What to Expect the Toddler Years (87 page)

So instead of trying to talk your child out of his rituals, put up with them—and try to do so with good grace. Let anyone else who cares for him in on what these rituals are and discuss your approach to dealing with them. (A baby-sitter in your own home will probably be able to indulge your toddler as you do; this may not always be possible at day-care or group home care.) Your toddler may be more open to a change if he is in control of the change. So every once in a while, propose that he pick out a new cup to drink from, show him a fun way of eating a sandwich (use a cookie cutter to cut yours into a star, an animal shape, or a heart and suggest that he do the same with his), propose shopping for sandals just like Daddy’s to wear at the beach. But if he shows no interest, don’t push. With time and patience, ritual will lose its hold on your toddler.

“Help! My son won’t eat any food that is touching another kind of food.”

Try dividing to conquer. Use a divided dish and fill each compartment with a different food. Or serve each food in its own separate bowl. Don’t worry that you’re catering to your toddler’s compulsion. If you humor him and go along with his quirky eating habits, this very common fetish will eventually run its course. If you scold, make sarcastic comments, or roll your eyes, on the other hand, it may very well get worse.

“My toddler has a fit if the cracker or cookie I give her has a piece broken off. What’s her problem?”

As a toddler, she hasn’t yet figured out that nobody (and nothing) is perfect. Though toddlers certainly don’t demand perfection in themselves, they often expect perfection (or at least, their perception of it) in everyone and everything around them—including cookies. Popular child psychology sometimes attributes broken-cookie phobia to a fear of being broken or not intact themselves (“If a cookie can break, so can I”). Whether you choose to accept this explanation or to chalk up your toddler’s compulsiveness about her crackers and cook ies to typical toddler contrariness and de sire for control, the best tack to take is to humor her as much as practical. When the age of reason dawns (probably sometime after the third birthday), your child will begin to accept the way the cookie crumbles.

In the meantime, handle cookies and crackers carefully, carry extras to replace casualties, and avoid those varieties or sizes that break too easily. (Whole wheat rolls, bagels, or bread make less fragile carry-along snacks.) Save crumbled cookies for making pie crusts and cracked crackers for breadings and stuffings, rather than finishing them yourself, which could (obviously) lead to other problems.

But don’t carry indulging your toddler’s eccentricities too far. If your toddler breaks her own cracker, don’t provide another one. In such a situation, experiencing the consequences of one’s own behavior is the lesson to be learned.

“Any little change—a new car seat, a new order in the bedtime routine, new glasses on me—and our daughter gets upset.”

As far as some toddlers are concerned, there’s no such thing as a change for the better. Any change is unwelcome.

Like so many toddler trademarks, rigidity has its roots in the toddler’s compulsion to try to control her environment as much as she possibly can. When faced with change, even when the change is slight or doesn’t affect her directly, she may feel threatened, frustrated, insecure, and uncertain.

While not all toddlers react to change with vehement opposition, most are at least somewhat uncomfortable with it, much more so than babies or older children. Understanding that rigidity is normal and age-appropriate for a toddler and that flexibility is at least a year away should make this phase easier to survive. For now, respect your toddler’s wariness in facing the new and different. Keep the status quo “just so”—at least, as much as is practical—to help make your toddler feel more secure and reduce the points of parent-child conflict. Any change that can wait—a new carpet, a new stroller, a new paint color in the nursery, or a new daily routine—should be postponed until your toddler becomes less inflexible. If a major change can’t wait—a new child-care situation suddenly becomes necessary, for instance—take extra pains to give your child plenty of warning (when that’s possible) to prepare her for the change, and to help her adjust to it. Anticipate that she will be feeling a little more threatened, a little less secure, and more easily frustrated during a time of upheaval. Instead of reacting angrily to her feelings, respond with extra support and understanding. Being your toddler’s calm, steady, stabilizing anchor in the stormy seas of change will help her weather the changes more easily.

If your child seems extremely upset by change or new experiences of
any
kind, her behavior could be more than a passing toddler phase. It could be a sign that this is her inborn temperament. See page 201 for tips on dealing with such a temperament.

“Every single night, my son wants to hear the same book. Not just once, but two or three times. I’m so bored.”

Toddlers just can’t seem to get enough of a good thing—whether it’s a favorite food, a favorite blanket, or a favorite book. What seems monotonous to adults is the height of toddler happiness, for several reasons: One, toddlers generally don’t like change. They feel more comfortable, secure, and in control with the familiar and the predictable—the book read over and over again becomes a beloved friend. Two, repetition helps them build their vocabularies and comprehension. The first time a story is read, a toddler may not understand every word. With each subsequent reading, more and more words will be
picked up. By the time you’re bored beyond words, your toddler’s likely to know every word in the book (possibly by heart)—an accomplishment he’s sure to feel very good about. Three, knowing a story well allows a toddler to be able to participate in a reading more fully by anticipating what comes next, by filling in words here and there, by pointing out what’s familiar in the pictures. Four, the rhythm of the story becomes pleasurable to a toddler (particularly in books that rhyme). And finally, there is often some element of the story that touches a toddler deep down, that helps him deal with his fears and feelings.

