What to Expect the Toddler Years (38 page)

Cut strangers off at the hug.
Try intervening before a stranger makes a move toward your toddler. As with a stranger-suspicious animal, a stranger-suspicious child will be less fearful if the newcomer approaches her gradually, giving her a chance to size him or her up. Without labeling your child as “shy” or “scared,” which could perpetuate her wary behavior,
explain to the hugger-wannabe that she’s more comfortable if people approach her slowly.

Give physical support.
If your toddler wants to be held while in the company of strangers, hold her—for as long as she needs and wants to be held. When and if she’s ready to go it alone, she’ll let you know. In the meantime, offer your reassuring support and understanding unconditionally, and without demeaning comments (“You’re acting like such a baby”) or teasing (“You silly girl”).

Try more exposure.
Your toddler will thaw faster if she’s exposed to a wide variety of familiar and unfamiliar people on a regular basis. So take her to the supermarket, mall, museum, zoo, playground, and religious, social, and family gatherings. Travel on buses and subways, go for walks down crowded streets. But be careful not to push your child to interact with the people she’ll meet during these outings; always let her take the lead. Just being in the midst of strangers is achievement enough for now.

Don’t push it.
Often parents worry more about the rejected stranger’s feelings than those of their child, especially if the “stranger” is a friend or relative they don’t want to see rebuffed. So they may push a reluctant child toward an exuberant stranger, with tears and/or tantrum the invariable result. Paradoxically, your child will feel more secure—and more open to the advances of strangers—if you handle her fear with respect and understanding than if you press her to overcome it. As for the stranger’s feelings, you can explain that your child’s reaction shouldn’t be taken personally, that she’s at an age when only a parent will do.

For more about toddler fears, see page 207.

“Our little boy is very outgoing and will go to any stranger immediately. This worries us.”

Not every toddler is suspicious of strangers; those who are gregarious by nature, or who have been exposed since infancy to many different people in many different settings, may take readily to new faces. So readily, in fact, that it causes their parents to fear for their safety.

Because your toddler’s at an age when comprehension of potential dangers is still very limited, your vigilance is his protection. Never let him out of your sight, even for a moment, when you’re out and about. If he tends to wander, see the tips on page 181 for keeping him close at hand.

Although it may be too soon to expect your toddler to exercise judicious discretion around strangers, it isn’t too soon to start laying the foundation for safe behavior in the future. When your toddler heads for a smiling stranger without first checking with you, say, “If you want to say ‘hello’ to someone, you have to tell Mommy or Daddy.” The concept may not sink in yet, but repeated often it will eventually. Meanwhile, as long as you’re there to protect him, your toddler’s outgoing personality won’t put him in peril.

A word of caution: As you educate your toddler about stranger safety, however, be careful not to send the message that strangers are universally menacing. Don’t warn that “strangers might be mean” or that “strangers might steal you.” Do tell him, however, that he always needs your okay before talking to a stranger, going to one or with one, or taking something a stranger offers him. Your goal should be to make your child prudently cautious, not unreasonably fearful.

“Our son won’t let anybody else do anything for him when I’m around, even his father. It’s tying up all of my time, and making Dad feel like he’s not needed.”

As far as most toddlers are concerned, nobody does it better than Mommy (though for some children it’s Daddy who’s up there on the pedestal). Nobody fetches a drink, makes sandwiches, puts on shoes, changes diapers, or pushes the stroller in just the same way Mommy does, and as long as Mommy’s around, nobody had better try—that is, unless they’re fond of rejection.

Mommy is understandably the number one person on most toddlers’ short list. In most homes she has been the parent who has met her child’s basic needs from infancy. Still, sometimes (especially during stressful times), it may be hard for Mommy to feel flattered by and grateful for her toddler’s attention—and easy for her to feel put upon and resentful.

As far as the rejected parent is concerned, it’s hard to compete with such unflagging devotion, and sometimes it may not even seem worth the trouble.

But Dad’s got to persevere, keep his perspective, and endeavor not to take his toddler’s rejections personally. Mommy favoritism is common and developmentally normal for toddlers. In no way does it reflect on a father’s parenting capabilities or likeability quotient. Besides, it doesn’t last forever. Just as common and normal is the phase of development that often follows sometime in the pre-school years, wherein Daddy becomes the apple of the offspring’s eye, leaving Mom on the outside looking in enviously.

In the meantime, with some effort on the part of both parents, some of this single-minded Mommy favoritism can be minimized. Here’s what a mother’s to do:

Don’t be an accomplice.
Often, deep down, Mom’s actually flattered by being the chosen one. Despite her protests, she enjoys the feeling of being wanted and needed, and subconsciously feeds the favoritism—perhaps by monopolizing the child’s care, and excluding Dad in the process. An “I’d better do it; he likes it better when I do it,” kind of mentality never gives Daddy a chance to prove otherwise or to improve with practice. It also tells the toddler that he’s right—Mommy does do it best. If you suspect this might be the case with you, make an effort to stop aiding and abetting your child’s desire to play favorites.

Don’t hog all the good jobs.
Sharing the responsibilities of parenting fairly means sharing both the tiresome and the enjoyable. If you dole out to Dad only those jobs that you don’t feel like doing (typically, the ones that elicit the most negative response from your child—such as cleaning him up after dinner), keeping all the “good” ones (typically, the ones that elicit the most positive response from your child—such as reading bedtime stories) for yourself, he’s never going to be able to compete.

Step to the sidelines—or even off the field.
At least once in a while, but preferably on a consistent weekly or biweekly basis, take a few hours off, and let Dad take charge. The change will be better accepted if you’re not just out of the room, but out of the house, when Dad steps in. Leave your toddler without displaying any trepidation or reservations—and whatever you do, don’t call in every five minutes to check on how they’re doing without you. Rest assured that when presented with a sink-or-swim situation, most dads do swimmingly; when presented with a Daddy-or-nothing situation, most tots not only pick Papa, but embrace him wholeheartedly.

