Toddler Defiance

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Dear Magda,

Help! I don’t know what has happened to my wonderful child. My husband and I, even our babysitter, have followed your advice and RIE’s philosophy since our son Bryan was born. He has always responded just as you predicted. That is, until he turned nineteen months old.

That was two months ago, and since that time he has become almost a different person. Gone is the peaceful, consistent, predictable baby. In his place we have a willful, difficult, unpredictable toddler. Needless to say, we are confused and unhappy, but what really bothers us is that Bryan doesn’t seem very happy any more.

Please tell us, where did we go wrong? Is this a stage, or are we stuck with this different Bryan for the rest of our lives?

Frustrated Parents

Dear Parents,

As you have discovered, toddlerhood is a time of constant struggle. For the child, it is a period of strong ambivalence. He is filled with turmoil and overwhelming opposite feelings. No suggestion you give Bryan will be right, because a toddler has opposing inner needs. He needs to feel dependent and independent, big and little, strong and weak. At various times, the toddler feels omnipotent and helpless.

You ask why this is such a difficult time. Because you have observed Bryan during his infancy and treated him with respect as RIE advises, you are aware of the sense of security he achieved during his first year or so of life. His baby-world was completely safe. But now, as he becomes upright and starts to toddle, as he begins to understand language, his cocoon of security is shattered. He is able to sense more and more about the human condition, about reality. His need for magic is jeopardized by feeling helpless in crucial situations.

As Bryan begins to acquire language, he becomes able to communicate his needs. No longer is he the dependent, cuddly baby who elicits compassion, love and caring. Instead he is an explorer. He must find out who he is and how much power he has.

Once you understand the importance and the magnitude of Bryan’s struggle, your attitude can begin to support his rapid physical and emotional growth. It is difficult to live with a toddler with focus and empathy.

The toddler is a terrible, terrific, tiresome, true, torn human being. Try to imagine a see-saw with the toddler in the middle swaying from one side, one extreme to the other. There are times when Bryan feels that all the world is his oyster. At other times, he believes all the world to be his enemy.

You need enormous amounts of energy, patience, and compassion. You must learn to keep the optimal distance from Bryan while he is exploring. You can learn to function as an island of security in the sea of confusion and anxiety. You may be able to communicate a feeling of security to Bryan if you yourself can inwardly believe that this crucial period is really very short, although it seems to last forever.  

And most of all, you need humor.

To live with a toddler can, in a funny way, be therapeutic. All the human anxieties of feeling good and bad, loved and abandoned, peak. It’s like a ritual of passage. If this passage from babyhood to pre-school-ness was difficult for you as a child, it will be difficult for you to go through again. Eventually we have to explore the scary things we would rather avoid.

Best wishes and good luck with your journey as a family!

Magda

Dear Magda / Dear Parent – Toddler Defiance

Educaring® Vol. VII, Number 3, Summer 1986

First, my wishes for children. I wish they could grow according to their natural pace, sleep when sleepy, eat when hungry, cry when upset, play and explore without being unnecessarily interrupted. I wish them to be allowed to grow and blossom as each was meant to be and not molded or shoved into some mode of faddism that confines like a violin case. 

I wish children would nor have to perform for their parents, sit up when ready for rolling, or walk when ready for crawling. You know, a child can be pushed to do these things, but may not be physiologically really ready. In our culture, we push to attain these states faster than they should be reached. 

I wish children would not have to reassure parents of their effectiveness. They should not have to smile when frustrated or clap their hands when sleepy. They should not be ping pong balls between parents, nor experimental subjects of toy manufacturers, cereal makers, or new fads and theories in child care. 

Please, parents, the next holiday season, don’t succumb to the pressure of buying expensive, complex toys designed to be used certain ways. They rarely give children opportunities to explore and use them in their own way. Toys designed to entertain create passive onlookers and future television addicts, rather than curious, actively learning children. Pressures from commercials are especially strong at the holiday time of year. Think of the many children who are lost and bored unless they are entertained, and who keep asking, “What shall I do now?”

For parents I wish a lot of things, too. I wish they would feel secure, but not rigid. I want them to be accepting, but able to set limits; available, but not intrusive, and patient, but true to themselves. They need to be realistic, but consistent in their expectations, having the wisdom to resist new fads. I hope they can achieve a balance in giving quality time to their children and to themselves and achieve a state of self-respect and equal respect for their children.

I have a special wish for fathers, too. I wish that fathers could assume a new role of fatherhood based on human relationship rather than believing that being warm and gentle is not manly, or that a father is expected to be tough. They need not throw children into the air, nor blow cigarette smoke in their faces (Yes, I have seen this done “playfully.”) Roughhousing not only scares babies, but sometimes causes brain damage. What I’m saying is that playful pummeling is okay, as long as it’s not forced by the father and hard on the child. I would like fathers not to be afraid to be their own drummers, but to be themselves and to know that just because they are men, they need not be “macho.” They can be tender and soothing and quiet and still be men.

Above all else, I wish that we not lose sight of laughter. In spite of all the pain we might see and feel, we need to maintain our sense of humor. People who take life too seriously are terrible to live with!

Educaring® 7 (1), Winter, 1986.