Shaped by Love by Amy Hatkoff

Author:Amy Hatkoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2022-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

I NEED MORE NURTURING AND CONNECTION THAN BABY GIRLS, ESPECIALLY IN THE FIRST YEAR OF MY LIFE.

The children in this chapter take us on a tour of their hearts and minds. They tell us how they think and feel and show us the world from their point of view. While most of us are familiar with the trials and tribulations of trying to reason with a two-year-old whose mind is not yet wired for logical thinking or trying to get a child with no sense of time out the front door, we are not as familiar with how challenging it can be to stand in that child’s shoes.

Because children are so capable in so many ways and are able to push our buttons so easily, it is natural to assume that they are more advanced than they are and to set our expectations of their behavior accordingly. It is easy to forget that underneath that seemingly brilliant strategist is a toddler who lacks the mechanisms to fully understand, absorb, and stick to the rules of the game. The toddler brain is not yet fully wired with the capacities for reasoning, impulse control, delayed gratification, frustration tolerance, or empathy.

Learning how to behave in the world is like learning a new language. It takes time. Children need to hear what is expected of them over and over, and over, again. Acquiring these capacities is an ongoing challenge of the early years. How exasperating this can be for adults—and how frustrating it must be for children to be asked to do things they cannot yet do, or to stop doing things over which they do not yet have control.

Adults who model the desired behavior, but know that its acquisition for the toddler is a slow, steady, important, and often painstaking process, can facilitate the healthy arrival at the next stage. Standing with toddlers as their allies and helping them deal with their disappointment, frustration, or hurt provides a template for what we hope they will be able to do for themselves down the line. Recognizing small steps as progress and acknowledging the hard work along the way can hasten the journey.

Today’s technological advances can track how young children’s brains develop. Just as they are so for infants, warm, loving responses foster confidence, curiosity, self-control, relatedness, and cooperativeness in toddlers—qualities that are considered to be more important to school readiness than knowledge of numbers and letters.

Underneath it all, toddlers want our approval. While they may test our limits, our love and acceptance are paramount to them. We have the opportunity to help them learn how the world works, to test things out, and to express themselves in the context of our relationships. If we allow ourselves to become stuck in the “punitive” role, we unfortunately rob both ourselves and our children of the profound growth that can come from a flexible, attuned, and sensitive dynamic. By spreading our arms wide enough to contain their behavior, stretching our understanding of their limits, and expanding our

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