In other words, the familiarity that breeds boredom in you breeds contentment in your toddler. And to keep him content (and learning), you’ll have to resign yourself to the repetition. While he’ll eventually tire of the favorite story of the moment (and probably adopt another immediately), let it be his idea to end the era.

In the meantime, try to make the rereading even more fun for him (and less boring for you) by:

Hamming it up. Though it’s tempting to switch onto automatic pilot, you’ll both enjoy the story more if you read with animation, even try a different voice or style every night, if you and he like.

Casting your toddler in a co-starring role. Let him fill in as many blanks as he’d like (at the end of rhyme, at the end of a page, and so on). Ask him to predict the plot (even though you both know it backwards and forwards, he’ll get quite a thrill out of being so smart) and to identify characters or colors or objects in the illustrations. At each reading, try to point out something as yet unnoticed (the red collar on the puppy, for instance, or the squirrel hidden in the tree), then ask him to find it the next time.

While enhancing the present reading material, don’t give up trying for something new. Each night, suggest (but never push) an alternative storybook. Even if your toddler isn’t willing to give up his treasured tale, he may be willing to hear a new one as well. You have the best odds of successfully introducing a new book if you try one that is a sequel to his favorite, has the same characters, the same author, or the same illustrator. Help broaden his literary horizons by taking him to the library, exposing him to a variety of different books, and allowing him to select one or two to bring home. Attend story hour at a local bookstore and browse together afterward. When Grandma wants to send a gift, suggest a book. Choose a book as a birthday or holiday gift, selecting one you think your toddler will like rather than one that appeals to you. Or better yet, let him choose his own.

If your toddler is just not open to new books right now and continues to demand the same story every night, give in gracefully. Remember, this stage will not last forever. At some point variety will become appealing, and you will hear, “Not
that
old story again!”

“Our daughter will only listen to one tape, and she wants to listen to it all the time. I’m sick of hearing the same songs over and over—how can I get her to listen to something else for a change?”

Play it again, Mom (or Dad). Listening to a tape or CD again and again, like reading and rereading a book, can be satisfying to toddlers, who derive comfort from ritual. And as with a book, listening to a tape is a learning experience. If a child listens to the same
tape over and over, she will gradually learn its melodies and lyrics, something that would be virtually impossible if she listened to a different tape every day. In addition, for the toddler (as for most listeners of any age) listening to music that is familiar brings the most pleasure. (Remember when you were a teenager and played your favorites over and over?)

That doesn’t mean you have to capitulate entirely. For your own sanity and to broaden your toddler’s auditory experiences, do try to introduce new tapes occasionally—especially once the old one has pretty well been mastered. You have the best chance of adding a tape to your toddler’s hit parade if you select carefully. Ideally, a new tape should include some songs your toddler already knows (from having heard them sung at home, in day care, or on a favorite television program or video). It may also help if it’s the same performer who is on her favorite tape. Once you’ve chosen the tape, prepare yourself by listening to it on your own, becoming familiar with the songs (there may be a song sheet enclosed), and picking out highlights you think your toddler will like. Before premiering the tape for her, inroduce some of the songs by singing them yourself.

Finally, try slipping a new tape into the cassette player while she’s focused on another activity—doing a puzzle, drawing, or building a castle. If she doesn’t comment, just let it play. If she seems about to complain, start talking up the new tape—“Listen to that song, that’s the one Grandma always sings to you” or “Isn’t that song funny—that’s the one Cookie Monster sings.”

If you’ve been working on taking turns, you can use that as a vehicle for introducing a new tape. While you’re driving to the supermarket (bring along a tape or CD player if you don’t have one in the car), give your toddler the chance to pick the first tape, then say, “Okay, now it’s my turn. Now I’m going to pick a tape.”

Though it’s fine to try to present some other options, don’t complain about, put down, or refuse to play your toddler’s favorite. Doing so will only make her more determined to listen to it exclusively. Be patient; this broken-record stage will eventually play itself out.

“One of the children in our play group is almost completely toilet trained. But our daughter doesn’t seem a bit interested. Should we be forcing the issue now?”

Forcing the issue is one sure way to fail at toilet learning (a better term than toilet training because it emphasizes the toddler as learner rather than the parent as teacher). Like other developmental tasks, such as crawling and walking, your child should be allowed to accomplish this skill on her own timetable.

By about twenty months, most toddler excretory systems mature to the point at which they begin to empty less frequently and more predictably, indicating readiness for toilet learning. An occasional child is ready sooner; many others are ready later. But physical maturity alone is not enough to guarantee success. There are a variety of clues that a toddler is ready to begin the process of potty learning. See
Chapter Nineteen
(page 539) and much more on toilet learning for a list of these clues.