Some of you have been asking how about some more positive parenting tips for
toddlers? Let's get into that today. Each stage of child development has some
particular challenges and with toddlers, I think it's important first to
understand what they're capable of developmentally because that will
determine what we can do as a parent. As we get into that today, I think one of
the first things that we get to review is our basic control and maturity model.
So, as a quick review, when we plot control against maturity, we get a graph
that looks something like this. Where on the side, we have control. Meaning. control
over your own life. Or your child's control over his or her own life. It
starts at zero down here at the bottom, it goes up to 100% here at
the top. You can have all the control or none of the control or somewhere in
between. And it's usually somewhere in between. Down here is maturity. Meaning,
how grown-up you are. So, one way to think about maturity is
age. If we start at birth, how much control do you have over your own life
at birth? Hardly any. It's way down here. How about as an adult at the other end
of the spectrum. How much control do you have over your own life? A whole lot more
and we're not going to get into all the fine print. I know that there's some of that.
between birth and adulthood, we have this line that shows the relationship between
control and maturity. The more mature you become, the more control you get to have
over your own life. So, when we're talking about toddlers, we're down here on this
end of the control and maturity spectrum. The part under the line is the part that
people have for themselves. The part over the line is the part that
take. In this case, it's you as the parent. So, to put this into context, your toddler
doesn't have much control over their life. Sure, they can control a few things.
But not much really. You as the parent get to take most of the control. This is
important to know because as we come up with strategies and tips for what we're
going to do as parents, we need to understand that we have to take most of
the control because our toddlers are not mature enough yet to do that for
themselves. Now, this is not bad news, it's just the way it is with our toddlers. So,
we get to focus as parents on consequences. In fact, I call this stage
1 of moral development. There's stage 2, is kind of here in the middle. Stage
3 is over there on the on the far side. And you can get a full review of
that in some of the other videos here on the channel or if you connect to the
Parenting Power-Up course that Vicki and I put together. We've got a full program
that talks about parenting across those stages. For toddlers, we're in what's
called stage 1 of moral development. They don't have the ability yet to do
abstract kinds of thinking or to employ things like morals and values to drive
their behavior as opposed to just responding to consequences. So, it tends
to be very concrete, it tends to be very simple thinking as opposed to complex
thinking. That's developmentally appropriate. So as we take that into
consideration as parents, what kinds of things are we going to do? When kids are
at stage 1, we have to use the kind of consequences that do not require
cooperation. So, think about as a parent. What do I control or enforce? What can I
enforce 100%? Whether or not my child is willing to cooperate.
That's the most useful question that we can ask when it comes to dealing with
toddlers. Depending on where you are in the toddler phase. Because I'm thinking
of toddlers as you've got infant stage obviously in the little babies. When they
start to walk and toddle around, that's when I'm thinking of as being toddlers.
And that can start anywhere around 6 to 8 months and continues up through
18 to 24 months. Once they hit 2 we're getting into those
preschool years. So I'm talking about the kids who are in that face where there's
not a lot of linguistic ability yet. They're learning their language at this
point. So, we want to create a Language- Enriched Environment. In another video,
Vicki was here with me and we talked about how to do speech therapy at home
with your toddlers. She shared a lot of ideas about what this looks like to
create a Language-Enriched Environment. When you're giving instructions to a
toddler, it's important to keep them very simple as opposed to complex. You're not
going to give a toddler for example a multi-step instruction or command. Like
go pick up your toys and then come in here to get your teeth brushed and then
you're going to go to bed. Now, just take one step at a time.
These little guys can't quite process all of those steps at once. They'll start
to learn to sequence step. But that actually comes in a little later phase
of development. So you focus on one thing. What you want them to do right now. You
might have to guide and direct them physically. So they as toddlers, they're
still small enough that you can... You can get down there and you can guide their
little shoulders or usher them along, right? You can't do this with a 17-year
old but in light of where they are in their... In their development and their
moral reasoning, you can still control a lot of those kinds of things. I like to
with toddlers also introduce them to the concept of choice. So, we like to give
them choices. And here's something that's really going to help you as a parent. 2
choices. You always give them 2 choices. Both of which you're okay with,
alright? You're good with the either choice. You can use this with your older
kids, too. We're getting in the car to go to the store, do you want to come on your
own feet or come on mommy's feet? Okay? So, 2 choices. You can come on your own
feet or come on mommy's feet. Either way it's okay with me. I'm good with either
one. And one of them you control. One of them you can enforce. And that's the one
coming on mommy's feet where you pick him up and they can be screaming but
they learn that, "Oh, when mommy gives me two choices, I have to pick between the
two that she gives me. Because if I choose door number 3 then I get the
one I didn't want." You know something else that we ought to take just a moment
to discuss. And this won't surprise you because you know how passionate I am
about this particular topic. Positivity. These kids are at a stage where they are
learning and they are watching so carefully everything that you model for
them. Keep a positive emotional tone in the discipline, for example. Which they're
going to need because they're little and they're figuring things out. Keep as
positive as you can. Disengaging the emotion from the
discipline and piling the emotion into the relationship. As you model positivity
for your child, they will start to learn that the world is actually a pretty cool
place where they can have all kinds of experiences. And they get opportunities
to learn things. That's what the consequences are for. You're going to
apply these things in a kind way. So we do have to control a lot of things in
our toddler's world but we do it in a way that is kind and loving and
benevolent. Because that's the kind of parent you are. Keep it positive. Thank
you for engaging with this channel. I have appreciated the questions that have
come through on these parenting videos. Happy to handle more of them. If
you send us a little message, we'll see what we can do to put together some
additional content for you. Make sure you connect to the Parenting Power-Up as
well. I think you're going to like that.