Sustainable Parenting

82. My TOP 3 tips for Parenting Toddlers

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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Curious about how to transform those toddler tantrums into more calm and ease?

Today I'm giving you the TOP 3 tips I think are MOST effective with toddlers.  These tips help our child to do THEIR best, and help US to do our best, too!

These 3 tips for parenting toddlers will help:

  • Decrease power struggles
  • Increase cooperation and listening
  • Make your days with a toddler a little lighter and brighter.


I'm so glad you're here with me today.:) 

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Speaker 1:

You're listening to episode 42 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast with me, flora McCormick, licensed therapist, parenting coach and early childhood mental health consultant. Today, we're talking about the three key tools that I find are so effective with toddlers. So, like two to four year olds, what can get them more likely to reset if they're very upset, what can help them to listen when you want them to listen, what can help them to cooperate when you want them to cooperate, and these three strategies. I'm going to be sharing stories today about ways that specific clients of mine have been using these strategies and how it's really turned each one of them from areas of struggle, from areas of struggle to areas where they're having a lot more success. Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective and, for that reason, finally feel sustainable. Welcome. Let's dive into this topic today of how do we use three key tools that are super effective with toddlers, and they are this First, stop talking about elephants.

Speaker 1:

Second, lean into the dog bite. And third, do the red light green light. These are my three key tips for you today, so let's dive into them. The first one is stop talking about elephants. I love to have this conversation with clients. I say okay, for just a moment. I want you to imagine, or to be sure that you are not thinking about elephants. Do not think about their legs being gray and wrinkly and their trunk being long and swaying as they walk. Don't think about it. You're not thinking about it, are you? You wouldn't dare. No, don't think about that. Okay, of course, that's all you can think about, right? Well, this is what we end up doing sometimes with our kids. We get in this mode where we're saying don't touch that. Don't you, poke your sister, don't use that voice with me, don't whine all the time. And we're talking about the elephant. What they're mostly hearing from that sentence is whine all the time, poke your sister. They are hearing the majority of your statement, even though the beginning has a don't. So if I truly didn't want you to think about elephants instead, it would be so much more effective if I said something like I want you to think about standing on the beach and watching the palm tree sway and looking out and seeing the ocean waves crash with white foam. Looking out and seeing the ocean waves crash with white foam. Now you're not thinking about elephants, right? Same is true for our kids. I say let's stop talking about elephants and make the right choice fun. What does that mean?

Speaker 1:

If a child is wanting to stay playing with a toy and they're dinosaurs or tractors, and I'm trying to get them up to bath time, instead of don't keep playing, I'm going to say the do. I'm going to say, hey, it's time for bath time. Do we want to go right side up or upside down? Or I'm going to project to what's next time for bath time. I wonder, are we going to get out the pouring cups or the you know like if you have one of those little maze kind of tube things? Are we going to get out the bubble bath or the bathtub crayons? What are we going to do?

Speaker 1:

First, I'm putting their mind on the next thing to think about. You can do this at pickups instead of. You've got to leave your friends, you've got to leave preschool. Don't whine and cry about staying at preschool. You take that moment of resistance and you project to what you want them to be thinking about. Ooh, you know, in the car I have a squeezy and some carrots. I wonder which one you're going to want to eat first. Squeezy and some carrots, I wonder which one you're going to want to eat first. Or hey, as soon as we get home, should we take the dog for a walk or do a three-minute dance party? Or hey, what song should we play first on our drive home? Do you want to do this one or that one? So put their mind on something else interesting. Stop talking about elephants and make the right choice fun.

Speaker 1:

Second key tip for toddlers ages two to four is lean into the dog bite. I think of a client of mine named Lisa, who I've been working with an amazing family, and she said this made all the difference today. They had a situation where their son was like frustrated they had just rented a car that was blue and their car while their car was in the shop, and then, when they got their real car back, he was like I want the blue car, though why don't we have a blue car? Let's change the color of our car. And she thought, okay, this feels like one of those lean into the dog bite moments. What we mean here is, instead of leaning away, they say when you are bit by a dog that it can be better to lean into that dog bite, like if your hand was bit, you should push into their jaw to release the jaw. Then you'll get out. Same sometimes with our kids when they're stuck on an important thing, like I want the car to be blue. If we try to pull it's going to be worse than if we can push into the moment. And her way of doing that was to just kind of get magical. Oh, my gosh, wouldn't that be amazing if we could just transform our car to be blue? Let's see if we had a magic wand we could go bibbidi, babbidi, boo, be blue. Oh, dang it, it's not working. And she said it was just so amazing we still didn't turn the car blue.

