Toddlers Aren’t Terrible: Understanding the Why Behind Big Behaviors with Devon Kuntzman

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated with the help of AI and may contain minor errors or inconsistencies. Please refer to the audio for the most accurate representation of the conversation.

Alyssa: [00:00:00] You're listening to Voices of Your Village. And today I'm joined by Devon Kuntzman, toddler expert and author of Transforming Toddlerhood. Devon and I dig into the beautiful chaos of the toddler years. What's developmentally normal? What we often mislabel as bad behavior, and how we can meet kids where they are, not where we wish they were. We talk about boundaries, temperament, and why embracing imperfection might just be your parenting superpower. Whether you're in deep in the toddler trenches or supporting someone who is. This conversation is full of permission, perspective, and practical tools. All right, folks, let's dive in. Hey there, I'm Alyssa Blask Campbell. I'm a mom with a master's degree in early childhood education and co-creator of the collaborative emotion processing method. I'm here to walk alongside you through the messy, vulnerable parts of being humans, raising other humans with deep thoughts and actionable tips. Let's dive in together. How old is your tiny human now?

Devon: [00:01:06] He just turned three a month ago.

Alyssa: [00:01:08] That's bonkers. That is so crazy.

Devon: [00:01:10] It's gone by so fast. And then at the same time, about two weeks after he turned three, I like, saw, like, a little shift in his development. And I'm like, oh, yeah, now you're a three year old, I can tell.

Alyssa: [00:01:21] Oh, three is fierce. Man three is actually, for me, the hardest year.

Devon: [00:01:27] Yeah, I think three is going to be more challenging with him than two was. By the way, we started out the last few.

Alyssa: [00:01:35] In the last few weeks are any indicator. I love me a one year old is like dreamy. I love the language development. It's so fun. I love just like every single day you see them connect new dots and it's so fun for me. And I really like me, a two year old, but three for me, just the like It's that age of why and do it myself. But like, I can't actually. So now I'm just delaying your day, mom. Which is fine sometimes. And I had a three year old and also a new infant at the same time as well. And so I was like, yes, sometimes you can take your time and sometimes you can't. Sometimes we got to go to her doctor appointment or we have to get out the door. And you learning to buckle your seatbelt right now feels like a giant pain in my ass.

Devon: [00:02:31] Absolutely. Or it's like, half buckled. Or like, with the with his car seat. Or even at target this morning and the little seat in the cart. He wanted to buckle it, but then he's buckled it. But it's only half buckled, but then doesn't want me to touch it because in his mind it's been buckled. I'm like, dude, this is not secure.

Alyssa: [00:02:49] Yeah, and then there's the whole meltdown over it. Yeah, man. Oh, not to be like, whoa, buckle up. Because I also kind of hate when people say that. But just like, bless up because three for me is it takes a lot of my patience. I also think like it's where a lot of my social programming comes in. Growing up, I lived in a because I said so household, so my why's were not welcomed and the age of the why and three year olds like it brought up a lot of my own childhood stuff from like, can I just say something for once and you can be like, okay, mom, sounds great. Can't wait to do it. Like, it would be so lovely.

Devon: [00:03:28] I know, and it's also interesting because it's like this age of like independence and new level of independence. And so it's not only me do it, but it's also I'm just doing it. And I'm not even telling you I'm doing it. And then I'm like, whoa, what's happening over here? Like, I left you like 30s ago, and now you're, you know, got your toddler tower in the bathroom and the water's on. And I'm like, okay, like, what's happening here 100%?

Alyssa: [00:03:53] And when we're looking at this and I'm so stoked for your new book and really focusing on these toddlers and being able to look at these early years, because we have all these words that go with it, right? The terrible twos, the threenager, the fearsome fours, right. Like all those labels that when I bring those in, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy then. Right? Like, then I'm gonna find all the ways that they are a terrible two year old. Or I'm looking at their Threenager years when I'm super stoked about in your book, is to be able to reframe these years and to be able to see what's really happening in this time. Can you kickstart us just diving into why you believe there is no such thing as a bad toddler? Yeah.

