The Conscious Parent

Though it’s important to be gentle, we must be consistent and firm in
laying down boundaries. Mindful of the fact that our toddler still exists
in a somewhat dreamlike state, we don’t want to shock it out of this
state, yet we do need to start building the container within which it will
live.
It’s essential to realize that a toddler only kicks and bites us because it
doesn’t know how to say, “I’m mad at you.” Though it cries and flails as
if we have deprived it of food for months, what it’s really saying is,
“Help me, I’m miserable.”
If displays of emotion frighten you and make you anxious, you will be
unable to help your toddler cope with its internal world. This means
teaching your toddler how to deal with the emotions that rise in its body
when it’s denied something it wants. Thankfully, your child’s vocabulary
is now expanding exponentially. Using the bridge of language,
combining role-playing and storytelling, you can invite your toddler into
the world of imagination and help it make sense of its world. As you do
so, your toddler learns that it can survive intolerable emotions and return
to a centered calm.
Even though toddlers want to believe they can climb mountains and
reach the moon, the truth is that they simultaneously feel helpless in the
face of the enormity of life. To alleviate this feeling, toddlerhood needs
to be a time during which routines are further established and boundaries
more firmly set. As a schedule evolves, toddlers learn to walk, talk, eat
without our having to feed them, potty train themselves, and sleep in
their own bed. In due course, as they attend preschool, they will separate
further from us as their parents.