Dealing with Toddlers

Dealing with toddlers: Hardest challenges to face

Your child is your biggest concern from day one and once your child starts walking and starts learning linguistic skills you have to address all your child’s behavior issues. We must not ignore the sudden change of toddler’s behavior.

It does not matter if you are a parent or a guardian your child is your primary responsibility and you must take care, give time, take all appropriate actions. Your positive actions taken will help your child control his or her emotions, anger, confusion etc. Your positive attitude will create a parental bond with strong emotions for you and will help in the early development stage of your child. The objective is to enable your child to have better control over their emotional behavior.

The child comes to know at the age of two that he or she is different from others and the question in the child’s mind will be how to communicate with people that will be interacting with the child, how to tell the dislikes and likes and what child wants and does not want.

They want to grab older people’s attention at first sight. Toddlers will start learning the native language and will start saying words trying to express their thoughts, what they are interested in or want to eat. It’s the best way to communicate, so they call out loudly for whatever they need.

On the other side they do not understand logic but do have feelings and want to communicate without annoying others. This is the reason why your child says “I don’t want to change diapers” or “let me do it” whenever he or she is not interested.

Handle strong feelings of your child:

At this age they will start having emotional feelings they feel pride, shame, guilt, and sometimes may feel embarrassed too.

• They will be too happy when you give them ice-cream or fluids and if it spills on the floor, they may feel bad about it.
• The child may say no instead of yes when you offer something. Child is learning gradually.
• The child may show anger some time by throwing his favorite toy in anger to show his dislike. You must calm your child, help him and must not react by scolding him. He may start repeating it at intervals so ask him to put things back and then get back to play where it was left.
• Your child will not feel comfortable if you do not let your child wear his/her favorite dress, color or design that your child wants and can refuse to wear.
• Sometimes your child may not know how to put things back in its place and it will result in more frustration and aggression for your child and your child will show his or her anger to help and rectify the situation.
• Your child may talk to himself by giving some explanation that might be right, for example “daddy will come back” to pick me up later, whenever you drop your child to daycare. In other words, if you are playing Legos with your child and you are trying to build a car and it breaks the reaction will be “my dad can rebuild it again” it’s natural reaction.
• If your child comes to know about a doctor’s appointment that will lead to repetition of the appointment again and again for that particular day until it is over.
• While playing with your child may pretend to be upset and react as if not happy to play a game that is going on. In other words, your child wants you to throw the ball back or kick it back to grab and play again.
• Your child will give a say upfront like if somebody is opening the fridge, your child will say no, meaning it’s not allowed. If you come in front while playing in the park, he may ask you by “saying no”.

 

Your child tries to practice self-control:

They will start controlling their sentiments as if they are able to control their emotions. But this skill later on will be eventually mastered once your child starts going to school.

Talking about one’s feelings:

Read him some story he might listen to and in the story the expressions of characters must be pronounced loud, for example “the dog was happy after getting his favorite bone to play with”. show your emotions if you have spilled the milk, simply express your feelings talking about it that you are upset and may also ask your child to help and clean the mess. Once you get the response from your child you must appreciate it. In this way your child will learn to control the emotions. If your child is feeling lonely after grandparents have left you can ask your child to draw the pictures of each one and color it.

Do counselling session with your child:

Do counselling in a polite tone to convey any sorrow, mishaps or if your child gets upset about something that makes your child cranky. You can tell your child every time you cannot see TV if you start behaving foolishly, give options like you can jump on the sofa, play with paper, move around the table, give your child a picture to paint, or use any other approach you think is appropriate. What matters is that you teach your child what is healthy, non-harmful and there are other ways for the right expression.

Show empathy towards your child:

It’s good to tell your child that the child must decide from the given options that matters at the moment. The child may ask to stay home with daddy but we have to tell him it’s not an option daddy cannot stay home all time and he will go to his office. Meanwhile stay home and play with the puzzle, mom is going to cook your favorite meal. Keep your child close to you wherever you go or simply tell us we will have fun together.

Show your child visually attractive things: 

Show your child steam in the bowl rising high. Later ask your child to see if it’s still hot or cold. You can count to ten slowly as you are brushing the teeth of your child. Your child comes to know how long it takes to clean teeth. You can put a timer and ask for five minutes wait so that you can put clothes back in the cupboard. If your child is sharing toys with others this habit of waiting must be practiced to share toys so they can play too.

Your child must have a choice to choose:

Try to give your child two options. If your child likes juice with chips or smoothie with nuggets choose one. These offers will provide a sense of control and will help your child be more confident and get the feeling of ownership and pride. You can play games like answer to it, is it right or wrong so once your child knows the answer, he will react to give his opinion.

Your child must learn to control emotions and must show patience:

This can be learnt by playing games in which you plan on your turn, it will help develop this skill that is ok to wait for your turn. Rolling a ball back and forth. Hitting a soft target when it’s your turn. Sitting with your child and asking to play different music instruments one by one will be helping the child to wait for the turn.

Tags: child grooming, child rearing, children guidance, Health, mental health, parenting

Category: Health