Devon: [00:04:45] I mean, here's the thing. Toddlerhood has been coined as terrible, but I like to reframe this and say, yes, toddlerhood is challenging, but it's also critical developmental period, critical developmental period for brain development, relationships, resilience. All the things are happening in this first five years of life. And so when we view it as terrible, we're doing ourselves a disservice and making parenting harder because we're looking for the things that we don't like, the things that feel terrible. But just because something feels terrible in the moment doesn't mean that it is terrible, or your child is terrible. And so there's a really great need to separate our feelings from the actual facts, because in the moment, it might feel terrible when your toddler is having a meltdown at the store, but that doesn't make your toddler a terrible child or a terrible individual. And so when we start to really understand that most of toddler behavior is impulsive, it's trying to get their needs and desires met. And we understand that as communication because they don't have the expressive language skills they need to just talk like you and I are right now. And even it's hard for us when we're upset to just articulate what's happening. And so when we start realizing that we put so much pressure on these little ones to act like many adults when they're actually not, then we can see that these children aren't bad. They're just having a hard time, and they have limited brain maturation and life experience 100%.

Alyssa: [00:06:21] And I think about this with us as adults, right. That, like, I would hate it if somebody was following me around and watching my every behavior and every sarcastic, snippy, rude comment I made to my husband or time that I lost my cool with my kids or sassy thing. I said to my mom, still in my late 30s, and like, if you walked around and just monitored every behavior of mine with a fully developed brain. With all the tools I've got, you'd be like, wow, she is also a terrible child, right? Like, if what we're looking at is the behavior as a definition for who they are, we all are going to have these moments where we have bad behavior, where we have dysregulated behavior, where we say, oh man, I know I'm not supposed to do this thing, but you know what? I'm going to do it because I just said this the other day where we were on our way home from picking my four year old up from school and my one year old, and I'm in the car, I've got one year old, four year old. Both are just like fried. They're at each other right now. They're a sensory mismatch. And so my son needs silence. My daughter wants to talk and connect, and she's super verbal and very articulate. And she's like 20 ish months and she just wants to talk. And he is like, for the love of everything, holy, stop talking. And then she keeps trying to connect with him and she's like, high five.

Alyssa: [00:07:56] High five. When he's now just, like, boiling over. And then he starts to scream and she goes, hug. And he's like, no, I can't touch you and I don't want to. And he'll yell at her things like, there's nothing you could do that would make me connect with you right now. Which I think is a very hilarious thing to say, but also not helpful in the moment. And this is all happening and in the moment. I'm in traffic, and I know that I'm not going to make it to this light where I could turn right and I'm like, home free. But there's this parking lot that I can, like, cut through, which is illegal. And I was like, you know what? For the love of everything holy and for myself. And as a true, just gift to me, I'm cutting through the parking lot. I could very easily get stopped by a cop. I could get a ticket for this. It's not the right choice, but I'm gonna make it anyway. I'm weighing this risk reward and I'm making it anyway. We navigate these things all the time as adults, and then with tiny humans, we're like, oh, no. Only ever make the right choice. Make it exactly the way that I know that you in a regulated brain, know how to make. And also please do it with a kindness attached to it. Yeah. Like what?

Devon: [00:09:12] Well, and toddlers don't even know what that word means, right? Like, that's a label that we're placing on behavior where toddlers are like okay. Like there's no frame of reference for that. And I think this is also like our desire to label things to, for our brains to make sense of it. It also backfires on us. So that's where we can end up feeling like a bad parent, like a failure, because we're not only placing labels on our child's behavior as like bad, mean, manipulative, you know, all the things. But we're also saying, gosh, I'm doing a bad job. I'm failing. So there's these labels and judgments all around that just make parenting harder when we're looking at it through this dichotomous lens 100%.

Alyssa: [00:09:53] When we add those labels in, I think you're right. It does make it feel like, okay, I can categorize this, which is helpful for our brain. Yesterday, I didn't have childcare for half of a day that I did have a meeting I had to be at. And I can at this point, like my four year old, can kind of go and do his own thing for an hour. But my one year old very much cannot. And I turned my back for 10s and I look back and she'd taken a pen drawn all over our hardwood floor right in front of her, and I was like, oh, Lord. Like in those moments, in that exact moment, I did not respond with intention. I was like, Mila, come on, come on. Why can we just for 14 seconds, just like, pause and I can get you set up with something before I jump into this meeting. And of course, it's not helpful. Of course she's not like, let me ruin mom's meeting in afternoon by coloring on the floor, right? Like. Of course. And the reality is that none of us are perfect, and we're all going to have just these reactions in the moment. Can you speak to what it looks like to be an imperfect parent, and what we can really do after, and how it makes a difference?

