5 Challenging Toddler Behaviors That Are Completely Normal With Katya Schmookler

Katya  Schmookler is a Conscious Parenting Guide and a Certified Parent Coach.

She helps overwhelmed parents recognize and heal their triggers and generational wounds so they can have EASEful and JOYful relationship with their kids without getting stuck in reactivity, helplessness, shame, and guilt. She owns Beautiful Optimism a parent coaching business is Arvada, CO.

Every parent comes to a point when they look at their child’s behavior and experience fear or frustration. We want our children to be kind and calm, we are craving ease, cooperation, and peace. Yet our sweet babies are not babies anymore. They assert their will, refuse to listen, and have strong emotions that can be deeply triggering.

When our children express behaviors that we consider unacceptable, we question whether they are ok and whether we are doing a good job as parents. It gets even harder to accept and love them unconditionally when we have unrealistic expectations or hear family members, other parents, or caregivers telling us how children should behave in order to become kind, loving, mature adults.

I hope that this article will give you peace of mind in relation to your toddler’s behavior and let you know that you and your child are ok and are not alone.Here are 5 behaviors that we often fear in toddlers that are 100% developmentally appropriate and that will certainly pass — especially with patience, love, and empathy.

1.Hitting, Biting, Screaming, and Expressing Aggression.

In the modern world, seeing many examples of anger expressed in destructive ways, we have grown to fear the very emotion even though it serves a great purpose because we have not seen adults in our childhood processing it safely and/or were shamed and punished for our anger instead of being taught how to deal with it.

It makes sense that when we see our sweet children starting to hit, bite, kick, scream, and throw things, our body and nervous system experience stress — fear, shame, helplessness, and more anger. Our mind often without our awareness spirals into “What’s wrong with my child?”, “Am I raising a monster?”, “Am I a bad parent?” And then we react with even more anger or desperation wanting the behavior to stop and not giving practical tools to work with anger that our children (and we too) need. Next time your toddler expresses their anger, know that it’s ok and completely normal. 

First, calm your body and racing mind moving your attention to the heaviness of your feet, the feeling of firm steady ground or floor, taking a few breaths with longer exhales, or hugging yourself. 

Second, offer empathy to your child — “Hey, what’s happening love? Why are you angry?”— and listen to their big reason or simply be there for them if they can’t yet use their words in this state.

Third, try to offer ways to process their anger — stomping their feet, jumping up and down 10 times, roaring like a tiger.

They will not learn right away, children at this age still have a very hard time controlling their impulses — but it will change slowly, with your patience, setting an example (how do they see you processing your anger?), and repetition.

2.Saying no

At the age of 2-3 children start realizing that they are their own beings and are separate from their primary caregivers. It means that they can disagree, and while they are practicing their will, it comes — like anything we are just trying to master — in awkward and uncomfortable ways.

"No, I don't want to put my clothes on"

"No, I don't want to eat" (even if they are hungry)

“No, I’m not leaving the park”

The first thing that usually gets triggered here is parents’ wish for respect, which comes from our upbringing. Most of us were demanded to respect our caregivers which essentially meant agreeing with all they said or asked of us. We now know that raising compliant children is not necessarily the best thing to do — because if they are not allowed to question you, will they ever question their peers, teachers, authority, or other adults?

Every human goes through the stage of separation and developing their will for a reason — because we are beings with FREE WILL. So next time your toddler says “no”, try to explore why this particular situation is so triggering for you, and see if you can leave some room for their “no”s and negotiation — for example, giving you both more time to get out of the door. Remind yourself that their “no” is not out of disrespect to you, but out of respect to themselves and their own needs and desires that naturally come at this age first.

3.Needing Connection

Toddler age is the time when many children start to walk or freely move around and therefore can separate more easily from us. Many children also are fully transitioned to solid foods or are getting there and don’t need to be breastfed or bottle-fed that often. This, while can be relieving for parents because they get more of much-needed break, can also trigger fear in children and the need for more connection and reassurance. Even though they want to freely explore the world they need to know that they can always come back to their base and secure connection with a caring adult.

If you’ve been already spending a lot of time with your child and need more ease and personal space, it can be challenging. And it’s understandable. What can be helpful to know is that children are not needy — they biologically need to feel securely attached in order to thrive and, with time, become more independent.

If that’s the case with your child, don’t try to force them into independence, rather give them 15-30 minutes together without distractions — getting on their level, following the game they want to play, giving them nurturing touch, looking them in the eyes, laughing, sharing a meal or time in nature — and see if it fills them up so they are happy to wander off in the world of exploration and independent play for a while.

Be patient — with yourself and your child. And if you still feel overwhelmed and need the time to come back to yourself, ask for help. We are not meant to raise our children in isolation, we are meant to do it in community where adults can support each other.

4.Expressing BIG Feelings and Having Tantrums

For young children, having tantrums is completely normal and developmentally appropriate. Even though the cause of the tantrum might seem small or even “ridiculous” to us as adults, we should try to bring ourselves to our child’s perspective. Think about things that are important to you — when something really matters to us and things go wrong, we all have big feelings. The difference is that adults (ideally) have learned to process their emotions safely — and hopefully not just lash out or block our feelings.

Tantrums are a process of de-integration (losing our center and peace, experiencing chaos like a boat in the storm) and re-integration (calming down, finding our ground again) which is crucial to master for nervous system regulation and emotional development. Know that at this age your child is 100% dependent on co-regulation with a calm caring adult and cannot self-soothe or just “get over it.” They literally “borrow” our nervous system, and your loving regulated presence is what will help them (with time) develop capacity to self-regulate.

The main messages that you and your child should hear and believe in are:

“I am ok / My child is ok”

“It is safe for me/my child to have big feelings”

“These feelings are temporary, and I am / my child is safe to experience them” 

“I am / my child is loved and accepted no matter how angry, frustrated, sad, or overwhelmed I get/ they get” 

For some of us, these messages might sound foreign, especially if our parents did not support us this way. However, the biggest job we can do as parents is to provide emotional support that we did not have (to our children and ourselves) and slowly reparent ourselves this way and create new generational patterns.

5. “Bouncing off the walls” and Not Sitting Still

Children in their early years live in their bodies. They do not yet have the maturity of adult’s brain, they are learning primarily from their actions and your actions — not words or ideas. For their brain to develop they need a lot of free movement and therefore literally CAN’T sit still. It is unrealistic to expect children (especially at this age) to sit quietly and play for a while, to sit at the dinner table longer than 10-15 minutes, or to be in the car seat for a long period of time. 

Children intuitively know what’s needed for their development and at this age, it is all about running, walking, jumping, climbing, crawling, learning, and exploring. That’s why giving them plenty of time to move (ideally outdoors in nature) and making sure that your home is a safe “yes” environment where they don’t have to hear constant “don’t” is the best way to support your child’s development at this age.

It is also helpful to either limit or completely avoid screen time at this age because it forces children to sit still for a while and feeds them imagery which when they get off the screen needs to be processed — and most likely by moving their bodies in more dysregulated ways. To summarize, if your toddler expresses aggression, says “no” a lot, regularly asks for connection, has tantrums, and can’t sit still, it is completely normal!

There is nothing wrong with your child or you as a parent. I’m sure that you are doing an amazing job supporting your child in every way possible. And I hope that the perspective, advice, and tools I’ve shared here will help you navigate this often hard but rewarding task — parenting a toddler.