Ok, here it is right at the very beginning. THE number one key thing to “try to” keep in mind as you go through the day with a toddler.
“Kids at this age are honestly doing the very best they can do, with what they have to work with.”
There you have it. Ok, I admit it sounds a bit lame and less-than-helpful. Kind of like one of those things you buy that promises to answer all of your questions about how to make money…and ends up telling you that the secret is to “sell something”. Well, hey, at least my comment didn’t cost anything.
But seriously, if we can keep this thought in mind it really can change the way we look at toddler behavior. They really are doing the best they can do with what they have. Think about it a second.
We know that kids at this age haven’t developed some of the key concepts that we all know are going to be important: like sharing toys or time, like understanding that what I do does really impact someone else, like understanding that rules we learned yesterday still apply today. The world of a toddler is an amazing place. There is so much “new” to soak in. And their brains are developing at such a rate…all those little neurons firing away and forming new connections every time they have an “AHA” experience…and wow do they have a lot of those during the day. So let’s break for just a quick bit of news about the brain.
We used to teach that our brains are fully formed before we are born, and all of the brain connections are already in place. As we grow and learn, we reinforce some of those connections and let others alone…this process strengthens some connections and weakens others. This was “learning”. But because of the new scanning technologies, we now know we were simply wrong. While we are born with fully wired and functioning brains, from then on we are constantly rewiring things…adding new connections and throwing away old connections we learn are no longer needed. This continues as long as we live…rewiring and reconnecting neurons, even creating entirely new connections as we go. And each time a new connection is made…well, everything changes. You’ve had those times when you learn one new thing, and suddenly that one thing makes you think differently about several other things…the chain reaction? Welcome to every moment of the day for a toddler.
And this learning process is not an option or choice for the toddler. A part of the hard-wiring in a toddler brain is to learn. They HAVE to learn…it is built-in human nature…the one who learns, survives. No wonder toddlers are the PhD’s of problem-solving. If there is a button, it must be pushed, and a switch must be switched. It HAS to be.
I remember watching the grandson take off running through his living room, and stepping on an unseen piece of plastic wrap from a recently opened present. His feet went out from under him and he just caught himself before hitting the floor. As we all gasped, he stopped, spun around to look at the plastic and said: “WHHOOOOAAA”. The next 15 minutes was spent in high level physics experiments about inertia, friction and gravity that Newton himself would have been proud of. And when the learning was satisfied, he was on to the bath time that was the original assignment. It is important to note that any attempt to disrupt this experimentation time would have been met with the strongest resistance…not because my grandson did not want to take a bath, and not because he is just stubborn, but because new neural connections had just been made and he had no choice but to figure them out.
We’ll talk more about “doing the best with what they have” next time, but for now just start repeating it over and over to create your own new neural connections. That toddler is probably less stubborn than you think, and is really not in the process of turning into the delinquent you envision in 10 – 13 years. From the moment he or she opens their eyes in the morning until they close them at night…their brains are firing “AHA”, and “WOW”, and “WHOAAA” every second…constantly changing their entire view of the world. Can you imagine what that must be like? If you can…I think it will change the way we look at our toddlers.
Next time you have a moment, look at your toddler. I mean look at their eyes…actually “into” their eyes. Try to get some feeling for what is actually going on in there…including them now trying to figure out just what the heck you are looking at and why you are keeping them from their next important physics experiments….
You can do this…take a deep breath…and smile.
