Almost all of us fall victim to parenting myths of one kind or another. One group of myths surround young child aggression and anger in children.

You're told you have to use strict toddler discipline to respond to aggressive behavior when children are young. If you let children get away with being selfish at age 2, they will become bullies later in life.

Actually, it's normal baby behavior for toddlers to begin to defend themselves when another child tries to take their toy. It's important for children to learn to stand up for themselves. In fact, this is the perfect time to teach your child how to get along, and to get what she wants without hurting others.

Experimenting Children: Behaviors Are an Attempt to Learn

By the age of 2, children are trying to understand conflict as one step in natural child development stages. So they launch a series of experiments. Scientists call this process hypothesis testing, and it is a powerful way children learn how conflict works and how to resolve it.

Hypothesis testing involves five steps:

  1. Your child observes something: "Daniel has a ball. I want it, but he might get mad if I take it."
  2. She asks herself a question: "I wonder what will happen if I take it anyway?"
  3. She makes a hypothesis (guess), based on what she knows: "When I took the ball from Daniel, he hit me."
  4. She tests her guess: "Here I go, even though he has a mad look on his face."
  5. She evaluates the evidence: "Boy, Daniel got mad-then his mom took the ball away from me."

Child Social Development: Normal Babies Will Work It Out

Of course, there usually will be a lot of tears and frustration that go along with experiments like this. Still, children are very motivated to keep learning about how conflict works and how it gets resolved.

Parents can help:

  • Tell your child: "Be gentle with your friends. Use words. Tell Cherise you don't like it when she takes your ball."
  • Ask both children: "How can you share the ball?"
  • Show your child a new solution: "Let's let Daniel use the ball until the timer goes off, then it will be Cherise's turn."

 

Sources: "Testing 1,2,3." Talaris Research Institute, "Parenting the Second and Third Years," University of Wisconsin-Extension Cooperative, NCR Publication No. 578.