About This Blog

Welcome to “Toddler Dancing!”

This is my personal attempt to provide some peace-of-mind, and maybe a tip or two, to try and help those women and men who are engaged in THE most difficult challenge known to humanity: raising a toddler. I’ll post more info about me shortly, but in brief, I am a grandpa, watching my grandson do the “Toddler Dance” with his mom & dad, and it is bringing back some wonderful memories. They are wonderful memories because I am looking back at them now from 30+ years and realized that we all survived them. Somehow, we danced our way together through those toddler years, and then the “teen” thing which is an entirely different thing all together…maybe.

But what I remember most are the people here and there who helped us learn the steps, so we could dance the Toddler Dance successfully. This blog is my opportunity to pass along some of the things they taught me, and perhaps someday you may pass them on to someone else as you look back and celebrate the fact that you survived the Toddler Dance as well.

So who am I and why “Toddler Dancing”?

I am a survivor of the Toddler Dance…which is your goal, and is a badge of honor and respect for any and all who can pull it off. Also, I am a grandpa, who now gets to watch the Toddler Dance take place from a very safe distance, occasionally being able to participate, but then also being able to tap the shoulder of my daughter or son-in-law to step in and take my place when I start wearing down. Yeah, this grandpa thing is a pretty good role.

I am a PhD, which doesn’t mean half as much as what you might think. But I spent many years as a pastoral counselor and family counselor, including several years leading “parenting classes” in area school districts in which we simply tried to teach the Toddler Dance to a lot of parents who were convinced they were somehow screwing it all up. The first message for them, as for those who read this blog, is that you’re probably not dancing as poorly as you think you are. It’s just that most of us don’t remember Toddler-hood, and we don’t do much to teach new parents how to deal with it…in a real way. There is lots of advice about how to teach your toddler how to behave like a non-toddler…but wow, that’s just dumb. Toddler hood may be THE number one most exciting time in our lives…and trust me…you don’t want them to miss it, and you don’t want to miss it yourself.

Why call it “Toddler Dancing”?

In my counseling days, whether about parenting, or marriage, I liked to use the analogy of dancing. It is actually pretty much on target. Parenting a toddler, like marriage, is actually an ongoing series of dance steps: one person steps here…the other steps in in response. In marriage, when the steppers are not working together, we have toes getting stepped on. The same applies to toddler hood. The primary difference for us is that we adults believe we really have the dance figured out, and that our task is to teach our toddlers how to dance them correctly. The reality is that the toddler is the dance instructor…and we are the ones in need of lessons, and yes, we are the ones constantly stepping on toes. One key difference between the “marriage dance” and the “Toddler Dance” is that many times there are three people in the Toddler Dance…toddler, mom and dad. This dance becomes a lot more difficult if mom and dad aren’t using the same steps. We’ll talk about that.

The posts I share here will include things we shared in our parenting classes, experiences from surviving our own “Toddler Dancing”, and my attempts to explain some of the key research around Toddlers, learning and development. These are not intended as “formal research”, and I make no claim to be the “expert” and have it all figured out. If you disagree with what I say, that’s cool. There are many versions of the Toddler Dance and many approaches to learning them. This blog will share one approach.

I hope you find something meaningful in here somewhere, and most of all what you to understand one thing. My bet is that you and your toddler are doing a much better job at this Toddler Dance than you think you are. You can do this. You are capable. Take a deep breath, and smile.