Help Your Toddler Become a Problem Solver

Admire and Interact!
The most important thing you can do to encourage your toddler's ability to organize her behavior, communicate her emerging ideas and feelings, and problem-solve is to admire and interact with her. At this stage, your child needs to feel the warmth of your high regard. If she builds a block tower and proudly turns to you, the approving gleam in your eye will encourage her to continue. If, however, you're preoccupied and keep your nose buried in the newspaper, missing all of her glances in your direction, you will inadvertently cut off the exchange. If you tend to be overly fastidious and bossy, your disapproving head shakes and angry exclamations each time your child wants to flex her muscles and climb on the sofa cause her to shy away from feeling assertive and interacting with you. On the other hand, if you join in excitedly with your child as she explores the backyard, she will get a clear sense that you applaud her adventurousness.

One way you can show your child that you love being with her is to act silly. As we mentioned earlier, your toddler may start exhibiting more of a sense of fun during these months. She may use all sorts of babbling not only because she is mimicking the sounds and rhythms of adult speech, but because she is amused by the nonsensical sound patterns that come out of her mouth. By exchanging barks, whinnies, and meows with you, your toddler will feel as if she's the funniest thing ever. She'll continue to seek you out, and try to cobble more and more silly vocalizations together. Even when she's a little cranky or disorganized, your use of funny voices or a little humorous horseplay may rein her back into communicating with you.

If your 18-month-old seems to be repetitive rather than creative and opens and shuts a door again and again, you might try using the following technique that one parent came up with. Get yourself "stuck" behind the door! Act as if you're apologetic to the door, begging "his" pardon for bumping into "him" in a cartoonish voice. Your child may be amused by this by-product of her behavior, and it's a practical way to draw her back into more creative dialogues and a sense that pleasure and silliness are part of human interactions, too.

Let Your Child be the Boss
As you playfully encourage your child to take center stage, you'll be following a key principle of floor-time interaction: Let your child be the boss of your play. Why is it so important for her to call the shots? We promote this rule during floor-time play because we want to take advantage of the child's natural interests. By building on your toddler's interests, pleasures, and delight in certain postures or movements, you help her become assertive and guide her behavior (and, later on, her thoughts) with her own desires or emotions. Connecting wishes and emotions to behavior and thoughts is a key to creative and logical thinking.

For example, suppose your little girl is lying on her tummy, holding her stuffed kitty-cat in front of her face, and making meowing sounds. You could lie down on your stomach, too, so that you're both literally operating on the same level and your child won't feel intimidated by your size. Since she's showing a comfort and pleasure in using her voice to produce the meowing sounds, you might try to keep a playful exchange of meows going. Or catch her eye, and extend your hand to pat the kitty-cat's head. See if she imitates your gesture, pats your head instead, or gets up on all fours in search of the kitty-cat's mommy. Just follow your little girl's lead and help her take her play in new directions.

When you build on your child's interests, you help her feel purposeful. She'll swell with pride because she leads the way and holds sway over you. In so many activities during the day, you necessarily must have the last word, and your child senses her relative lack of power. After all, you are the final authority in matters of bedtime, meals, naps, and schedules. On many levels your control gives your child a sense of security and comfort, yet she also has the very human need to get her own way from time to time. By ceding floor-time control to her, you are helping your toddler exercise behavior that expresses her intentions in an appropriate manner. Because she is doing what she wants to do, her practice will be unforced.

Another fringe benefit of building on your child's natural interests during an exchange of gestures is that you won't have to rely on new toys or gimmicky ideas to enliven your playtimes together. You would soon run out of tricks and would be exhausted and bored if you felt you had to entertain your child all the time. There will be occasions, however, when you'll have to gently intrude yourself into the interaction sequence. If your toddler starts to tune out, or shows a reluctance to initiate any circles of communication, be observant and you will probably be able to detect where her interest has wandered. You can then open up an exchange of gestures around whatever it is that is absorbing her attention.

When your little girl seems to lose interest in crawling like a kitty-cat with you by her side and seems disinclined to play, you can give her a minute or two to rest and regroup. Be patient, and then see what will capture her interest next. Even idle times, such as when she lies on her back and stares at a shadow on the ceiling, or gazes out a window at brightly colored leaves, can provide you with a clue about where your next interaction is headed. Her relaxed behaviors could lead to a lot of energized pointing about the shapes you both detect on the ceiling, or to taking a companionable nature walk outside.

There's often some hint in your child's behavior-a look in a certain direction, for example-that you may not usually associate with play. If she stops playing with a toy while the two of you are outside and picks up a woodchip or two that she finds at her feet, you might refocus your interaction with her around the woodchips. If her attention continues to flag, you might try to inject some novelty into your play by building a block tower made of woodchips. If she truly seems tuckered out and wants to rest for a while, invite her to lie down with you on a lounge chair. Let her hear your voice as you talk about how nice it is to rest together, or simply nestle in each other's arms for a while. The goal is to present your toddler with options and to then follow whatever action-or inaction-plan she chooses. Each time you're successful in extending the chain of back-and-forth's you exchange with your toddler, you're helping her to link up her actions in an increasingly purposeful way. She comes to realize that it's satisfying to take the next step, or fill in the next piece of the puzzle.

More on: Babies and Toddlers