Devon: [00:11:15] Yeah, this is a really big theme that I weave throughout the book in general, is this idea that we are human beings, and honestly, striving to be a perfect parent doesn't make sense because we're never going to be a robot. Like, we cannot be like a programmable robot. We can't program out our feelings, emotions, and needs. So as long as you are human with feelings, emotions, needs, and desires, you're going to experience the full spectrum of emotions. So is your child. So we don't want to demonize Immunise ourselves or our kids for being human beings. So really what it comes down to is this idea of we can like, look through the rear view mirror, like out the back of the car and beat ourselves up and woulda, coulda, shoulda land and say, gosh, I'm failing. I did such a bad job, I should have done this, that, and the other. I'm horrible. Whatever. Or we can look out the windshield at the horizon and say, gosh, that was hard. That is not what I wanted to do. Here's what I want to do next time and take the next step toward that. So whenever you as a parent embrace that you're a human being and you're willing to be vulnerable and learn alongside your child, you'll start to realize that all of these challenging moments aren't problems to fix. They're actually opportunities. Opportunities to teach, skills to learn and to grow. And it's one of the biggest gifts you can give your child in a lot of ways. But it also comes down to what do we do with that opportunity? How do we repair the relationship if we've lost it?

Alyssa: [00:12:51] Yeah, let's go into that. How do we repair? Just last week. Bless. But my parents are retired now and they tapped in to help with some childcare gaps that we had. And there was a conflict with my four year old. And my dad and I ended up later connecting with my four year old about it. I hadn't been around for it, and he was debriefing and told me about it. And I talked to my dad after my four year old was in bed and got like his perspective. And about two days later, my son was like, why didn't PA apologize to me? And I was like, oh yeah, but PA's bed in my life, my whole life. And never one time has he apologized to me. And he was like, what? Why? And I was like, yeah, PA grew up in a house where he We learned that only kids apologized, not adults. And he was like, why? And we got to like, go. And I was like, first of all, how rad that my son is. So this feels so foreign to him because he's been growing up in a household where adults also apologize and have accountability for our actions.

Alyssa: [00:14:03] So that felt like, okay, this is a win for me right now. Like, I'm not rewriting everything from my childhood, but this one I seem to be rewriting. Great. And it was like really cool to break it down with him and be like, oh yeah, this is something he learned. Here's why. And we do it differently in our house. And also, what might it look like to be in relationship with pot if he never apologizes to you and to get to navigate kind of that? So for those of us that grew up in these households where pause never apologized to us right in our whole life, what does that look like to show up and apologize to a one year old, a three year old, a old, a four year old. Especially when maybe they were melting down over an orange cup instead of a purple cup. And that's where it all began. And it feels absolutely bonkers to apologize for your reaction to their meltdown over the color cup they had.

Devon: [00:14:58] Yeah, especially when it seems like what was happening for your child was just so irrational, right? And totally adult logical brains are like, this makes no sense. But knowing that our toddlers are coming from this more emotional brain, it's like, oh yeah, this is a big deal to them. But as adults, it's really hard to remember those moments when things like that were a big deal. But what I like to say is that, you know, repairing the relationship is more than just an apology. An apology is part of it. But we don't want to apologize in a way that's like throwing ourselves under the bus, like begging for forgiveness and just like digging ourselves deeper into this idea that we're horrible parents or failing. And so what I think is so important in these moments is to. So I actually have a four step process for repairing the relationship. And the first part is taking ownership. So it's saying something like I was feeling frustrated and I yelled or I was upset and I lost control of my voice and I yelled or something like this, whatever feels authentic to you, but it's about using I statements to really take ownership for what happened. And then the second step is like that accountability and like checking in peace. So it's seeing what the impact was for your child.

Devon: [00:16:14] So it might be something like, hey, how was that for you? How did you feel when that happened? And if you have a young toddler like one and two, they're probably not gonna be able to tell you that's okay. They're still understanding a lot of what you're saying because of their receptive language skills. If you have an older toddler, like 3 or 4, they're probably gonna have something to say. And they might just say, bad or not nice or who knows what they'll say, but they'll say something and you can validate that and just say something like, I hear you saying you didn't like that. I hear you saying you were scared. I hear you saying that wasn't nice, you know? Then from there, the third step is to apologize and say, I'm sorry. Sorry that happened, you know, and then the fourth step, which I think is the most important because in the end, as parents, we all want to like, improve and break cycles and have things go differently. So the fourth step is to redo. And so that's saying next time this happens I'm going to blank and then actually practicing it there in that moment. That's how we are rewiring our neural pathways and connections to have a go differently. Next time.

