- How to survive while parenting a toddler?
How did we survive while parenting...
What is a toddler?
Am I a toddler?
- Is it from the time they toddle?
- I think that's how you know, once the toddling has begun.
- And we all know about the terrible twos
and then there's the threenager stage.
And then when they are teenagers,
they kind of go back to some toddler behavior,
but we're not talking about that yet.
- I'm scared, Mended Light.
(upbeat music)
All right, so how did we...
We've done this five times together.
- Five times.
- How did we
pull this off? - How did we survive?
Okay, so here's the thing, right?
Like we've talked about in a lot of our videos,
you have these different personalities
melding together to become a beautiful family.
And what's going on developmentally for a toddler
is they are moving out of baby stage
and they're recognizing like,
"Oh, there's a world around me.
There's people around me.
And how do I show up?
And how do I interact?
And what are my boundaries," right?
- Well, in developmentally, I have thoughts.
I can assert myself.
I have wants. - Right.
- And when I'm an infant,
everyone exists just to cater to my thoughts and whims
because they don't want me to shriek.
- Right. - And because they wanted to-
- Well, there is no cognitive
- Right. - functioning.
- So you, as an adult,
you just have to take care of an infant
and do whatever they want - Right.
- because there's no telling them, "Hey..."
There's no reasoning with an infant.
With a toddler, you start to get
a little bit of cognitive ability
where you can start to draw boundaries
because there's understanding there,
- Right. - there's language there
that they can grasp.
And they don't like it.
- Well, I wouldn't go as far to say they don't like it.
- I would. (both laughs)
- But they are expressing their needs and wants
and figuring out where the boundaries are
in their life, right?
Their personalities are very much so showing.
- Yeah. - And they're off-
- Quick disclaimer,
all five of our children have very strong personalities.
A lot of you watching, that is the case.
If you have a child who is more meek and submissive,
that must be nice.
We can't speak from that area of experience.
We can only speak for people who showed up very opinionated
and very strong willed and wanting to tell us how high.
I didn't mean to... - No, no, yeah, no.
- I didn't mean to interrupt you
but I did need to clarify - We got stories.
- this is where we're coming from.
- Yeah, so couple toddler stories
because why not, story time,
to give you an understanding of personality types, right?
And I would say like, we're decent parents,
right? - Yeah.
- Pretty well aware of our own development
- Well, and we self- - and children's needs.
- We try to self-correct. - Right, right.
So decent parents, right? - Yeah.
- So my oldest son, at 18 months old,
he was walking and talking, full sentences, conversations.
He climbed out of his crib and went out the front door
and walked three doors up to his friend's house
because what 18-month-old doesn't take themselves
to their friend's house?
Yes, he knew exactly where his friend's house is.
(Jonathan laughs)
Same child, a month later, I walk into the kitchen
and he's making himself toast.
And to his credit, he didn't really make a mess.
(Jonathan laughs) And this wasn't even like
with a pop-up toaster,
it was a toaster oven where you pulled down the handle
and you put the toast in and then you start it
and then you take it out.
And he was happily eating his toast,
and I'm like, "He's going to survive.
This is going to be okay." - Yeah.
- But at the same time, he thought he was an adult.
He didn't see himself as a child.
He literally saw himself as a-
- He did not appreciate adults giving him rules
or boundaries - Yeah.
- or expectations...
- As a peer. - Yeah.
Well, he expected to be treated as a peer, yeah.
- He expected to be treated as a peer,
that's the way he saw himself.
And so meeting your child wherever they're at
with their personality and their needs
while balancing the needs of the other members
of the family, and even yourself as a parent, right?
Because I think generationally,
go back a couple generations
and the perspective was children should be seen
and not heard, right? - Uh-hmm.
- Children were expected to fit into an adults world
and they had no autonomy
and they were seen as a possession.
- Yeah. - And I feel like
the pendulum, overall, has swung too far to the other side
where it's all about the child,
it's all about their needs.
If two adults are having a conversation
and a child walks in the room,
then the focus then becomes the child.
- Well, and I think, by and large,
we underestimate the intelligence of children
and what they're capable of. - Yeah.
- And so we don't expect them to be considerate
of the needs of the other people.
And yes, I mean, the fact is, developmentally,
they are learning that they haven't learned it yet,
but this is where they learn it,
otherwise they learn entitlement.
- Yeah, so in that toddler stage
is where they're beginning to learn like,
"Oh, there's a world outside of just me.
- Yeah. - And how do I fit
into that world?
- Well, and the reason it's so hard,
the reason we're talking about how to survive
parenting toddlers is because toddlers are all...
They're all emotion.
They're all drive.
They're all what they want.
They're all their urges, their basic instincts.
And they see you as the person
who's responsible for - Yeah.
- taking care of that
because they can't do it themselves.
"I need a sandwich," right?
"I want to go see my friends.
I wanna watch a movie."
Now, you're the one who makes it happen.
And what makes it exhausting
is they haven't learned consideration.
They haven't learned selflessness.
They haven't learned patience.
And so they just come at you with everything
and it is exhausting.
And then when you have plural children,
it gets even more exhausting because then they're competing,
and they're all demanding.
And they're all putting their own needs first.
And it's not because they're terrible,
it's because they haven't learned differently.
And it is our responsibility to teach them.
And that's also exhausting because there's pushback.
- And the days are long, but the years are short, right,
that old saying.
And so here's my advice having survived five toddlers,
multiple toddlers at the same time,
almost always having a baby and a toddler.
Sometimes, two toddlers.
When the youngest was born, I had a newborn,
a one-year-old, a three-year-old,
a five-year-old, and a nine-year-old
and we were running a business.
That was fun.
- That was not fun.
- It's not fun.
