What to Expect the Toddler Years (100 page)

Give your child the gift of empathy.
Helping others helps both adults and children feel good about themselves. See page 42 for tips on developing empathy.

Nourish the body as well as the ego.
Hungry kids, kids who eat too much of the wrong foods, and kids who don’t get enough rest have a hard time working or playing up to their potential and tend to be easily frustrated. These feelings can damage their self-esteem. So can negative reactions of others to their tantrums or other unpleasant behavior.

Make success a cinch.
Your home should be child-safe, but it should also be toddler-friendly. Provide a stepstool to bring sink handles within reach, a towel bar at toddler-level, and book and toy shelves that aren’t a stretch. Clothes that are easy to put on and take off and toys that are challenging but within his or her capability also put success within your toddler’s grasp. Which, in turn will bolster self-esteem.

Put your toddler to work.
By assigning your “little helper” chores around the house, you’ll make him or her feel useful, while also expressing confidence in his or her abilities; when you’re that little, helping someone much bigger can send your sense of self soaring. Once that confidence is established, though, don’t erode it by criticizing your toddler’s efforts—even if they’re slow, clumsy, and more hindrance than actual help. Remember not to overtax your toddler’s capabilities; to avoid crippling frustration, assign only those tasks that you’re sure your child can do. Offer assistance when your child needs it to complete a task.

Learn to take it slow.
Because they’re still new at many skills, toddlers can move at a snail’s pace when it comes to getting their jobs done. While it might take you fifteen seconds to throw on your clothes, it can take someone who’s just learning the ropes closer to fifteen minutes. So don’t barrage a child who’s taking great pains with a toothbrush or struggling to pull up a pair of pants with impatient choruses of “Hurry up! Hurry up!” Taking the job away and doing it yourself because you can’t stand the slow pace demonstrates a lack of confidence that’s bound to translate into lowered self-esteem for your toddler.
Instead, let pokey toddlers poke, building the extra time your child takes to “do it myself” into your schedules. When you find yourself racing the clock, skip the nagging and speed your toddler along with a challenge that sounds like a game: “Let’s see who can get their shoes on first.”

We sign our babies up for gymnastics classes before they can roll over, swimming classes before they can walk. We worry about their weight, fret about their flab. Yet despite all of the good intentions and early interventions, American children today are, as a group, less physically fit than any generation of children in our country’s history, and less fit than their peers elsewhere in the developed world.

In generations past, fitness came naturally to children; the activities that kept them on the move—stickball, tag, hide-and-seek, touch football, jump rope, hopscotch—were favorite pastimes. Older children helped out at home, in the garden, on the farm, in the family store.

Today, activities that keep children inactive—playing video and computer games and watching television (including DVDs and cable)—predominate. And many children see physical activity as a formal scheduled event (dance classes or gymnastics, phys-ed in school), rather than a natural, spontaneous part of everyday life. When a class isn’t on the schedule, exercise doesn’t occur to them as an option; given free time to fill, they’re more likely to grow roots in front of the television than build muscles out on the front lawn.

As the parent of a toddler, however, you have the opportunity to prevent that inactivity cycle from taking hold by helping your child to enjoy exercise now. You can also greatly increase the odds that exercise will remain a life-long companion. Here’s how:

Unplug the TV.
Don’t let cartoons and video games glue your child to the sofa during his or her formative years. Using television as a baby-sitter, as a time-filler, or as a mood-stabilizer not only sabotages any chance to engage in mind-expanding activities like reading and imaginary play, but opportunities for muscle-expanding activities, as well. Experts point to “tube” abuse as one of the major reasons for the decline in fitness among American children—not only because TV watching discourages activity, but because it encourages the consumption of high-salt, high-cholesterol, high-calorie snack foods.

Fit fitness in.
Be sure that from an early age your child spends some time each day outdoors—at a playground, in your backyard, in a nearby park or meadow, anywhere where running, climbing, and jumping are safe and hard to resist. Provide balls in several sizes, a tricycle or other riding toy, a butterfly net, and when feasible, a backyard gym.

Get up and go with your toddler.
If activity doesn’t come naturally to your toddler, encourage it by getting physical together. Supplement sedentary parent–child pastimes (reading, doing puzzles,
drawing) with active ones (hide-and-go-seek, follow-the-leader, playing catch, monkey-in-the-middle).

Set a fit example.
Think about the path you’re leaving for your child to follow: Does it lead all too often to the television, the easy chair, or the car? Or does it lead to the running track, the gym, and the bicycle? Your child’s future fitness depends a lot more on how you pass
your
free time than on how many exercise, gymnastics, and dance classes you sign him or her up for. One study showed that children whose mothers exercise are twice as likely to be active as children whose parents are sedentary; those whose fathers are active are almost four times as likely to be active. When both parents exercise, their children are six times more likely to be active.

Walk to the supermarket, the library, or a friend’s house rather than piling into the car; if it’s more than a few blocks take the stroller, but encourage your toddler to walk part of the way. Cheer rather than complain when you have to climb stairs when visiting, or walk a long distance from parking space to store at the mall. Take your toddler along on your morning walks (in the stroller most of the way). Have him or her join you while you do your video workout. Make some family outings active ones (sledding in the park), rather than sedentary ones (gorging on candy at the local cinema).

Check classes out before you check your toddler in.
There’s nothing wrong with signing your toddler up for a weekly exercise, gymnastics, or movement class (but be careful not to over-schedule; see page 381)—as long as the teacher’s main goal is making fitness fun. Observe a class before you enroll your toddler. Look for instructors who motivate but don’t push, equipment that is age appropriate and safe, and formats that favor free play over regimentation.

Teach respect for the body.
When children learn to respect their bodies, they tend to take care of them. Show that respect by the way you feed the family, by the way you avoid cigarettes, drugs, and the abuse of alcohol, and by seeing that the family exercises together. But also talk about how it’s important to take care of our bodies—if we don’t our bodies won’t take good care of us.

By the end of this month,
*
your toddler

. . . should be able to (see
Note
):

take off an article of clothing

“feed” a doll

build a tower of 4 cubes

identify 2 items in a picture by pointing (by 23½ months)

Note:
If your toddler has not yet reached these milestones, doesn’t follow simple instructions, or if his or her language is always unintelligible, consult the doctor or nurse-practitioner. While this rate of development may well be normal for your child (some children are late bloomers), it needs to be evaluated. Also check with the doctor if your toddler seems out-of-control or hyperactive; extremely demanding, stubborn, or negative; overly withdrawn, passive, or uncommunicative; sad or joyless; unable to interact and play with others. At this age, most children who were born prematurely have caught up to their peers developmentally.

. . . will probably be able to:

build a tower of 6 cubes

throw a ball overhand