Alyssa: [00:17:19] I want to just acknowledge that it can feel so awkward when you start apologizing to a kid. Yeah, if no one ever apologized to you when you were a kid, anytime we're doing something differently from how we were raised, it's like, wait, how do we do this? I was just having this conversation with somebody the other day about talking to my children about their bodies and like, how they work. And I had my period and my, my son is already well versed in how this works. My daughter came in and she was curious and we were talking about it, and my son popped in and was like, oh yeah, that's mom's period. And like gave her a full rundown on what a period is. And he was like, and you might have one when you get bigger. And I was like, oh my God, thanks for this sage. It's super helpful. And and I was like, wow, no one talked to me about my period ever in my whole life. And even when I got it, I'm one of five kids, I have four brothers. And my mom was like yeah, here's some products. Here you go. And Denzel taught me how to put in a tampon and really led the charge on that. Thanks, my friend Kate. But like, any time we're then, like, I remember when sage came into the bathroom early on and I'm like, changing my tampon. He's like, what's going on? I'm like, and it just like, came out as mush because I was like, I don't know how to do this.

Alyssa: [00:18:47] No one ever did this with me. Am I doing it right? And there's that pressure of, I have to get this right this time. And it came out just like, jumbled. And I remember turning to my friend and being like, oh, man, I, I botched this. I don't know if you've all curious parenting, but my friend Clementine, I texted her and was like, Clem sage just walked into the bathroom. This is what I said. Help! Like, how do I what do I. And she has a sister and humans who talk to her about her body. And she had a different model for this. And she was like, oh, yeah, you're going to have a billion of these conversations. Like, there's so many times to do this again. And I was like, oh, thank God. Like it was just a sigh of relief that I get to come back and do this again. So if you're in this space where, man, you're raising these toddlers in a way that's different than you were raised, and you might be doing your first apologies to a kid, and you're walk away and you're like, I don't know if I did that the right way, or I talked for a million years and everything came out, and maybe that wasn't the way I wanted to do it or however it lands, to know that kids give us 7 million chances to apologize again, and you get to do it for the rest of really your life if you choose to. It doesn't have to be perfect. Even in the apology.

Devon: [00:20:09] Yeah. I always say practice makes progress, not perfection. That's like the motto over here at Transforming Toddlerhood. And you're allowed to learn alongside your child. I feel like I'm a broken record about these things because they are so important to internalize, because they truly do make a difference, that, you know, we don't have to get it perfect. We just have to be willing to practice. And every moment's an invitation to practice. Again. It's just about, are we going to accept that invitation or not?

Alyssa: [00:20:36] Of that. Okay. One hot toddler topic that I want to dive into its boundaries and setting limits here. You've noticed a huge pendulum shift in our work. I actually have a workshop coming up for elementary teachers on this. The difference between like, boundaries and requests. And a lot of us grew up in households where it was just like, no, you're doing this, there is no other whatever, and you're not allowed to ask questions about it. There's it's a because I said so scenario and it was power over and control and punishment based and obedience focused. And now we're trying to do that differently. Right. And with that can be a pendulum swing to permissiveness or asking a request on repeat. This would happen to me where I'm like, hey, please stop doing that. Hey, please don't poke me in the hand with the fork. It hurts when you poke me in the hand with the fork, blah blah blah blah on repeat. And then finally I lose my cool and I'm like, stop poking me in the head with the fork. Right. Like, this is gonna drive me nuts now. And I've asked you a million times kindly. And now you've led me to this voice and this reaction. And really, what it comes from is this inability to just set a clear boundary. Can we go into. What does that look like?

Devon: [00:21:53] Yeah. Yeah. Well, first, I just love what you just described because I this this continuum of parenting that I always talk about where on one side, there's the controlling commander, on the other side is the permissive pushover. And then somewhere in between is like this nagging negotiator, which is like what you were describing so. Well in that scenario. And it's, it's hard because as parents, we're all going to end up somewhere on that continuum some of the time. But the goal is to jump off of that and be the confident leader and guide. And what that looks like is setting clear limits. You know, there's a lot of confusion around, you know, gentle parenting means like permissive parenting. And there's no limits. But really, limits provide so much safety for toddlers. Not just like physically keeping them safe, but emotional safety because they know where the boundaries are and they can have freedom inside those boundaries. And so when it comes to setting limits with little ones, it's really about taking a look at, first of all, are you setting limits that you are willing to follow through on? Because if you set the limit and just expect your toddler to just fall in line, you're probably going to be frustrated because it's rarely going to happen.