Even when the three of you are together, try giving Dad as many
opportunities to attend to and play with your toddler as possible. The chances that your toddler will accept the Daddy option will be significantly increased if you step away (preferably out of sight) when it’s offered.

Appreciate parental differences.
To each his or her own. Dad’s style of parenting may not be the same as yours—it may not be even remotely similar—but that doesn’t make it inferior. And though your toddler may not be ready to say
vive la différence
right away, he will say it (or think it) in time; experiencing both your parenting styles will ultimately make his life richer and more fulfilling.

In Dad we should trust.
Both your spouse and your toddler will sense it if you don’t trust Dad’s parenting judgment and tactics, whether you deride them out loud or not. The result: Junior won’t trust Daddy (if Mommy thinks Daddy doesn’t know what he’s doing, he probably doesn’t); Daddy won’t trust his own instincts, and the vicious cycle that keeps Dad on the outside looking in will continue.

Back him up.
If you and your husband don’t see eye to eye on a child-rearing policy, take care not to contradict each other in front of your toddler. If Dad says, “yes” to something you feel strongly should be a “no,” or vice versa, back him up for now and then shoot it out later when your youngster’s not within earshot. (Since you can’t expect to agree on everything, get used to practicing the art of compromise—it’ll come in handy in the years of parenting that lie ahead. Sometimes it works best to meet in the middle, other times it works best to let the parent who feels more strongly about an issue win.)

Flatter the pater.
Rejection can really get a guy down—particularly if he’s been trying really hard to win your toddler’s favor. Being sensitive to this, and responding with support and empathy, can help compensate for your toddler’s unintentional yet hurtful lack of tact. So can lauding Dad’s efforts, and letting him know that you appreciate them even if your toddler doesn’t seem to yet.

Of course, there are exceptions to every developmental rule: Though in toddlerhood most children will prefer Mother’s company over Father’s, some are Daddy’s little boys (or girls) from the start. This is true most often in families where dads are responsible for the majority of the child care, either by choice or necessity, but can be the case when Mother’s running the show, too. All of the same advice, in reverse, holds true for turning around Daddy favoritism.

“We always wait until our son is asleep to have a sitter come over because we’re afraid that if he knows we’re going out, he won’t let us go.”

In this case, what your son doesn’t know could hurt him—and hurt you, too, by turning an evening out into a complicated and worrisome charade. Though your tactic may work for a while, it’s bound to backfire when your toddler wakes up one night to find himself with a stranger. The trauma that this kind of rude awakening could cause (suddenly you’re gone, he didn’t see you go, and he has no inkling of when you’re coming back, or whether you’re coming back at all) will be compounded by normal middle-of-the-night irrationality. The results: hysteria in the short run, generalized insecurity at bedtime (are
Mommy and Daddy going to disappear every night after they tuck me in?) in the long run. Add to this the unsettling complications brought on by your sitter strategy—you’ll be showing up late for dinner parties or missing the curtain at the theater because your child didn’t fall asleep on time; or turning down invitations to events taking place during the day or early evening—and it should become clear why it should be abandoned altogether.

It certainly won’t be as easy to leave when your toddler’s awake as it was to sneak out on him asleep, but it will become easier in time. Watching you leave (even if it’s through tears) and finding that you always return is a lesson he’ll benefit from learning now. See page 23 for tips on leaving your toddler with a sitter.

“I thought my son would have stopped putting things in his mouth by now. It’s such a dirty habit, how can I break him of it?”

Using the mouth as a tool of discovery isn’t a nasty habit at this age, it’s a normal part of development. And like all things developmental, how long it continues varies from child to child. Although the occasional youngster will give up mouthing before his first birthday, most will continue oral exploration of their environment well into toddler-hood. Rather than trying to break your child of the habit, let him grow out of it at his own pace.

Even the most avid mouther will probably start losing his taste for the practice by about twenty-four months, as his primal urge for oral gratification begins to diminish, and he starts tapping into other sensory resources. Voicing displeasure or disapproval when he mouths may prolong the behavior in a rebellious toddler; so look the other way and let development take its natural course.

Of course, before you look the other way, make sure that what your toddler puts in his mouth is safe. Mouthing an object that’s been lying around the house and hasn’t been washed recently shouldn’t be cause for concern (unless the object is, say, a bathroom sponge, a moldy piece of bread dug out of the garbage, or a grimy shoe that’s been walking city streets). But mouthing an object that is toxic or small enough to be swallowed or choked on (or that your toddler can bite a small piece off of) should be. Ideally you should try to keep things that are unsafe for your child to mouth out of reach (latch the bathroom door, keep a toddler-proof lid on the garbage can, put shoes in the closet, lock away toxic substances, regularly search the house for small objects). Since no number of precautions can keep all dangerous items away from your toddler, you’ll also need to monitor him and the contents of his mouth closely. And just in case, be sure you know how to handle a choking incident (see page 689).

When your child mouths something unacceptable, say firmly, “No, not in your mouth. Give it to me.” If he does-n’t hand it over, remove it from his hand or mouth immediately yourself. (Some children resist having objects removed from their mouths, so learn in advance how to remove an object safely; see page 674). A child this age is capable of understanding and responding to such a command (though the response isn’t always compliance), and will soon begin to learn what’s okay to mouth and what’s not. (That doesn’t mean, however, that you can forgo supervising your child.)

The teething toddler may gum objects in order to put soothing counter pressure on his painful gums. If that’s the case with your toddler, provide him with some interesting and safe teething toys (there’s even one that has a built-in shape-sorter for entertainment between bouts of teething pain).