The longer I parent, the more appreciation I appreciate simple, back-and-forth structures for teaching. It’s tempting for adults to give long, one-sided instructions to young kids, but those don’t land well.
Give them scripts
Something vague like “use your words” requires a toddler to remember what word you’re looking for.
Harder way
Kid: MY SPOON FELL ON THE FLOOR
Parent: Say it nicely.
Kid: I WANT A DIFFERENT SPOON THIS ONE IS DIRTY
Parent: What’s the magic word?
Kid: Please
Parent: Please what?
Kid: Spoon.
You’re trying to prompt too many things here: both “Ask for what you want” and “Say ‘please’ when asking for something.” The more frustrated the kid is, the less able they are to remember all this at once.
Easier way
Kid: MY SPOON FELL ON THE FLOOR
Parent: Do you want a new spoon?
Kid: I WANT A DIFFERENT SPOON THIS ONE IS DIRTY
Parent: You can say “new spoon please”
Kid: New spoon please.
Example of teaching a child a phrase as a replacement for grabbing.
Example of coaching through phrases for ordering at a restaurant and asking for something at a store.
A script example
I found water spilled in our hallway. I was pretty sure it involved my kid (4) and our neighbor’s child (2) who’s at our house most days. If I just tell them “Tell a grownup when you see water on the floor,” they haven’t heard an example of what specifically to say, and they haven’t practiced it.
Me: “I found water spilled on the floor. When there’s water on the floor, a grownup needs to know so we can clean it up. When you see water on the floor, tell a grownup ‘There’s water on the floor.’ If you see water on the floor, what are you going to do?
2-year-old: [confused look]
Me: “Say, ‘There’s water on the floor!’’ What are you going to say if you see water on the floor?
2-year-old: Water on the floor!
Me: That’s right!
(Then we can actually clean the water up. But here I wanted to practice the first step: literally saying what the problem is.)
First X, then Y
Harder to understand:
“We can’t go outside until we clean up this puzzle.” You’re describing the steps in the opposite order of how they will happen.
Easier:
“First we clean up the puzzle, then we go outside.”
Call and response
I’ve enjoyed seeing trainings from King Randall, an educator who does very structured verbal back-and-forth. (No coincidence that he’s a Marines veteran.) Example: learning to change the oil in a car.
He also does a lot of live roleplays, which most of us aren’t going to arrange with auto mechanics and waitstaff. But you could talk through a lot of this, or talk your kids through what you’re doing as you do daily tasks.
- Making a medical appointment
- Setting and reading boundaries when someone asks for a hug
- Dealing with a clogged toilet
If I were doing something differently here, I would spell out more of the content before having them guess wrong. I’d also go for simple language: when a kid said “get that stuff out the toilet,” that’s the right answer; you don’t have to correct them to “remove the obstruction.”
Teaching boundaries of spaces
Toddlers love to show you they can be competent. When I need them to stay in a specific space:
1. I tell them the rule: “You can run in the driveway, but not past this chair.”
2. I physically show them the boundary. Make it as visually obvious as possible. If there’s no existing marker, put an item there, like the chair in this case.
3. I ask “Show me how you run and stop at the chair!”
Most toddlers are pretty excited to run and stop at the right place. Cue enthusiastic response from me: “You’ve got it! You know just where to stop!”
I’d use this where there’s no immediate danger: a curb where no car is currently approaching, a train station where there is no train. I would not try it right next to actual traffic.
“But I want them to learn complex language”
There are lots of good times for them to hear more complex vocabulary and sentence structures. But it’s best done in low-stress situations like reading aloud, or conversations where you’re not trying to get them to do something.