What to Expect the Toddler Years (153 page)

But remember that each child has her own developmental timetable and priorities. One child may learn to ride a trike while another may put her efforts into learning to make letters; one may concentrate on learning to throw a ball while another practices singing the alphabet. One type of skill isn’t necessarily better or more valuable than another, or indicative of future talent or achievement. If, in the months ahead, your daughter continues to show no interest in writing her name or other letters, let it be. There’s plenty of time for her to develop these skills.

“My son often talks in his sleep. Should I wake him up when he does it? Does it mean he’s upset or has a sleeping disorder?”

It’s a bit eerie to hear a child moaning, murmuring, or laughing in the middle of the night, then go into his room to check on him and find he’s fast asleep—but it’s not a cause for concern. Sleep talking is perfectly normal, and isn’t a reflection of a child’s emotional well-being. Though your toddler may be having a dream or a nightmare (see page 312) when he calls out, it isn’t necessary (or advisable) to wake him up. And as long as his sleep isn’t seriously disrupted and he isn’t chronically fatigued, sleep talking doesn’t signal a need for professional help.

“My daughter’s pretty good about sharing. But she doesn’t understand why she’s supposed to share when her best friends won’t.”

Trying to explain to a three-year-old why she should share her toys when her friends don’t is something like trying to explain to an adult why she shouldn’t cheat on her income tax when her colleagues do. Though you may see generosity and honesty as their own reward, your toddler may not.

So rather than attempting to give your toddler a rationale for why she should continue to maintain an open-handed policy with her friends when they are tight-fisted with her, let her know that her generosity isn’t going
unnoticed or unappreciated. Take every opportunity to admire it (“I really like the way you share with your friends”). Hopefully, a well-stroked ego will be reward enough for her actions, and she’ll keep up her share of the sharing—even in the company of those who don’t share alike. If it occasionally isn’t, and the selfishness of her friends defensively brings out the greedies in her, don’t chastise her (“But you always share!”). Generosity should be her idea, and at this age, no one should pressure her to give up her belongings, even temporarily (see page 267).

It’s likely that her playmates’ grip on their toys will begin loosening within the next year or two, especially with your child’s generous example to follow. Telling her that her friends will learn as they get older, but that they will probably learn sooner if she continues to set a good example by sharing, may make it easier for her to continue her generosity in the meantime.

“A friend told me that she recently found her nearly three-year-old and a playmate in his room showing each other their genitals. I don’t know what I would do if I caught my son and a playmate doing that.”

Well, now’s a good time to start figuring out what you would do if you did catch your son “playing doctor”—because chances are you will, one day soon. Sometime between the ages of three and six, most children become curious about what’s inside other people’s underwear, and will attempt to satisfy that curiosity with a few rounds of “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”

Curiosity about other people’s bodies is just as normal for toddlers as curiosity about their own. An occasional game of “doctor” can be expected as toddlers try to satisfy that curiosity.

Since a young child doesn’t yet know the rules of modesty or morality, he’s not consciously breaking them when he plays doctor. His curiosity about a playmate’s genitals is as natural and as innocent as his curiosity about his own, and motivated more by scientific than sexual interest.

Some parents react with shock on finding their children playing doctor, others with amusement—but an unruf-fled, take-it-all-in-stride reaction is best of all. Punishing, ridiculing, scolding, or embarrassing a child for acting on a very
natural impulse (whether the “exam” has been boy–boy, girl–girl, or boy–girl) can confuse, demean, and/or make the fruit that’s now been “forbidden” all the more intriguing. Such an experience can instill in a child unhealthy feelings about the private parts of his body that can linger through adolescence into adulthood.

If and when you discover your child playing doctor, do try to remain nonplussed—or at least to appear nonplussed. As casually as if you walked in on a game of “school” or “airplanes” remark, “Oh, I see that the two of you are trying to find out about each other’s bodies. You can see that both of you have penises.” (Or if the other “doctor” is a girl, “that you have a penis because you’re a boy, and you have a vagina because you’re a girl.”) Without launching into any complicated explanations, let the children know that “these parts of our bodies are private, so we don’t show them to other people or let other people touch them,” and tell your child that you’d be happy to answer any questions he has about the subject later.

Then quickly suggest that the children get their clothes back on and move on to another activity, preferably a supervised one (“Let’s read a story—or play ball in the backyard—now.”). Often a change of activity actually comes as a relief to children involved in sexual exploration—though they’re not exactly sure why, playing doctor often makes them feel uneasy.

After the playmate has left, sit down with your child and encourage his questions; if he doesn’t have any, or doesn’t seem to want to talk about the subject, don’t insist. If you think you may feel awkward talking about it with your toddler or feel uncomfortable using the proper terminology, practice alone or with another adult first. A book or two on the human body, with clear, simple illustrations, may make explanations easier for you to offer and for your toddler to understand. Check with your local library or a good bookstore for recommended titles geared to three-year-olds. If you feel comfortable doing so, let the other child’s parents know about what happened so that they can, if they choose, hold a similar discussion in their home.

If you find your child obsessed with the genitals of other children, talk about the problem with his doctor. Occasionally, such interest is a sign of sexual abuse.

“We were out shopping yesterday and I was horrified to find that my daughter had taken a small toy from the store we were in and stuffed it in her pocket.”

