Now You're Speaking My Language! (Toddler-ese)

whine  

v. whined, whin·ing, whines

v.intr.

1. To utter a plaintive, high-pitched, protracted sound, as in pain, fear, supplication, or complaint.

2. To complain or protest in a childish fashion.

3. To produce a sustained noise of relatively high pitch

Welcome to my life right now. In the last couple of weeks, Wesley has turned into a toddler. He now has a definite mind of his own and knows exactly what he wants and when he wants it (NOW!). And because the only words he currently says are "mama", "dada" and "HOT!"... whining is his chosen mode of communication. Frustrating for both mom and babe.

Brian and I are determined to be both intentional and proactive in our parenting, and so in preparation for toddlerhood, I've been doing some reading (and a lot of praying too!). A book that I really love is The Happiest Toddler on the Block by Harvey Karp. His philosophy centres around preventing many of the difficulties that parents can experience in dealing with toddlers (tantrums, defiance etc)... and his main approach is something called toddler-ese. This basically means turning adult language into simple messages that kids can understand - especially when they're having a meltdown! Toddlers are ruled mostly by the emotional right brain, and when they get upset, the rational, thoughtful left brain basically shuts down. That's why our calm reasoning doesn't usually work with a tantruming toddler. Our words often don't make any sense to them. But they can understand non-verbal communication such as tone of voice or gestures. To use toddler-ese with an upset toddler, you reiterate back to your child how they are feeling using simple, short phrases while mirroring some of their emotion and intensity through your voice, face and body language.

Here's an example:

Your toddler is crying at the back door, desperately trying to reach the doorknob. In response, you get down to his level and point to the door. You would say something like, "You want... you want... you want... outside! Outside NOW!  Wesley says... 'go, go, go'!" You may need to repeat this a few times to get his attention, but soon he'll probably turn to you, as if to say, you talkin' to me? Once the crying lessens you would return to a normal speaking voice and explain in simple language why he can't go outside right now, and then offer an alternative or distraction, or nothing at all - whatever is appropriate for the situation.

Toddler-ese doesn't mean giving in to tantrums or misbehaviour - it's letting your toddler know that you understand their feelings or frustrations, but that doesn't mean they get their way.

I'll admit, toddler-ese feels a little ridiculous at first but I've been using it for a couple weeks now and for us, it really has worked! Wesley currently HATES getting his diaper changed and it usually turns into an all-out wrestling match. My reasoning of 'if you just hold still this will be over in a minute' just wasn't doing the trick, so I've been using toddler-ese and, 8 times out of 10, it calms him down enough that I can get the diaper changed pretty quickly. It's helped with the frantic whining too for a drink or a snack etc. (along with patience-stretching which the book also advocates).

It might not be for everybody,  but we're becoming fluent in toddler-ese in our house right now!