How Toddlers Thrive, Tovah P. Klein, PhD

How Toddlers Thrive
Tovah P. Kein, PhD
ISBN: 9781476735139
Read March 6, 2014

Nonfiction: parenting, education.

Interesting focus here, approaching toddlerhood through the lens of understanding WHY toddlers are demanding contrary little beasts; what's actually going on mentally and emotionally that causes their behaviors.

Some really insightful bits, but overall the tone is a little too upbeat - having seen lots of toddlers myself, I think that it can never hurt to really emphasize that no matter how good your understanding, or how talented and in-touch your parenting, there are going to be battles of wills, there are going to be tantrums, and there are going to be moments when you (the parent) want to tear your hair out by the roots, and that this is all normal and ok.  I didn't feel like the book really addressed that quite seriously enough.

That said, I did like the focus on how toddlers live in the now, that they don't have an ability to understand the day in sequence or handle transitions well, and that as a parent your job isn't to make them happy, but to help them learn to navigate their big and complex and scary emotions - especially the ones that society considers "bad" - without making the kid feel bad or shamed or unworthy or unloved. Easy peasy, right?

Finally, I was interested in the approach to sharing.  She emphasized that the kid has to be both developmentally and emotionally ready to share, and that forcing the issue often backfires.  In other words, young kids are working out the concepts of "me" and "mine" and they conflate the two.  If you force a child to share what they still think of as part of themselves, that doesn't help them set up healthy emotional boundaries, and also causes them to feel that their identity is unrecognized or worse, unimportant.  After they get the idea that they are not their things, they still emotionally need to have their own things be theirs - to have the concept that their needs are important, recognized, and met.  Once they are secure in their feelings of self, and their feelings of ownership, then (at least according to the author) they should not only share, but share willingly and of their own impulse.  I'm not so sure I buy that they'll miraculously jump into sharing on their own accord, but I do understand the ideas of letting them figure out themselves and their stuff before making them share (ie - give away) what is important to them, when they don't have a mental framework to understand why it is important to share (no sense of empathy yet, or theory of mind to understand that other people even have wants/needs), or even that they will get the shared item back (no developed time-sense, living in the now).

Now, on how to balance that revelation with a society that looks on sharing as the prime directive of toddlerhood and socialization?  No advice for parents there, thanks so much, author lady!