Devon: [00:23:12] And so really realizing that setting the limit is almost the first step in the process, not the last step. So only set the limits that you're willing to follow through on. Because when we stay in our role and set those limits, follow through. Hold space for our child's big emotions when they realize that we're not going to budge on that limit. Then that's where we start seeing the progress and the behavior transformation. And the more consistent we are with that, which doesn't mean we have to be perfect. Back to perfection. We don't have to be. I always say consistency is more often than not, it's predictable. We're going to respond in a certain way, not perfectly. And so whenever we start being consistent about this, this is when we start to see toddlers challenging these limits less. And so oftentimes we just forget that we need to be clear about what the expectation is and then help our child follow through to be successful 100%.

Alyssa: [00:24:09] So when we help our child follow through, walk us through an example of what a clear limit would look like, how to kind of hold this, and then the helping them follow through, I think, is where a lot of folks can get hung up and it can feel tricky. Can you walk us through an example? Sure.

Devon: [00:24:27] So let's just take a toddler and like if you have a dog or something and your toddler's like maybe petting the dog in a rough way or playing with their tail and you say, oh, you know, stop playing with their tail. He doesn't like that. Something like that. And then you just think, okay, my toddler's going to stop doing that, but they don't. So then you're like, oh my gosh. Like, now I'm getting frustrated. I'm getting scared. You know what's going to happen here. So what you want to do instead of yelling at your child to stop, what you want to do is say something like, stop playing with the dog's tail. I won't let you play with the dog's tail. And then you move them or you move the dog, so you're actually following through on it. You're not just like sitting there thinking, okay, they're going to stop at some point and then they don't stop and they cross your boundary so many times that you explode. You actually have to help toddlers follow through or same with like a new sibling. Say they're being a little bit rough with the baby and you like said something. Maybe a toddler is not 100% clear on what is an appropriate way to interact with the baby, but at the same time, you time, you got to keep everyone safe. So you either need to move your toddler or move the baby. And then from there, work through everything and teaching skills. But it's really about helping them meet the limit instead of expecting them to do it on their own.

Alyssa: [00:25:42] Yeah, that they're not just like, okay, mom, sounds good. I mean, my my son is he loves structure and systems. He has autism. And so for him like that clarity is really helpful. And he will rarely step outside of a boundary and especially a safety boundary. And so for him, if I say like, hey bud, I can't let you x, Y, and Z because he's like, it might be mad about it or annoyed, but he will largely stay within that boundary. My daughter, on the other hand, is so very me and has never ever in her life met a boundary that she was just like, okay mom. And she's like, Ma, I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna I'm gonna give this a whirl. I call her my urgent care kid because we have been a frequent flyer at urgent care for her, and I bless her, she will just, like, stare at you and be like, ma'am, I'm gonna like you very much. Have to step in. And as I'm saying, I won't let you. I'm helping her down off the thing, or I'm taking the scissors out of her hand as she was, like, twirling them around the other day, and then tried to, like, stab me in the leg. Not because she's, like, vicious, but because she's one and is like, whoa, what's going on here? And sage had left scissors out, right? Like, oh, she's experimenting.

Devon: [00:27:04] And exploring, which is what.

Alyssa: [00:27:06] Toddlers.

Devon: [00:27:06] Are developmentally wired to do.

Alyssa: [00:27:09] Correct? Correct. But for him, if I said, oh, scissors are sharp. And so here's how we use them. We can have them out as long as we're using them in this way. He'd be like, okay, even if there was something he was curious about, he would ask me. He wouldn't use them in that way. And she's like, nah. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.

Devon: [00:27:29] Act now. Think later.

Alyssa: [00:27:31] Correct. Which is. I mean, I'm the one cutting through the parking lot and avoiding the red light. Same girl, same. Ask her forgiveness, not permission. And I'm like, I can relate. And also, you're harder to parent sometimes I think for really, like, knowing your kid is so huge here of who are they? And when I set a boundary, I can't go into setting a boundary with her or setting limits with her, expecting the same results I'll get with him that I would just find myself so annoyed if I was like, oh my God, can you just can we? You know how Seiji would X, Y, and Z and respond this way? Can we just do that for a second? I can't have those same expectations because they're two totally different humans. So I feel like part of the boundary piece is also knowing your kid. Like if you have a runner, you got to know what boundaries you need to have in place versus if you don't have a runner. Like those are different boundaries.

Devon: [00:28:32] Yeah, their child's temperament can play a huge role in how much they're going to test boundaries, like their temperament, their developmental stage. And it can kind of like flip flop, too. You might have a child that's not really testing boundaries. Then all of a sudden they turn three like my son. And then two weeks later, we're testing boundaries that, like, have not been a problem for the past six months. They're like, oh, where did that come from? Okay. Guess, like we have to recalibrate here, which is fine because they're learning and growing. And I think, you know, when we know what's developmentally appropriate, when we take our unique child's development into account and not compare them to other children, your friends, kids, their siblings, the kid at school, then we can just really focus in on that child. And that's where we can be having those realistic expectations, which will lead to less frustration overall 100%.

