Toddlerhood experiences rapid brain development. This is the crucial time for foundation of important life skills. Children of ages 1 to 3 years experiences most meltdowns and big feelings that are hard for them to manage. Resilience in toddlers forms a strong base for mental health throughout their life. And this is the time for parents and caregivers to build resilience in toddlers with right and simple strategies.
Parents often mistake toddlerhood as an age of tantrums. But it is not their bad behaviour, their meltdowns are the result of their inability to manage their emotions. They need help to control and manage their big feelings. So parents and caregivers can help them by co-regulation.
Fostering resilience in toddlers is a developmental milestone in their learning journey. Resilience is a skill that functions same like muscles. The more it is practiced with everyday interaction, the stronger it is. Building resilience in toddlers is not instructing them to sooth themselves during meltdowns. But it is calm interactions with children to process their overwhelming emotions.
Resilience is a lifelong skill that is easy to build simple strategies with parents’s support and consistency. This post is part of Child Resilience Framework that will guide you to have a better knowledge about resilience in children.
What Does Resilience Actually Mean For Toddlers ?
In simple terms resilience means bouncing back from set backs. But what about toddlers and what are their setbacks? Generally toddlers don’t have any major setbacks unlike adults. For toddlers, there are some frustrating micro moments that they have to deal. This may be trying with tower blocks falling again and again, solving a puzzle or sharing some toys with peers or struggling with bed time.
Resilience in toddlers doesn’t involve enduring hard feelings but their capacity to manage their frustration and trying again with calm and comfort from parents and caregivers. As their prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for self-control) is not fully developed, so they are unable to handle their big feelings. They need support to learn how to face their tough moments.
As toddlers’ brain is not fully developed so they rely on parents and caregivers for their emotional regulation. Co-regulation helps children to feel secure and calm their restless mind. So basically toddlers learn resilience from parent’s support and everyday interactions.
You may like to read :- Emotional Regulation For Kids : How Parents Help With Big Feelings
How To Build Resilience In Toddlers : Age-By-Age Resilience Milestones
Age 12 To 18 Months (Building The Baseline For Resilience)
This is the age when children need warmth, love, care and support from parents and caregivers to feel secure. During this period parents help children to form the root of resilience by co-regulation. At the age of 12 months, children start to memorise people and things around them, the skill of object permanence starts developing at this age. So toddlers have separation anxiety or may show strong desire to get any object they saw last night.
Therefore to build resilience in toddlers at the age of 12 to 18 months parents should give enough physical touch and affection. Parents should sooth them to ease their nervous system. This builds a strong base for mental health in future. And other things that should be not be ignored is to have a daily predictable routine for toddlers to avoid anxiety.
Showing love to children through frequent physical touch and smiles creates a supportive environment for toddlers. They learn to express their emotions in a healthy way. And supportive relationships for a child is one of the key components of resilience framework.
You may like to read : 15 Resilience Building Activities Kids Can Start Today
Age 24 To 36 Months ( Frustration Tolerance And Toddler Resilience)
At the age of 24 months, is a milestone for toddlers start to express anger and frustration. They show anger while not able to fix any toys or any other tasks that seem to be difficult for them. So at this age to build resilience in toddlers, we have to help them to learn to be calm and try again. Resilience is all about bouncing back after the challenges. So parents should make constant effort to encourage child to try again with parent’s support.
This is the time when parents have to allow their children to do some everyday simple tasks on their own. Even if they make it messy, let them try. This will create a sense of self-independent among them. One more important thing to keep in mind, is to stop fixing their problems immediatley.
The urge of parents to offer immediate help to children, ruin their problem solving skill in future. Children don’t develop the skill of solving problems by trying multiple times. Hence, give ample time to children to solve their problems. Parents can offer suggestion but let your child try to do on own.
Praise their persistence effort during play rather than focusing on the end result. It develops interest to do more and develops positive mindset in children.
You may like to read :- Building Resilience In Preschoolers : Strategies For Ages 2-5
Age 36 To 48 Months (Early Coping And Resilience Building)
Toddlers ages between 36 to 48 months have frequent meltdowns as their emotional regulation control of brain is not fully developed. So this is the time when they will learn from parents, how to regulate emotions. Children will go through all the big feelings. But the main thing to do to build resilience in toddlers during this age is to teach them to cope with big feelings.
