All About Your Child

Anxious to Please Children conform readily at this age because they like to please adults and get approval and acceptance.
KeatKeat is always asking me: “I do this and you’ll be so proud of me ah?” “Am I a good boy today?” “I didn’t make you angry today, right?”

Cooperative They enjoy following instructions and working with other children. They also like to share now, because they are very interested in other people.
If you read my first post Understanding Your Child, you would know that KeatKeat was not such a child then….the nursery class this year helps to build his social skills too. Now he is just so eager to mix around with his friends and new kids he meet.

Very Energetic They are on the go almost every minute of the day and tire themselves out easily.
Yes! His would take a blanket, cover his head and pretend that he is holding the Chinese Lion Dance head and kept dancing up and down tables and sofas as if they were the stilts… sometimes he get so engross in it that he would knock around and still continues…. the whole time you can hear “jiak dong chiang, jiak dong chiang, dong chiang dong chian….”
Believe it, he can do this whole day if the Chinese Lion Dance VCD is playing at the same time.

Highly Imaginative They live in a world of make-believe and are not yet able to distinguish between the real and the imaginary. They will believe you if you tell them that the big, black dog is a bear.
Well, he always imagine that he is a racer in a sports car. Sometimes he makes me feel his cars are more important than his life. He must always ‘race’ before he goes to bed, after he wakes up, before meal and after meal….meaning he is racing almost all the time!

Tips for Handling Three-year-olds

• Praise the child for work well done, obeying, or helping out

Don’t just say Good Boy or Good Girl. Be creative, use different words, it increases vocabulary learning too. Say Good Job, Smart Boy, You impress me!….

• Provide active games and fun for the child, but be sure to give him rest periods throughout the day.

That is sometimes a challenge. ‘Cos the kid is so pumped up, he became unstoppable! Try this : When you want him to stop, give him a time frame or some sort of gauge. Let’s say you are playing hide and seek, you can say “This is the last round or last 2nd round, after that we need to rest. We will continue another time.”

Or if your child can tell the time already, simply says “5mins more“. If your child still can’t tell the time, but can recognise numbers, point to the clock and say “when the long hand touches number 12, we need to stop this game, drink some water and rest.”

• Provide time and materials for imaginative play. Play “Guess where I hide”, “Can you be a bear?” with the child
• Provide cooperative activities for the child and his siblings, and also with his neighbours.
• Praise him for working together with others.

share with me your experience with your child. I would love to learn from you.

Negativism “No, No, No…!” is a very common response from children at this age, to everything parents ask them to do. They really say “No” without really meaning it sometimes.
– My younger son, BinBin, can say “No” very loudly in a split second after I ask him :”Do you want to try this?” handing him a sweet he has never seen before…”NO” to a sweet, duh….

Temper Tantrums Two-year-olds who can’t get what they want throw tantrums very quickly, but get over them very quickly too.
– continuation from above, when I turn to my elder son and pass him that same sweet, BinBin simply went crazy and start banging his head on the floor or wall….I am serious, my BinBin really does that. I guess that’s probably why you can feel humps on different parts of his head. He just continues till you GRAB HIM. He will just continue to struggle like a fish out of the sea. Thank God he has tone down so much now. What I did to prevent head banging was to just leave the sweet in front of him, on the floor or on the table, after some minutes, he will come back for it, even though he may walk away as if “I said ‘NO’, didn’t you hear me?”

Great Curiosity They test it, taste it, press it, squeeze it…so don’t leave anything dangerous lying around!
-Ya man, he practically feel all his food. He was rolling and squeezing the Roti Prata (an indian pancake) during lunch, even though I have already tear them into small bite-size, like as if he was playing Play Doh.

Possessiveness and Destructiveness Children at two definitely do not like to share their things. They also like to find out about everything, so toys can be easily broken or torn apart.
-I had to keep reminding him “Love your toys and they will stay longer with you” or “When you slam the car on the floor, the car can feel the pain, it thinks that you don’t like him“. You know, when you use words of emotion, like love, sad, angry…it works on kids really well. At least it works on all the kids I have come across so far.

Tips for Handling Two-year-oldsThis may seem like a trying period but there is really no need to be overly concerned. Two-year-olds are at a stage of exploring the world around, trying to master skills on their own. They seek to achieve autonomy and to satisfy their curiosity. Thus, when they are frustrated, they have outbursts of tantrums and anger.

• Provide lots of room for exploration in their environment. Offer play things they can touch, press and taste. Give them toys that boost creativity and encourage exploration.

I love to give BinBin a big piece of blank paper and crayons. He will start drawing lines and circles…and when you ask him “what are you drawing” he can actually tell you a Story. By the way, my BinBin speech development was very much ahead of kids of his age. He can speak as much things as his brother, a 4year old. Other common toys would be lego and building blocks

• Distract the child when he is frustrated by providing alternative activities. Or, give him a hand if he can’t cope with a certain task.

Observe that the frustration starts coming up, quickly grab something else and start introducing him to the new stuff. Once the frustration becomes ‘full blown’ its harder to distract him.

• Provide durable toys so they are not easily broken.
• Make a game out of the task you want him to do if the child responds with a “No!”