This kind of petty pocketing may be a bit shocking for parents, perhaps, but it hardly constitutes a criminal act for a not-quite-three-year-old. In fact, a child this age is incapable of intentionally committing a crime. She saw a toy she liked, picked it up, and took it with her, just as she might a pretty rock she found in the park or a snail’s shell she found on the sidewalk—a perfectly normal impulse for a toddler. She might do the same thing with an item she admired at a friend’s house, at her grandparents’, or at a restaurant.

At the same time, it’s a normal impulse that happens to be against the law. So while you shouldn’t overreact to your daughter’s light fingering, you do need to correct it. Explain to her that people have to pay money for toys or anything else they want from a store before they take them home. But don’t introduce the concept of “stealing” or call her a “thief,” which would imply that her intentions in taking the toy were dishonest or dishonorable, which they certainly weren’t.

To underscore what you’re saying, as well as to promote honesty, take the
purloined toy back to the store together and return it. Don’t buy it, or your daughter will figure out that the way to get a toy is to filch it and then get you to pay for it. Explain that people can’t always buy what they want in a store, but they can always enjoy “just looking.”

When you find that your toddler has pocketed something from the home of a friend or relative, follow the same procedure—have her return it at the next visit, without any recriminations.

“We both spend five days a week at work, away from our toddler, so on weekends we like to spend as much quality time as possible with him. But he never seems to appreciate the special outings we schedule. What are we doing wrong?”

Probably nothing but trying too hard and expecting too much appreciation. Making an effort to please a toddler doesn’t guarantee his pleasure; in fact, given the quirky nature of the toddler, it often has just the opposite effect—especially if you’ve neglected to consult him about your plans in the first place.

To your child,
any
time you spend with him is quality time. While special outings can be fun if they’re tailored to a toddler’s interests and limited attention span, scheduled too often, they can become a burden. Children often enjoy and appreciate their parents’ company as much, or even more, in the living room constructing a superhighway out of wooden blocks or at the park examining rocks and insects, as they do during ambitious excursions to the museum, a puppet show, or the zoo. And with no monetary investment at stake, stress levels lower, and expectations not as high, a better time is often had by all when simple pleasures are on the agenda. You can greatly improve the odds that everyone will enjoy family time together by including your toddler in your weekend planning.

It’s only natural for parents who have less time than they might like to spend with their children to want to make the most of what time there is. But overcompensation is rarely called for; togetherness doesn’t have to come in fancy, expensive, or carefully planned packages to be meaningful. Busy parents may not have the time for the more leisurely family fun etched in their memories by reruns of
Father Knows Best
: cookies, milk, and conversation after school; cuddling and cocoa around the fireplace on a winter’s day; lazy summer picnics at the lake, complete with water-melon and three-legged races. But even the most hectic day has some time in it for hugs, a story, a tickle-fest, a pillow fight, or splashing in a bathtub of bubbles. Nor do good times need to be scheduled (“Tuesday, 5:35
P.M.
: quality time with Junior”) to be rewarding; spontaneous fun can be at least as fulfilling. And fun doesn’t have to mean play. Family togetherness can be cemented when a toddler helps Mommy set the table or Daddy wash the dishes; when the family spends an hour making holiday cards to send to friends; when everyone works together to clean up the playroom for company.

Chances are you already spend a lot more quality time with your toddler than you realize. You’re probably overlooking dozens of special moments a day that are making your toddler feel loved and cared about.

It might help to keep in mind that the plight of parents who work outside the home isn’t unique. Even parents who stay home with their children complain that “quality time” is a precious commodity they don’t get enough of. So turn off the guilt and the anxiety, and relax and enjoy your toddler in the time you have, scheduled or otherwise.

“Our daughter’s almost three, and she’s still having tantrums. Shouldn’t she be over the terrible twos by now?”

The “terrible twos” are a terrible misnomer. They imply a finite time frame for behavior that doesn’t necessarily have one. Though the worst of toddler behavior is often concentrated between the second and the third birthdays, the normal range is actually a lot broader. The terrible twos begin surfacing in some children as early as the end of the first year, but don’t appear in others until the third year; they wind down within months in some children, but can persist well into the preschool years in others.

Toddler negativism (see page 45) commonly has a two-year course, during which the behavior alters with a child’s growing sophistication. The first tentative “no’s” are uttered by a child trying to find out what kind of response she will get. By the end of the third year, she’s involved in a more serious quest for independence and self-determination and is equipped with a lot more ways of being negative: “Stop!” “I won’t!” “I can’t!” “I don’t!”

Inborn temperament can explain, at least in large part, why the terrible twos last longer in some children—high-intensity or “type A” personalities, for exam-ple—than in others. Tantrums are often a necessary release for bottled-up mental energy in these children. Some kids are by nature more rebellious and/or stronger-willed than others; these children, too, tend to have a longer terrible-twos period.

There is no magic strategy guaranteed to instantaneously banish terrible-two behavior. But you can hasten its departure with the following approaches: Continue to deal with negativity in the ways suggested on page 45 and try to avoid power struggles with your child. Set limits, but not too many (see page 47). Give your child opportunities to make decisions (see page 414), but when there is no choice, make that clear (“It’s time for lunch,” not “Would you like lunch now?”). Discipline fairly, and with the goal of teaching your child self-discipline (see page 119). Try to ward off tantrums (see the techniques suggested on page 338); when they occur, handle them with all the calm you can muster. And, of course, offer plenty of acknowledgment for good behavior.