- That was... (laughs) - It wasn't fun.
- Those were rough years. (Alicia laughs)
Those were rough years.
- Those are really, really rough years.
But you know what?
There's a light at the end of the tunnel
because someday they cloth themselves
and they feed themselves
and they take themselves to the bathroom and there's hope.
- And now, they're doing dishes
- There's hope again.
- and they're taking out garbage
and they're...
And when you say the days are long, but the years are short,
that's something that has to be considered
when raising toddlers.
It's gonna feel sometimes like nothing's changing,
and it's gonna feel sometimes
like nothing's getting better, quote, unquote.
And that you're just as exhausted as you ever were.
And that's because you're too zoomed in.
Like if you're looking at it day to day,
the change happens so gradually that it feels...
It could feel hopeless sometimes.
You have to pull back
and see where you are compared to where you were
a year ago, - Yeah.
- two years ago.
- But I am not here to say to you,
"Cherish these moments, you're going to miss them."
(Jonathan laughing)
- I'm sorry.
I'm just thinking of how everyone says that to you.
And you're like, "Yeah, we'll see." (laughs)
- I've never missed them.
Haven't missed them yet.
I love watching videos of when they were littler,
but I don't ever wanna go back.
Here's some guidelines to surviving toddlers.
It's important to realize who you are
and what you value
and I don't mean that in some existential way.
We have this image of motherhood, right?
And then even being the perfect mother and the homemaker
and doing all the things and making all the things,
and the Pinterest birthday parties in the Pinterest house.
And that's what being a perfect mother is
and always being patient.
Just don't.
Just don't put those kind of expectations on yourself,
recognize who you are and what it is you value.
I do not value nurturing little people,
that does not fulfill me.
It will not ever fulfill me.
It didn't fulfill me for 10 years.
- No. - And so you need to-
- You love your kids,
- I love my children.
- but it was never your life ambition to be,
"I wanna be a nurturing mother and now I'm happy."
- Yeah, and so I value accomplishment.
I value getting things done.
I value creating things that are meaningful
and children are meaningful.
And I did create them,
but that's different. - But accomplishment
in getting things done,
like children are the antithesis of that.
They will... (laughs)
- Absolutely, children are the absolute antithesis of that
and especially, babies and toddlers, right?
So that was a huge growth opportunity for me.
But I also needed to make space in my life for my myself,
- Yep. - right?
And so recognizing what it is you need in your life
to balance parenthood at that stage, right?
And so for me, that looked like a lot more time
away from my children, getting out and doing things
that did fulfill me. - Yeah.
- Because while I loved my children
and I did all the things
to take care of them in a household,
it did not fulfill me. - Yeah.
- And so-
- It didn't energize you to spend time
with your children. - No.
- Time away gave you the energy to be with them.
And one thing I really love about you
is how you look at things as growth opportunities.
- It's a growth opportunity. - Right,
instead of burdens or heavy trials or "I'm miserable,"
you're like, "Okay, this is a growth opportunity.
I'm so excited to be better and to grow."
And I'm honestly inspired by that.
- Oh, thanks.
- You're welcome. (laughs)
- I don't think our children are yet.
I'm like, "This is a growth opportunity."
And they're like, "Stop saying that to me."
That's the conversation I had with the 12-year-old.
- That's why they come to me for compassion.
I'm like, "I'm sorry, that sounds really hard."
They go to mom, and you're like,
"That sounds like a growth opportunity."
They're like, bah!
- I start with compassion.
- You do, you do. (Alicia chuckling)
It's true.
Well, and so how do you balance your own needs
with the child's needs?
I think when we talk about our first child,
how he came as a little prepackaged adult,
whereas our second was very emotional
and was very much a child
and very much needed - Right.
- to be nurtured.
And if she was upset, she needed to be held and comforted.
And sometimes there's not...
You're balancing other things.
And then I remember...
- For long periods a time.
- Yeah, cuz you would always hug her,
or we wold always hug her,
but she'd want more than just a few minutes.
She's like, "Let's have a big cuddle session."
And so you bought her a doll
and to this day, I mean she's 12 now,
and she will still go grab a stuffed animal
if she needs to be comforted.
And then our third child,
he needed firm boundaries and guidelines
and he needed to be roughhoused with.
- Oh yeah. - And if you try
and rough house with our fourth child,
she'll act like you're a terrible monster.
And so you have to know each child
and what their needs are and that will help them,
but it'll also help you as a parent.
When you try and say, "This is how I'm going
to parent my children,"
you're going to get mixed results.
And it's gonna add a lot to your stress level
as opposed to if you take the time
to tailor your approach to each child,
it's a lot better
for your mental health. - Right.
- It's a lot better for your...
"Okay, I'm good now," right?
For me getting exercise, watching movies,
whatever it is for you,
you shouldn't have to sacrifice who you are completely
on the altar of parenthood.
It looks different.
You don't have as much time as you used to.
- There's time and seasons.
- There's times and seasons
for things you wanna do with your life,
but if you are completely setting yourself
on the back burner, - Right.
- you're gonna burn out as a parent
and that's not gonna be good for your kids or for you.
If you enjoyed this video,
we wanna direct you to How to Talk to Your Kids
About Dating After Divorce.
Another big topic,
man, we're swinging for the fences.
- Always.
- Go us.
What would you like us to talk about
on our next Married To a Therapist segment?
Let us know when the comments below.
How do you survive parenting a toddler?
Let us know when the comments below.
- Thank you for joining us.
And remember to keep shining,
we need your light.
(upbeat music)
- [Jonathan] Oh, look.
There's the video we were talking about, babe.
- [Alicia] Oh, it's such a good video.
- [Jonathan] Click on it.
You gotta go to the bathroom?
That's fine, take your phone.