Saw this on the web, top reading.

My daughter will soon be three years old. She seems to have regressed lately. She has become clingy and fearful. How can we discourage this babyish behaviour and help her to be the happy, daring, outgoing big girl she seemed to be growing into a few months ago when she was potty trained and gave up her bottle?

You clearly have a preference for seeing your daughter as more outgoing and daring than she apparently feels like being right now. While controlling her bodily functions was a big step in her development, simultaneously relinquishing her bottle may have made her anxious.When children take a large developmental step, such as becoming potty trained, they often initially need an extra dose of comfort and support. One step at a time is a good policy, and she is still very young.

Giving up the bottle, with which she was able to soothe herself, cuts off a path to comfort at a time when she has challenged herself the most.

Regression is natural and serves to help a child adjust to a new level of development. For example, a four-year-old will temporarily enjoy a bottle for a few weeks when a new baby arrives. Or a child who has just mastered reading will want to return to an earlier mastered activity, such as riding a tricycle.

Your daughter is clearly giving you the message to slow down the push towards being a ‘big girl’.

Have a think about events surrounding this return to ‘babyish’ behaviour. Has anything made her anxious? Has she started nursery school, or have you had a new baby or gone back to work? Even quite small changes in routine can have this effect on a small child.

If you find you place value independence, you are not alone. Our culture is behind you, often at the cost of ignoring essential emotional needs. This emphasis on autonomy also results in anxiety and depressive disorders, which can stem, in part, from early shame and disapproval of our ‘babyish’ needs for help and reassurance. These are needs we never entirely outgrow.

I recommend that you indulge, rather than criticise your child’s needs. She is not being babyish, she is just being two. Allow her to use a bottle if she wants to and even play at being a baby for 10 or 15 minutes each day. Hold her in your lap, rock her and make it into a game she can choose to play if she wants.

All of us love to be cared for, and your daughter is no different. If you give her the opportunity to pretend to be a baby, she will let go when she is ready. You may be amazed at how much a three-year-old can enjoy this game, because you are making room for all of her conflicting feelings.

Remember that she won’t be anything like a baby for much longer now. Enjoy your hugs and cuddles, and don’t try to rush her through her childhood. You might find you miss it when it has passed.

Toddler Troubles

by Jo Douglas

Small children can be demanding and exhausting. Next minute they’re all sweet and loveable again. Coping with the ups and downs of looking after the under-5s can often leave you feeling confused and guiltyJo Douglas understands how hard it is when small children refuse to eat or sleep. A parent and clinical psychologist, she has been working with families for over 25 years. In Toddler Troubles, she provides effective ideas for handling common problems in family life, like temper tantrums, endless questions, eating and sleeping and coping with brothers and sisters.

Toddler Troubles shows you how to be a sensitive and sensible parent, how best to look after your child, and how best to look after yourself.

 Fantastic book - was a huge help. I think it’s published by John Wiley & Sons,Ltd

Great stuff, thought i’d share it.

My friend and fellow Dad blogger Jim Turner (aka Genuine) and I had an interesting discussion this evening over a rather extraordinarily long and delicious dinner away from the wee ones where we talked about whether children should be required to apologize if they break the rules or hurt someone. It sprang out of a relatively minor incident at Jim’s house, but we see something transpire every day with our three that might warrant an apology or two.

This isn’t as obvious as it may appear on first glance, and Linda and I have discussed this very matter more than once in the recent past too.

Obviously, you want to teach your children to be kind, polite and mind their manners, if nothing else than just to be able to survive having them in your house for so many, many years, so from that angle, yes, they need to be taught pleasant behavior like “don’t throw the broccoli at the dog during dinner!” (no further explanation needed, I bet)

But other than training them in some sort of Pavlovian way to monotonically say “yeah, whatever, I’m sorry” or similar, does it really matter if they say “sorry” or not?

Clearly insisting they “say it like you mean it!” is more of the same knee-jerk response to the situation and again, do you really care if someone’s hurt you and they say, but cleary don’t mean, an apology? Does it make your broken lamp get fixed? Your skinned elbow heal?

Having said that, it may surprise you that I believe children should apologize and Jim captured my reasoning well when he observed that it’s just politeness training. Linda, however, believes that it’s quite possible that some children are just too young and since you won’t get a genuine apology, you should just let it go if they don’t automatically say “woah, sorry!”

I’m kind of on a fence about this (but don’t tell my wife) because I have seem my children do something bad and immediately apologize with a heartfelt upset about the situation. Not always, but let’s be frank: do you always mean it when you apologize for things like accidentally bumping someone getting onto the subway?

So what do you do? Do you require 100% compliance with the “say you’re sorry” rule, do you let it go completely, or do you rather sporadically request an apology from the offending party with the perhaps naive belief that somehow they’ll learn to be nicer and more polite and pleasant in the future?