making themselves a snack, such as peeling fruit or an egg, or slicing soft cheese and making sandwiches with crackers.  Helping wash pots and pans or other unbreakable dishes.  Pairing the socks as you fold clothes.  Picking out fruit at the grocery store.  Washing the table or floor.  These activities are ultimately more educational and satisfying than TV, and lots of kids love them.  The end result?  After completing such a task, the toddler says "I did it!"  and feels like a more capable, powerful person.  (Compare that to how they feel after they watch a TV show.)

Click here for more on helping your child develop Competence.

Back to Toddlers (table of contents)

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Photos:
1- Angela Sevin
2- Crushedredpepper