The year they get loud and clever
Two to three is the year the toddler stops being a baby who wobbles and becomes a person with opinions and a small vocabulary to miss the point with.
Feelings come first on the development page, which is the right order. They are learning their own and starting to notice yours. Tantrums stay common because the need arrives before the sentence.
Frustration, anger, embarrassment, guilt, shame. You will see all of them in a week. They also begin to clock that what they do changes you, and what you do changes them.
Leaving them in a place they know may be less of a scene than it was. They will still attach to your leg when they are tired, frightened, or just want the cuddle. Give the cuddle.
It is not spoiling. It is the age.
Thinking is busy. Big and small, day and night, body parts by what they do, shapes and colours, remembering that an apple is red and round, trying a thing to see if it works. You do not need flashcards. You need to let them try the lid, the spoon, the sock, and not grab it back at the first fumble.
Play is how the learning happens. Other children, dress-ups, a tea party that is just cups, paint with fingers or a brush, rough and tumble with you. Turns get better, slowly.
Stories, songs and books are not extras. They are the talking practice. Rough and tumble stops when someone is actually hurt or scared.
You can wrestle and still be the adult who says enough.
Talk, roughly. Around 2, many use two or three word sentences and start on I, you and me. Words arrive in a rush, and strangers may understand them more often.
By 3, three to five words in a sentence, sometimes more, a turn in the conversation, a short exchange with you. They can tell you a piece of the day if you help them order it. I go shop.
And what did you do. Buy milk. By 3 a made-up story might appear, thin on detail.
They talk about people who are not here. Grandma at the shops. The ball in the tree.
That is memory, not nonsense. Answer it.
Give them time to respond. Men fill silence. Don't, for a few seconds.
Follow what they are pointing at. Read the same book until you are sick of it. The repetition is the lesson.
This is still toddlerhood, not a small adult. They will not manage a birthday party, a late meal and a new park in one day without a tantrum you could have predicted. Cut the day.
Stay close. If your temper is the thing that is about to break, put them somewhere safe and step out. The development page is a description, not a test they pass by Christmas.
Source: Raising Children Network