Kids & Company Blog

A Few More Two-Year-Old Tips

As promised, I have been reflecting back to my two year olds and thinking about some of my "personal tips" for managing this age group. I actually love this age and find them to be easier to manage, in some ways, than three year olds!

Sometimes three year olds spend a lot of time "thinking" and this is not always a good thing. For example, I found it much easier to bring a "new baby" home to a two year old big brother/sister.

Here are a few "personal" tried and true tips. Hopefully they still work.

1. Two year old #8, never met a toy that he liked! Not one. Basically, he just liked things that he knew that he couldn't have. So, we created "toys" out of these things:A set of old keys, that he could play with and he would think that they were my keys (the best spot for playing with these was the car seat, and it is very important to keep these away from outlets). It is even better if the keys come directly from your purse!

   A fake wallet, filled with old credit cards etc. that can be put in and taken out over and over again.
   An old cell phone, preferably with a charged battery so that it makes noises when the buttons are pushed!

2. Everyone knows about Cheerios and other small food items that don't make a mess. When my children were little we just threw everything into a little bag. Usually, I would try to mix things up by mixing different cereals/crackers etc. so there were a few surprises. Now there are specially designed containers that cannot be completely dumped out and seem to be a little more time consuming to access (once again, this is probably a good distraction).
3. One-word directions are key. For example, if you want your two year old to get their boots, instead of a long sentence that is easily ignored, just say "boots". Oftentimes, this proves to be more effective (actually well into adulthood).

Good luck!

Posted on: Wednesday August 10th, 2011

Posted by: Victoria Sopik