What Can One Learn From Toddlers?

Who is a toddler? This is a young child usually between 2 and 4 years old, learning to walk.

I have a toddler at my place of work whom I love to carry and play with when I get to work. For the few minutes I used to carry and play with her daily, there is one thing I have learnt from her which I will be talking about in this post.

Toddling is an important stage in a child's development as children between this age learn to move and understand the world around them. At 2 or 3 years, toddlers cannot do much for themselves as they depend on adults like their moms and dads to feed, clothe and care for them.

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Toddlers express frustrations when they cannot do what they want to do which often leads to tantrums — a sudden outburst of anger. The tears, the screams when they can't have what they want or do what they want to. But happily express themselves when they achieve something or are given what they want. A lot of times I have seen this girl expresses her frustration when she needs to reach out for something but can't until I help out.

A child's personality starts to develop through tantrums. It is at that point you know what a child would grow up to become. In her case, one thing I have observed in this girl is how quickly she forgives and forgets what has been done to her. It's normal for children to forget things easily and be back to playing but there you will see some children who would express dissatisfaction at someone when they do something wrong to them as they can easily identify a face and remember.

There was a time I carried her and a colleague playfully shouted at her and that annoyed her and pushed her to cry. She felt sad and it was there I knew she didn't like people shouting at her. Within a few minutes of patting and consoling her, she had stopped crying and was seen laughing at my colleague's joke with her and wanting to be carried by her. She had forgotten what happened already and that was seen in her personality.

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_{My friend's daughter}

Now, this brought me back to the question: what can one learn from a toddler?

When toddlers talk, they talk out loud to themselves and this is something they love doing and would want other people to hear them. This act is referred to as Self-Talk.

Self-talk is a way to decrease stress in anxiety-provoking situations. It is the message one tells themselves and how they tell them. What toddlers are saying can be interesting and funny as we don't understand what they say. I assume they speak positive things to themselves like when a toddler learns to pick something up and cannot, she may feel frustrated at first but later would say, "Girl, you can do this, just a little more try."

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I would watch this baby girl and how she tries to grab something and wouldn't be able to get there and the next thing would be for her to feel frustrated after much trial and after some time, would crawl until she gets to the point where she picks up the object, then you see her happy face which means she has achieved something.

When a toddler engages in self-talk, it is usually positive and encouraging words. As adults, instead of speaking positive things to ourselves, we say things like "No, I can't do it." It is necessary to give more positive self-talk to yourself. When you are sad or disappointed, think about talking to an imaginary friend.

Saying negative talk could lead to a negative psycho which is a pattern of repeating the same negative thoughts over and over again. Just like toddlers who learn to talk kindly to themselves, we can also do the same and be kind to ourselves.

Another thing to learn from toddlers is how they celebrate little things. Just like the above scenario or something like learning to get dressed, we should learn to appreciate ourselves and celebrate the little achievements in our lives.

In summary, being a toddler is the most active period of one's life as we keep learning and growing into the best version of ourselves.

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