Alyssa: [00:29:25] I'm so jazzed for your book to get out into the world, for folks to get so many more tools and resources in their hands. What's the like your dream with? If somebody is a toddler parent and they're in this stage, what are you hoping they walk away from this book with? If it's one thing.

Devon: [00:29:43] Oh my gosh, how do I narrow it down to one thing? But I'd say that the biggest thing that I want parents to walk away with is understanding what is developmentally typical behavior for a toddler, so they can set those realistic expectations, and then understanding what is developmentally smart way to respond to those behaviors. And so the book is broken down in a way that really goes over more than 27 different challenges that you're going to face during toddlerhood, and how to respond to them in a developmentally smart way. And just knowing that you're human, your child's a human. No one's doing a bad job here. So how can we work together to have things go differently?

Alyssa: [00:30:27] Can you give us a snapshot into a few of those kind of challenges that are on the horizon for toddler parents?

Devon: [00:30:33] Yeah. So I have the book divided into the social toddler, the emotional toddler and the physical toddler. So I really go through okay transitions, leaving the park. Of course tantrums, separation anxiety. Toddlers usually have several bouts of separation anxiety. I talk about whining. I talk about sleep. Independent play, siblings, right? Sibling interactions, all the things. So I try to cover all of the most common challenges that you're going to face as a toddler parent, because I really wanted to create something that's like a really comprehensive reference guide that parents can just keep on their nightstand and refer to when things go off the rails.

Alyssa: [00:31:12] Yeah. Oh, I love this. I'm so jazzed you're putting it out into the world and that it is out now for folks to snag. Is there an audiobook with it, Devon?

Devon: [00:31:22] There is.

Alyssa: [00:31:23] Yes there is.

Devon: [00:31:24] That's the only way I can complete a book these days is if I listen to it.

Alyssa: [00:31:27] Same girl. Same. I actually am in what I'm calling my fiction era right now where I read so much for work stuff. We get a lot of books sent to us for podcasts and stuff like that. I still found myself outside of whoever I was interviewing or whatever was sent to us, reading what fills me up work wise. And I was like, you know what? I just need to, like, go into somebody else's fictional world for a little bit. So I'm in my, like, smutty romance fiction era right now, and it's super fun.

Devon: [00:31:58] So fun. I think I've listened to 12 fiction books in the last eight months. Because I just needed to change it up. I'm like, oh my gosh, I just need to give my brain a break here.

Alyssa: [00:32:07] That's exactly it. And it's glorious. But I have found myself, like, sometimes getting annoyed with the humans around me when they want to talk to me. And I'm like, I'm listening to my book. I know it looks like I'm doing the dishes, but this is my book time.

Devon: [00:32:20] But, you know, I noticed that really giving myself that gift of listening to an audiobook, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, whether it's, you know, something that's going to directly support my life or something that's just going to distract me, that folding laundry, doing the dishes, all the little things are just so much more pleasant because I have a little bit of like entertainment for myself.

Alyssa: [00:32:41] I actually find myself being like, oh, the dishes need to be done. Sign me up, because I'd like to go listen to my book. Yeah, my.

Devon: [00:32:46] Husband knows when I have a good audiobook going or not, because I want to do the dishes.

Alyssa: [00:32:51] That's exactly it. Like, tell me what's gonna happen with Jack. I need to know. Oh. Thank you so much, Devon. I'm so stoked for folks to get their hands on this book and dive right into it. Have it as a resource that I'm assuming it's something you can kind of have there for whatever challenge is arising. It might not be a cover to cover in one sitting and more of a like, come in, check out this chapter. We're experiencing separation anxiety right now. Let me go back and recall what that is. So I love that. Where can folks find you? Follow you all that jazz?

Devon: [00:33:25] Yeah. You can follow me at transforming Toddlerhood on Instagram or transforming toddlerhood. Com is my website and yeah, I can't wait to connect with you.

