Toddlers are Not A$$holes

A Guide to Calming the Emotional Sh!t Storm

We've all heard the sentiment, there are entire books devoted to proving the notion.

Toddlers can be a lot of things.

They are sweet, kind, helpful, curious, funny, playful, silly, and wonderful.

Small humans are incredibly full of love. No one has ever made me feel more loved than that amazing little human bounding to see me, her face brimming with sheer joy and excitement when I come home after being gone for just fifteen minutes.

Tiny human-shaped leprechauns test boundaries, push limits and feel their emotions in a really big way. Here’s the thing, that’s built-in, it’s not a conscious effort to push your big human buttons. Toddlers are trying to make sense of their universe. Their notion of cause and effect is developing in over-drive.

I know, I know, you might be thinking, “But they can still be a$$h*les.”

**An a$$h*le, by definition, courtesy of Google:**

1) An anus. Having an anus is not definitive of one’s character. For some reason, the word anus always conjures up an image of a cat’s butthole in my mind.

2) A stupid, irritating, or condemnable thing.

3) My definition: Someone who knowingly and intentionally pops a squat on your boundaries, someone who believes they are superior to you, people who start wars, abusive people, people who can’t apologize or think they are never wrong, misogynists, rapists, bigots, racists, companies that use way too much packaging, and companies who value profits more than human life or sustainability. (This is not an exhaustive list.) But even then, I feel that there are better ways to describe these situations and name calling doesn’t get me very far.

Toddlers are not anuses and they are not stupid. They are incredibly smart and are learning at the most rapid rate they ever will again in their life. They may do things that feel irritating to us sometimes, but they are most certainly not condemnable.

See? Toddlers are not a$$h*les.

This next bit may be tough to swallow.

Toddlers look to us to understand how to sort out their emotions. They look to us big people for safety when they feel scared, mad, overwhelmed, tired, disappointed, and hungry because those things are hard to feel. Moments like this are when they need us most. Those feelings aren’t just hard for them to feel; those feelings are hard for even the most emotionally intelligent and mature person to feel.

Think about it: If it was easy to process feelings of anger, disappointment, or betrayal, we probably wouldn’t need therapy. We might not even have an entire industry devoted to human psychology.

Our challenging emotions are our biggest catalyst toward change.

If we were always happy, there would be very little that could be bought and sold. Not only is constant, consistent, happiness a completely unrealistic expectation, but the expectation of happiness is in itself a killjoy.

The less we resist our challenging emotions, the more we allow ourselves to sit with them with our explorer hats on, and the easier they are to process. Our resistance to fear, anger, and sadness is part of what makes feeling those things so darn difficult. I’m not saying give in to what those emotions make us want to do sometimes (unless you need to cry, crying is ok). I am saying make space for them and acknowledge you feel them. Self-validate, explore the trigger and recognize the gap between stimulus and response.

Our emotions serve a plethora of purposes. Hiding them and not expressing them in a healthy way is not one of them.

When we allow our children a safe landing place for tumultuous emotions, we teach them grace and the invaluable gift of learning to self regulate.

As I write these words, one of my baby mammals is having a meltdown of her own. Foot stomping, screaming, crying, and arms flailing because we aren’t having what she wants for dinner. She is not entitled and I don’t see an a$$h*le. I see someone who is disappointed and doesn’t know how to express it calmly because that part of her brain is not developed yet. It is in the process of developing, and it is nurtured and cultivated by me. This is a learning opportunity for me, and her.

Does that learning opportunity sometimes feel like my brain is being raked over hot coals? Of course. But like anything else, the more I practice staying calm when I am flooded with emotion, the easier it becomes and the better I can model that behavior for my child.

STOP-DROP- HUG- VALIDATE:

Stop- Pause for a moment. Take a deep breath. Make a quick mental space for the rush of adrenalin that comes with a screaming goblin.

Drop- Get down on their level. Kneel, sit; whatever. Big humans towering over you is scary. This shows them you’re with them.

Hug- Ask them if they want a hug. Be prepared for and respect a “no”, but more often the answer will be, “yes”. If they do say, "no", don't tell them it hurts your feelings, it's not about you. It's about respecting other people's bodily autonomy, no matter how small. More than likely, even if they decline initially, they will want a hug very soon after and come to you with eyes full of tears, hug them.

Validate- Identity what they’re feeling, name the emotion (best phrased as a question), and state that you understand that they feel that way. They don’t have the words to describe how they feel, that’s why they are doing what they’re doing. Help them find those words. Let them know it’s ok to feel that way. Sometimes this will be about a scrap of paper. Just do it. It matters to them, make mental space for it. Making mental space for what matters to them now will help them feel safe coming to you with relatively bigger things later. If you want a little validation motivation: validating your child’s feelings now helps to prevent personality and mood disorders later (the science.)

Validating is not about deciding for others what is big or small.

When we say, "You're being silly", “That’s not a big deal”, or “You’re overreacting,” what we’re communicating is that that person has no business feeling that way, and that they aren't feeling what they most certainly are feeling. If we look closer in ourselves, we realize it stems from an inability to manage the emotions our own psyche.

Invalidation is a subtle form of emotional gas lighting, which comes with dire consequences for the adults the children hearing these words eventually become.

We don’t get to decide for other people what emotions are worthy and when.

Validating is not agreeing, it is making mental space for why it matters to someone else, it is understanding why they feel that way. Validation can feel like the biggest mental leap in the universe when we're talking about a scrap piece of paper that got too crumpled, but it was their scrap paper. Validation is empathy in action.

A child feeling seen and heard is the fastest (and easiest, with practice) way to help them through big emotions. We do this through the grace of validation.

Quick Tip:

Under the eyes, there are a bunch of nerve endings that are particularly sensitive to cold. Next time the wee one is letting it all out, try running a paper towel or cloth under cold water and gently dabbing it under their eyes. Not only does this feel good, but it relaxes the entire nervous system and slows the heart rate. It is instant calm.

Just because we can sometimes feel burnt out, overwhelmed, and unable to bear any more screaming, does not mean the toddler is an a$$h*le. The toddler is still learning.

Resorting to name-calling is something that we adults often condemn. We call it abuse, we call it bullying, and we call it cruel. Using harsh labels ultimately expresses our limitations in processing and expressing our own emotions.

Let’s stop expecting tiny humans who do not have the brain wiring to manage their emotions in a subtle way to do exactly that. Let’s help them feel it, name it, and get through it. Let's stop asking children to be better than the adults blessed with the gift of raising them.