Laditan - The honest toddler: a childs guide to parenting

Name: Honest Toddler.

Status: Not potty trained, not trying.

Age: This many.

Likes: Cake, running, shows, games, and red drink.

Dislikes: Naps, bedtime, unsolicited eye contact, quinoa, pants, and all forms of discipline.

If you are holding this book in your hand, whether you bought it with money or just picked it up and ran to the car, youve made a good choice. Toddlers are misunderstood and the one in your life is probably disappointed in you. Read this book if you want to get better at what should be your number one priority: making your small child happy.

Dont skip pages, this isnt a bedtime story (yeah, we know) but a manual that will revolutionize your life. Youre welcome in advance.

P.S. Grandmas: Youre doing great. Keep it up. (Love you.)

Dear Honest Toddler,

My two-year-old is terrified of the vacuum cleaner, but I need to clean. What can I do!?

Messy in Bakersfield, California

Dear Messy,

Kill the vacuum cleaner with a knife. You can always wipe down the house with damp newspaper.

Lots of love, HT

Dear HT,

My toddler has been acting like a bit of an animal lately. Ripping paper money, peeing on the outside plants were at our wits end. Any advice?

Losing Steam in Atlanta

Hi Losing Steam,

When toddlers act out, it means they arent getting enough love or red drink. Try increasing both, and while you are losing things, you could start with the judgy tone.

Sincerely, HT

Listening ears, gentle hands, inside voices. If youre an adult, youve probably used these terms three to four hundred times in the last ten minutes. Question: Do you know what minding your business means? It means letting your childs spirit remain free. Your number one responsibility as a volunteer caregiver is to keep the unbroken crackers and full-strength juice coming. Rather than trying to fix your blessing, you should try to understand your sweet babys behavior so that you can provide more attentive customer service. This chapter is dedicated to helping you become a better unpaid intern to your toddler.

Theres a very dirty word that is commonly used to describe the mild outbursts of emotion that toddlers display from time to time. That word is TANTRUM. Not only is this descriptor condescending, it releases the party responsible (you) for said tantrum.

Wrong:Oh, Mayas just throwing a tantrum. Lets stand here with arms folded like despots and wait for it to pass.

Right:Maya is lying on her back in this crowded restaurant, screaming and trying to kick everyone within roundhouse distance. I wonder how I failed her?

Do you see how language creates toddler bias? From now on, well be throwing the word tantrum in the metaphorical outside trash and replacing it with loud response.

Last week I shared a loud response in our local Linens n Things. Dont be confused by the name of this retail outlet. There are no Things. Just Linens. After forty-six hours of wandering this textile purgatory, I felt a volcano erupt in my middle back. The last thing I remember is trying to rip an Egyptian-cotton duvet with my teeth and releasing my bowels on a couple of crushed-velvet throw pillows before running for my life. My behavior was a response, not a random occurrence.

Parents, if you wish to gain the respect of your toddler, the first thing you need to do is own your mistakes. For instance, if my parents and I had been at the toy store eating delicious and nutritious ice-cream sundaes, like Id asked, we could have spent the money that went toward those pee-pee pillows on the new toys I desperately need. Do you see?

Research: Go out into the field and observe loud responses firsthand in order to get a sense of why and how they occur. A popular place for scouting is the grocery store between four and five thirty P.M. While youre most likely to find an outburst occurring in nearly every aisle, for the best lessons, visit the cereal/snack/chip lane. The market is a land mine for parent/toddler conflict due to overuse of the dirty word NO. Also, most people dont realize this, but green vegetables emit a field of negative energy that contributes to the sadness and rage children feel while food shopping. Combine these factors with post-nap confusion, coupled with a literal wall of delicious but unavailable refined carbohydrates, and yes, you guessed it: loud response.

Right now youre asking yourself, Wait a minute, why dont these parents just open a box of Ritz crackers right in the grocery store so their child will be happy? Whats wrong with that?

Nothing. Theres nothing wrong with that. It is only the stubbornness of adults that prevents them from tearing apart a box of cereal at both ends so their child might have the strength to make it through the late afternoon.

They say pride comes before a fall. In this case, it comes before loud and, honestly, quite impressive responses on behalf of toddlers around the world. Parents, dont fool yourselves. Loud responses cannot be prevented by inCARTceration. Its fairly easy for an experienced toddler to erupt in emotional pain and low blood sugarfueled angst while secured in the front half of a shopping cart. Our arms are free to slap. Our feet can still connect with your kneecaps. Our heads can roll around in figure-eight formation while we release screams so gut-wrenching that strangers correctly assume youre doing it all wrong.

The only solution is to open the Goldfish, yogurt (eating yogurt with hands is okay), or family-sized package of licorice right then and there. The evil voices in your head might be whispering things like Dont give in, dont cave. Silence the chatter and bring your awareness to the present. And buy presents. Buy them for your toddler. Shower him with food gifts.

One of my favorite loud responses to watch is the one that takes place when a parent tries to prematurely remove a child from the park. Everyone knows that we have an obesity epidemic on our hands, so why not let your budding athlete exercise until after the sun has gone down and the prime-time television lineup has begun (thats the real reason youre going home, isnt it?). I admire children who literally go the extra mile by engaging their parents in a mad chase around the play structure to prevent the scoop n go. In my mind, I scream, Godspeed, comrade! as Mom or Dad tries desperately to catch their sprinting young gazelle. Its a beautiful thing.

Outbursts are not to be feared. Theyre to be prevented, and only you have the power to do that. The next time you think about walking out of Starbucks with a grande nonfat extra-hot hazelnut mocha for yourself and no giant chocolate-chip cookie for your patient cherubesque darling, consider the consequences. Are you ready for a throwdown? Because we are.