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full speed. Sprinters can’t keep up the pace for miles. And prac-
ticing children must give way to the next phase, rapprochement.
Rapprochement: “I Can’t Do Everything”
Rapprochement, which occurs from around eighteen
months to three years, comes from a French word meaning “a
restoration of harmonious relations.” In other words, the child
comes back to reality. The grandiosity of the past few months
slowly gives way to the realization that “I can’t do everything I
want.” Children become anxious and aware that the world’s a
scary place. They realize that they still need Mother.
The rapprochement phase is a return to connection with
Mother, but this time it’s different. This time the child brings a
more separate self into the relationship. There are two people
now, with differing thoughts and feelings. And the child is ready
to relate to the outside world without losing a sense of self.
Typically, this is a difficult period for both children and par-
ents. Rapprochement toddlers are obnoxious, oppositional, tem-
peramental, and downright angry. They can remind you of
someone with a chronic toothache.
Let’s look at some of the tools toddlers use to build bound-
aries in this stage.
Anger. Anger is a friend. It was created by God for a purpose:
to tell us that there’s a problem that needs to be confronted.
Anger is a way for children to know that their experience is
different from someone else’s. The ability to use anger to distin-
guish between self and others is a boundary. Children who can
appropriately express anger are children who will understand,
later in life, when someone is trying to control or hurt them.
Ownership. Sometimes misunderstood as simply a “selfish”
stage, rapprochement introduces words to the youngster’s
vocabulary such as, mine, my, and me. Suzy doesn’t want any-
one else to hold her doll. Billy doesn’t want to share his trucks
with a visiting toddler. This important part of becoming a self is
often quite difficult for Christian parents to understand. “Well,
Boundaries