Alyssa: [00:33:35] Stay tuned. After this note from our sponsors, Rach and I will be right back with the breakdown. So I shared a little bit about this on social, and obviously you heard a bit about it, but I wound up in the hospital one week after our book published, and it's still kind of unclear on what it was at this point. We're actually thinking of Iris, because I woke up Monday night at 2 a.m. with this, like, pounding headache that I figured was a migraine. I've gotten migraines in the past, and then anything I took, including like prescription migraine medicine, all that, nothing was taking it away. And then I was throwing up and everything was getting worse, not better. I texted you and I was like, at what point do I go to the hospital? And I don't think I've gone to the hospital in my adult life, like for an emergency. Can't remember a time where I have. I've gone for the kids, but not for me. And you were like, if you're thinking maybe then, probably now. And that was great advice. Thank you. Because then I waited in a waiting room for three hours with my blackout eye mask on and my earplugs in, and I could not tell you what any of my doctors or nurses or the layout of the place was. I literally had my eye mask on the entire time, apart from taking it off in the room where I got a CT and then putting it right back on. And then the night when I was at the hospital, my mother in law was at the house with the kids.

Alyssa: [00:35:14] Zach had joined me at the hospital after he put them down and Francesca had driven me to the hospital, takes a village, and Frannie said, sage woke up and said he had a headache, but also he knew. I went to the hospital with a headache and so I was like, I don't know what the. Then the next day, he went to school. I got home at like 2 a.m. he went to school on Tuesday, and then when he came home, I was like, unbuckling him? Somebody else picked him up from school. I was still like, medium functioning. And I went to unbuckle him from the car seat and he just had, like, silent tears coming down his face. I was like, buddy, what is going on? And he was like, my head hurts. I was like, oh, shoot, it was real. Maybe. But there's like no fever associated with it. No, like boogies or snot or whatever. It's this raging headache. So he came in and I gave him medicine and he ate food and got to have apple juice. We don't usually have juice in our house, so he was stoked about that. And the next day we kept him home from school. But he was fine. Actually, he ended up like it was so quick for him. But that next night, that Wednesday night, Zach woke up in the middle of the night with this like raging headache. And it lasts for days. And I today, day eight feel the most like myself that I have felt.

Rachel: [00:36:35] I thought you had meningitis. Honestly.

Alyssa: [00:36:37] They tested for it.

Rachel: [00:36:38] Yeah. So I texted Zach the morning after to be like, how is she? What labs did they run? Yada yada. And I was reassured that they did what they should have done. But yeah, I was worried about meningitis based on your neck stiffness and how severe the headache was and how ongoing it was.

Alyssa: [00:36:59] Yeah. And nothing would touch it. Yeah. The neck stiffness still exists. But I'm gonna go to chiro this week and see if that helps. In fact, the neck stiffness is what's, like, been still very pervasive. And they said they like. It could be just viral. It could be viral meningitis, it could be just a virus. But it's a doozy. And I found myself being like, ooh, I hope beans didn't get it. But it feels weird that she wouldn't. And the rest of us did. And it's just this raging headache is the biggest symptom. And she can't communicate that.

Alyssa: [00:37:36] Yeah it's tough. It's a tough part about toddlers and she's very verbal and articulate. But to say like headache or that your head hurts when you're 21 months old.

Rachel: [00:37:48] Also she may not even have. Yeah. If it's her first headache of her life, she may not even have any sort of connection to language for that.

Alyssa: [00:37:56] Exactly, exactly. So I've just been thinking about her, like, did she? Zach actually said when I was in the city, she had a harder time than when I was in LA this past week. And I wonder if.

Rachel: [00:38:10] Did she have it first?

Alyssa: [00:38:12] Patient zero.

Rachel: [00:38:13] Yeah. Could be.

Alyssa: [00:38:15] Yeah. And we just didn't know. I'm like, oh, I'm sorry I wasn't here. Oh, toddlers. I mean this is a great actually.

Rachel: [00:38:22] Segue.

Alyssa: [00:38:23] A segue into today's breakdown.

Rachel: [00:38:26] Yes.

Alyssa: [00:38:26] Toddlers.

Rachel: [00:38:27] Toddlers I love toddlers. So this is Devon Kunsman.

Alyssa: [00:38:31] From Transforming Toddlerhood. I followed her for so long. We've had like an Instagram DM relationship for a long time, and I think she does such a good job distilling psych and information about toddlers and making it easy to understand and digest. And I'm excited about that. For her book that having a digestible guide for toddlers because toddlers are doozy and that like language piece really comes in here that we want them to be able to communicate more than they often can communicate.

Rachel: [00:39:10] Yeah. Yeah. I love toddlers, but I'm also really removed from it. It's been a long time since I've had to parent a toddler, but my nephew who's just turned three this summer, we were with him yesterday, and I was just, like, observing. And you forget when you're not in it anymore, just how busy and constant and consuming it is of like, they want baby cakes. They want freedom and independence. But like, there's always safety to take into account. And he is talking so much now, which is like really fun. But also it's like, whoa, it's a lot. It's a lot of talking and so cute because he's not mine. So I'm just like, eating it up. Totally. Right.