Parents should not ignore their child’s emotions but validate their feelings. Teach them that feeling sad/irritated is okay, and it is temporary. Parents should guide children to navigate their big feelings. Model their mistakes as opportunity to learn new ways to achieve their goals. This way resilience will grow in toddlers when they experience small failures. And they learn to take it normal and try in a different way.
Encourage your child to take safe risks that challenge their physical limits under parent’s supervision. This helps them to strengthen their confidence level. Give them small responsibilities to foster the sense of competence.
You may like to read :- Healthy Coping Strategies For Kids : Practical Tips For Parents
Common Pitfalls That Hinders To Build Resilience In Toddlers
There are some common mistakes done by parents knowingly or unknowingly that hinder the path of resilience. No. it’s not possible for a parent to be perfect all the time. But parents are role model for their children so they should be honest to themselves and children. And avoid some mistakes to promote fake perfectionism. It will make things more easier to us and our children.
Some common mistakes that hinders to build resilience in toddlers are :-
The Over-Rescue Trap
First of all, parents need to accept the fact that they can’t create a protecting shield for their child every time. Children have to face their part of hardships. So parents can make them prepare to face the challenges and bounce back. Hence parents should avoid the habit of offering immediate help to child. The constant hovering over the child takes away a child’s capacity to solve problems. Excessive help from parents makes a child over dependant on others whenever they face challenges.
So be patient, watch your child, supervise them. Avoid rushing to them whenever they are in problem. Guide them and explain them how to solve. And let them try again and again. When a toddler can put the tower block, encourage them to try again. Help them to learn how to do. This will promote the habit of trying again without the fear of failing. And habit of trying and solving problems will make them resilient in life.
You may like to read :- Teaching Kids About Failure : 10 Proven Strategies
Toxic Positivity And Dismissal
We often experience some parents saying to their child,” Stop crying, it’s not a big deal”. They may frame it as positivity but it is ignoring children’s feelings. Human being goes through various emotions and there is no wrong in it. Crying in childhood is very normal, what should teach our child is to regulate emotions. Telling little children to stop crying implies them to suppress their feelings.
Positivity doesn’t mean to be happy and feel good every time. When little kids cries, accept their emotions and validate their feelings. Let them know, yes it is hard for them but they can overcome it. Acknowledging children’s emotions makes them feel loved and secured. This helps to build resilience in toddlers. They understand there is no harm in feeling sad and it will not stay for ever.. This way they will learn to bounce back from setbacks later in their life.
You may like to read : 10 Things You Should Never Say To Your Kids
Inconsistent Boundaries And Routines
I always believe parenting is all about balancing in between boundaries. Nothing of extremes work well. When a toddler stays in a fixed routine, they get used to every daily activities. They understand the activities are part of their daily routine. And they don’t get much stressed or anxious.
Frequent changes in routine or lifestyle boundaries of toddlers make them overwhelming. It causes stress among them that results in frequent meltdown and cranky behaviour. It is difficult for toddlers to process the frequent change in their routine. When a child does same activities at same set of time, they have calm and relaxed nervous system. And this calmness builds the emotional foundation in child that helps them to bounce back during tough moments.
You may like to read :- How To Model Resilience As A Parent : What Your Child Learns From Your Reactions
Conclusion
The little tiny steps and moments from everyday may not seem to be perfect but they form the foundation of resilience in toddlers. Most important thing to remember is that resilience is not about enduring pain. It is to prepare ourselves and our children to overcome the pain with inner strength and calmness. The key point to remember to build resilience in toddlers is to build mental toughness during early childhood. Children should be capable to cope up with frustration.
Resilience is important in early childhood as it prepares toddlers emotionally to face preschool challenges and should not fear failures in life.
If you’re looking for a structured roadmap to guide you through every stage of this journey, be sure to dive into our foundational Child Resilience Framework for more tips, milestones and support.
Ready to zoom out and look into big picture when your toddler is ready for preschool, save this Resilience Tracker tool designed to help your child log daily emotional resets and model healthy coping mechanisms.!!
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