Emotions
Anxiety in Early Childhood
A two-year-old who panics at the vacuum cleaner and a four-year-old who insists there's a monster in the closet aren't broken — they're showing you th...
5 min read
Emotions
Understanding and managing your child's emotional world.
Emotions
How to Tell Age-Appropriate Emotional Reactions From Signs of Overload
Your three-year-old screams for forty-five minutes because his banana broke in half. Normal? Probably yes. Your three-year-old has stopped eating, won...
6 min read
Emotions
How Adults Help Children Name Their Feelings
"You seem really frustrated right now." Said quietly, in the moment, when a child is visibly struggling — that one small sentence is doing more develo...
5 min read
Emotions
The Role of Adults in Navigating the Two-Year Crisis
The two-year crisis isn't something that happens to you while you cope — it's a developmental process where what you do shapes the outcome. How long t...
4 min read
Emotions
How Adult Expectations Influence Child Behavior
The expectations you carry about your child's behaviour are doing more work than they appear to. When a parent expects a 14-month-old to share willing...
5 min read
Emotions
Why an Adult's Emotional Response Matters
A toddler launches the third bowl of pasta off the high chair. A baby cries inconsolably at 3 a.m. for the fourth night running. The adult's internal...
5 min read
Emotions
Why an Adult's Emotional Response Matters
From their first weeks, children read adult emotional states the way grown-ups read words. They notice your tone, your face, your body, and they use w...
5 min read
Emotions
Adapting to New People: What Is Normal for Young Children
Your toddler buries their face in your shoulder when your friend says hello. Your one-year-old screams when grandma reaches out for a hug. You start t...
5 min read
Emotions
Toddler Tantrums: Why They Happen and What Actually Helps
**Toddler Tantrums: Why and What Helps** **Why they happen:** - Emotional brain (limbic) fully active; regulating brain (prefrontal cortex) profoundl...
6 min read
Emotions
Toddler Tantrums: Why They Happen and What Actually Helps
The supermarket scene is universal: a toddler who was perfectly fine 30 seconds ago is now lying on the floor, screaming at a volume that seems physic...
6 min read
Emotions
What Is Happening in a Toddler's Brain During a Tantrum
A toddler mid-meltdown — screaming, kicking, bright red, inconsolable about the wrong colour cup — is in a state of genuine neurological crisis. That'...
7 min read
Emotions
Social Development in Toddlers: From Parallel Play to Cooperation
A roomful of 2-year-olds at a playgroup looks confusing if you expect them to "play together." Mostly they don't. They sit near each other, doing simi...
7 min read
Emotions
Hitting and Biting in Toddlers: Why It Happens and How to Respond
The phone call from nursery — "she bit another child today" — is one of the more dreaded moments of early parenthood. The shame is instant, the worry...
6 min read
Emotions
How Toddlers Make Friends: The Development of Early Peer Relationships
A common worry at the toddler-group door: "She doesn't actually play with the other kids — she just stands next to them." That isn't a red flag. It's...
5 min read
Emotions
Toddler Emotions: Why They Are So Big and How to Support Them
The intensity of toddler emotions takes most new parents by surprise, even those who were fully prepared for tantrums. The speed with which a toddler...
5 min read
Emotions
Emotional Development in Toddlers: How Feelings Work at This Age
Toddlerhood is often described as a period of intense emotions, and parents encountering it firsthand quickly discover that this is an understatement....
4 min read
Emotions
Emotional Regulation in Toddlers: Why It Is Hard and How to Help
The frequency and intensity of emotional dysregulation in toddlers — the meltdowns, the tears over apparently minor frustrations, the inability to cal...
4 min read
Emotions
Emotional Intelligence in Toddlers: Building Awareness from the Start
The phrase "emotional intelligence" has been used so broadly in popular culture that it has almost lost meaning. But the underlying research is solid:...
4 min read
Emotions
Toddler Anger: Why It's Normal and What Actually Helps
A toddler in full anger is an extraordinary sight: the whole body involved, complete loss of composure, sometimes genuinely terrifying in its intensit...
5 min read
Emotions
Biting, Hitting, and Aggressive Behaviour in Toddlers: What Drives It and How to Respond
Discovering that your child has bitten another child at nursery, or that your toddler has hit an older sibling, is embarrassing, alarming, and stressf...
4 min read