Speaker 1:

But I changed from my old habits of trying to logically explain and I just use this principle of lean into the dog bite, lean into what they're obsessed with and can give it with wish. You can say, yeah, that's so interesting, we can explore, we can name it to tame it. I have several other episodes talking about that. And it's magical how it can decrease their likelihood of getting upset. So we've got two so far. We have the wonderful tool of don't talk about elephants. We have the wonderful tool of lean into the dog bite.

Speaker 1:

And the third I want you to think about is the red light. Green light and this has been coming up a lot with my wonderful clients. I'll call them Sam and Jessica and they have a four-year-old who is really having big challenges in preschool, like having days where he's getting sent home because of behavior that's really like just a little too rough and a little too mischievous and not really following the rules. They come to me really looking for a lot of support and this is the top. First way they started seeing improvement within the first couple weeks was that we came up with this idea. Let's be clear about the red light and the green light. So they realized that they had previously just kind of responded to moments that weren't going well with threats or consequences or praise, but never really done much work outside of the moment. So they're doing better at creating structure to their morning routine, being clear that we're going to pick up our toys before we move on to our next toy and when we have done our nighttime routine.

Speaker 1:

Within this amount of time, we have time for three books, and when we don't, we may only have time for two books. These types of structures then help us focus on the red light, green light principle. Then help us focus on the red light, green light principle. Red light would be, you know, the clear boundary. If we do not have our toys picked up, we cannot get a new toy out, or any toy that is left out is going to be put away for a day. If I find it overnight, or if we have been horsing around and we're not ready for bed in a certain time frame, we only have time for three books, or two books instead of three. That's the red light, that's clear boundary and the green light is the.

Speaker 1:

Instead, let's also teach and make it fun and be clear about how to do this thing correctly. So on the green light side, it's really clearly setting the expectation we're going to clean this up before we move to the next thing and then adding some principles of those first two aspects of the dog bite and the um don't think about elephants in the way of like, make it playful to give them the alternative good behavior. So instead, just you better clean up your toys or you're going to lose that toy. It's remember if we don't clean up, we don't have that toy for a day. That's the red light and the green light that makes it fun is something like choice. Hey, do you think you want to clean these up with the bulldozer, picking everything up and carrying it over to the bins? Or should we use our hands, bulldozer or hands? Let's give the green light.

Speaker 1:

Or if what I'm frustrated with is that they're always whining, let's be clear with the red light. We are not going to whine. If we do, you know I'm going to just walk away because I can't understand what you're saying. But the green light is let me give you alternative language. Let me give you the bugs and wishes. It bugs me when this happens and I wish this mommy or I don't like that. Can you help me? Those types of words for young kids?

Speaker 1:

Or if they keep poking you and interrupting you when you're trying to talk to someone, the red light is hey, if you are poking, poking, poking, I am not able to help you, but let me give you the alternative, the green light. You can put your hand on me. I'll put my hand on that hand to let you know that I'm just finishing up what I'm talking to someone about and I'll help you in a second. Then I'll look at you and say, yes, how can I help you? That's teaching the interrupting hand.

Speaker 1:

So, red light clear boundaries, green light clear replacement these three tools, my friend, can be so valuable for helping you see change in dynamics that have been frustrating with your toddler, age two to four, where otherwise you've been like he just doesn't listen or I just don't know how to make him get off of a topic. He's really just stuck on. So I hope this empowers you this week to be able to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, so that parenting is finally feeling sustainable. And, friend, if you've got questions that follow up and you're like I just am not sure exactly how to do this, though with my unique, particular kid, that's exactly what I would love to help you with. That's what I help parents with every week and hundreds of parents every year. You can reach out for a clarity call, which is linked in the description of this episode, or at my website, sustainableparentingcom.