Here's where most families begin.
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30 lines to say instead, five for each of the 6 hardest moments of the day. Keep this page on your phone. The next hard moment is usually today.
The struck-out line is the one most of us say. Below it, five to try instead. You only need one that sounds like you.
"You're okay, don't cry."
Why: the tears are real to them. When you name the hurt, they learn a feeling is safe to have.
"Hurry up, we're late!"
Why: "hurry up" is a whole list in two words. A small child can hold one step at a time, so give them one.
"Good job!"
Why: praise the trying, and they learn trying is the thing that works. More on this in the study below.
"There's nothing to be scared of."
Why: the fear is real to them even when the monster isn't. Checking together turns fear into a small act of courage.
"Share with your brother, right now!"
Why: at 2, a child is only starting to see another person's side. Turns have a clear start and end, so they are easier to learn than sharing.
"Go to sleep, it's late!"
Why: the same steps in the same order tell the body sleep is coming. The study below tested exactly this.
You won't remember 30 lines in the middle of a meltdown. You can remember three steps.
Take one breath before you speak. The first words out of our mouth are the ones we heard as children. The breath gives you time to pick new ones.
Say the feeling out loud. "You're scared." "That hurt." "It's hard to wait." Short, plain, no lecture.
Give one short next step. "Let's check together." "Shoes first." Tell them what TO do, not only what to stop.
"Don't run" tells a small child what not to do, but not what to do instead. A start word hands them the next move. Tap each one.
Praise the trying. In a set of experiments, children praised for their effort kept going after a hard problem, while children praised for being clever gave up sooner and enjoyed the task less.
Mueller and Dweck ran six experiments with over 400 children around 10 to 12 years old. After an easy puzzle set, each child heard one of two lines: "you must be smart at this" or "you must have worked hard at this". Then came a hard set. The effort-praised children kept trying longer and did better on the next easy set. The children were older than a toddler, so take it as a direction for the little ones.
Same routine, better sleep. In a trial with 405 mothers, families who followed the same simple bedtime routine every night saw their children fall asleep faster and wake less in the night, within three weeks. The mothers' mood improved too.
Mindell and colleagues randomly split families of infants and toddlers into two groups. One group followed a set routine for three weeks: bath, massage or lotion, then a quiet activity such as a cuddle or a song, lights out within 30 minutes. The other group carried on as usual. The routine group improved on sleep onset and night wakings. It was a randomised trial, the strongest kind of study, though the sleep was reported by the mothers.
Paruthi et al., American Academy of Sleep Medicine, J Clin Sleep Med, 2016 · bar length = the top of each range, out of 24 hours
Name the feeling. A study of 335 children aged 18 months to 5 years found a tantrum is two separate things, anger and distress. A distressed child needs a different reply from an angry one. Naming what you see, "you're upset" or "you're angry", is how you find the right one.
I am Manjunath. I built a maze for my daughter, and these guides are what I learnt on the way.
In engineering, the input decides the output. Our words are the input. Their inner voice is the output.
Read my story →Name it, then one step. "You don't want to go" names the feeling. "Climb in" is one clear step. "You pick the song" gives them a small job. It takes three seconds and usually saves ten minutes of pulling.
Send this to the person raising them with you. The lines work best when both of you say them. A child learns the voice of the whole house.
Once is enough to tick. It saves on this phone, so come back tomorrow.
0 of 6: Pick one moment today.
A birch wood maze where your child guides each farm friend home with a magnetic pen. It gets stuck, they try another way, it works. That is the moment to say "you found a new way". No batteries, no sound. For 15 months and up.
Let's build childhoods worth cherishing.