Tips for Parenting Toddler – From Meeting to Leading

In the first three months of your baby's life, you spent the bulk of your time meeting your baby's basic needs: holding her, burping her, rocking her, feeding her, playing with her, and then putting her down for her nap.

But in a mere matter of months, your focus must shift from meeting needs to leading her into a healthy indepen­dence. I'm sure you've noticed that with every passing month this child has become more and more of an individual person. It wasn't long before the newborn could distinguish the difference between Mommy's arms, Grandma's arms, and a stranger's arms, and when she wanted to be fed, she wanted Mommy's arms!

You laughed, took your baby into your arms, and maybe even secretly were quite pleased that baby loves you best. But if you stay at this place of simply meeting your child's needs, you're setting yourself up for some major trials down the road.

You now have the opportunity, privilege, and obligation to help your child mature into her own individuality. The diffi­culty is that in the midst of this process, it can be very confusing trying to distinguish challenges to your authority with personality quirks. These moments can be so subtle that first-time mothers often don't recognize them for what they are. If a kid thinks whimpering, whining, rebelling, or looking frightened will break you, that's what he'll use, and since you haven't been through this, you may not realize what's going on—he's not fighting about mushy pancakes, he's fighting about control.

As a mom, your job is to understand your child's insecuri­ties and help him deal with them in a healthy, submissive way. Let's take one common issue as an example. Imagine you're dropping your child off at preschool. I know that's still a year or two away, but it'll be here before you know it. On the first day of class you and your three-year-old are running a little late. When you arrive, most of the other kids are already settled in, coloring their name tags. You and junior walk up to the door of the room, and your son already feels like an outsider, so what does he do? He grabs your leg as if he were standing on the precipice of Mount Everest and would surely fall to his death if he let go.

You're new at this; you've never dropped off a child for the first time at preschool before, so you're not completely sure what you should do. Fortunately, Ms. Jenkins, the teacher, has a master's degree in education and child devel­opment and says to herself, Uh oh, I better help the stray lamb get into the flock, so she excuses herself, walks over to you and your boy, drops to her knees, gets on eye level with the kid, and gently says, "Hello, Alexander."

Alexander's first official act is to bury his head between your legs, trying to pretend that none of this is happening. You haven't seen him act like this in some time; it seems like he's reverting a bit, so now you're really confused. You wonder if you're doing the right thing in bringing him to preschool. Should you just have waited until kindergarten?

What's going on here? Well, try to see it from his eyes: Alexander is a little scared. He's never faced this situation before. It's normal for him to act frightened. Especially if he's never even met the teacher before or been out of your sight for more than a few minutes.

After a little coaxing and much prying, you and Ms. Jenkins finally get Alexander to get his head out of your body and say a muffled "Hi." With even greater effort, Ms. Jenkins manages to pry Alexander from your leg and escort him over to the group.

"Everybody listen up!" she says. "I want to introduce all of you to Alexander. Can you say 'hi' to Alexander?"

"Hiiiii Alexander," the class says in unison.

You hang around just long enough to see Alexander happily jump into the group game. He gives you a little wave to let you know he's okay, and you go back to your car and cry like a baby because your firstborn is growing up and doesn't need you anymore!

Given this scenario, what do you think will happen on Tuesday? Will Alexander walk into the preschool like he owns the place, give everybody high fives, and yell out, "Well, Teach, what do you got for us today?"

Not likely. That's a few years down the road.

More likely, Alexander is going to hang back once again, and once again grab onto your leg like a vice. You, the first-time mom, are understandably confused. "But Alexan­der, remember how much fun you had yesterday?"

"No."

"Don't you want to stay again?" "No."

Deep down Alexander probably does want to stay, but he also wants the same secure welcome he got yesterday. That introduction made the day go so well that he has decided to hold back, expecting Ms. Jenkins to come up to him once again and give him another personal escort, followed by another grand introduction. And if everybody in the class would like to say, "Hiiiii Alexander" once again, well, that would be the cherry on top of his sundae.

I want you, as an adult, to try to be that three-year-old just for a minute. Would you rather walk into a group situa­tion stone cold—or wait for the sweet-smelling escort who has soft hands and an encouraging voice? I know plenty of forty-year-olds who dread mixing it up at parties, so let's not be too hard on the three-year-old.

But that doesn't mean we give in to their demands. Kids figure out pretty early how they can control situations—by being loud, obnoxious, shy, or by acting ill. I've seen it all. As long as their behavior gets them what they want, they don't really care what method you require. And they're smart enough to figure out how to get to you.

So what should you do?

On the second day, stoop down to Alexander's eye level and give him a reassuring hug. "Honey, these are the same kids that were here yesterday, and look over there—there's Ms. Jenkins. You need to go to school now, that s your job, and Mommy needs to go to her job." Give him a hug and a kiss, and if he starts complaining, catch Ms. Jenkins' eye. Try to communicate, I'm leaving, good luck, and then go. And don't look back.

If you stand there and debate Alexander, or walk out and then hang around or come back inside the room, you're invit­ing him to pull out the big guns: agrand-mal-type temper tantrum.

On day number three, your drop-off should go even more quickly. The lesson here is one I've already stated earlier: Don't start habits that you don't want to see continued. If you don't want to debate Alexander about the merits of preschool every morning, don't get into even one debate. Once you have done something one time, your firstborn will see it as a license and privilege to keep doing it for the rest of eternity. Once you give a child a second snack at night, you have just built in the expectation that every night she can expect to get two snacks. She knows she may have to work for that second snack, but since she broke you once, she figures she can break you twice.

So on that third day, you want a clean break with Alexan­der. If you talk to any veteran parent, they'll tell you that while your kid might be fussing when you leave, he or she usually settles down right away. Why? There's no audience. That experienced teacher won't be played like a violin. Your kid picks up on this and puts his instrument back in his case.

Even after this third day, stay on your guard. One thing I noticed with Rosie, Lauren's dog: She was doing so well in training but then had a bad couple of days. She reverted, testing us and Lauren again to see if we really were the Alpha dogs of the family.

Your son or daughter will do this as well. Once they know their place, they'll settle down into it rather comfortably— for a while. But if they ever see your defenses weaken, they'll come out once again, guns blazing, challenging your authority. You must consistently stay in charge. Your child needs you to maintain your authority.