Alyssa: [00:39:56] Totally.

Rachel: [00:39:57] But you know that his parents just have to be like, woo woo.

Alyssa: [00:40:02] Two hours of it on a hike in Zach's ear non-stop.

Rachel: [00:40:05] Just so much. But I love her work around normalizing what is normal toddler behavior and not villainizing them for still having developing brains. Yeah, and. It's so normalized to talk shit about kids, right? Like, talk about how toddlers are terrible and teens are terrible and my kid's such a brat and yada yada. That's so normal in our culture. But what that does is it creates this cycle where like when that's your thought process, then you're viewing all of their behaviors through that lens.

Alyssa: [00:40:46] Correct. And it creates this us versus them rather than we are on the same team. One thing I have found so helpful lately for Mila, when she's like having a hard feeling. And if everything feels irrational when I say, hey, Mila, I love you.

Alyssa: [00:41:06] Just like in the middle of it. It's so easy to tell them we love them when they're being cute and calm and sweet, and I've tried bringing it into hard moments with her especially. She's a high connection seeker.

Rachel: [00:41:22] Yeah. She is.

Alyssa: [00:41:24] And so for her to know that she's connected and loved when she's having a hard time, it's calming for her. And so I've started just saying, hey, babe, I love you. And sometimes she has paused the tantrum to come kiss me and then continued to cry. But other times she's just like, no, she will. She'll like, pause what she's doing because there's no tears. She's just yelling about something and she'll come over. Yeah. And she'll come over and be like. And then she just walks away and then starts yelling again.

Rachel: [00:42:01] I love her.

Alyssa: [00:42:02] I love her, but I think that it is helpful for me to too, in those moments, because I want to be like, this is so irrational. Everything about this meltdown is irrational and not a big deal. And when I can slow myself down and be like, yeah, I love you, you're not even two and you're feeling a thing. We had a really cool moment two nights ago. I was actually blown away. Her verbal skills are advanced, or her articulation and her vocabulary and her emotional awareness is advanced. But she did something I had not experienced yet. I'm actually going to pull up on my phone because I texted it to Gabby so I can say it verbatim. It was just her and I hanging out. Zach was doing CJ's bedtime and she had found this party hat. You know, the ones that have the string where she was kept trying to put it on and she's like snapping herself in the chin over and over. It's painful to watch, to be honest. And I said, I'm here to help you if you need help. Nope. I'll do it myself. All that jazz. And by then I was like, okay. I said, I'm going to order the groceries on my phone, so I'm going to be looking at my phone to order the groceries. Let me know if you need help. And she's doing it. She's yelling. She's doing it. Whatever. And I then all of a sudden she's standing in front of me and she has the party hat on. And I looked up and she has this big smile on her face, and she's like, mama, I did it. And I said, wow, you worked so hard on that. Do you feel proud? And she said, frustrated. Can't get it. Try again. Got it. Happy now?

Rachel: [00:43:55] Oh.

Alyssa: [00:43:57] And I was like, that was so cool. Yeah.

Rachel: [00:44:01] That's amazing.

Alyssa: [00:44:03] It was so cool Allowing her to be frustrated was so key. And it was annoying and hard not to step in and rescue her and just put the party hat on or say like, oh, Mila, even if she's not letting me do it, say things like, oh, if you pull the strap down like this, or you pull it up over your head. I wanted to coach her through it because watching her be frustrated sucks was hard. Yeah. And she's yelling and she's whatever. And I had to pull myself out and do the grocery order because I felt this, like, constant, continuous pull to want to coach her out of her frustration.

Alyssa: [00:44:48] And me kind of pulling myself back allowed her to build frustration tolerance and be in it and snap herself in the neck a few times. And she actually has a little red mark on her neck still from a couple days ago. And get to this place where she learned how to do it, and she figured it out. Yeah, she's so cool.

Rachel: [00:45:11] Built resilience. And she was able to, like, debrief with you about what happened. Cool.

Alyssa: [00:45:18] Yeah, it was so cool because you could have easily. When I said, do you feel proud? Been like, yeah. She was like, no, proud's not it. Yeah.

Rachel: [00:45:27] She's like, let.

Alyssa: [00:45:27] Me talk.

Rachel: [00:45:28] You through what it took to get here.

Alyssa: [00:45:30] Yeah, it was so rad. It was so rad. And one of those reminders of, yes, toddlers have developing brains and there's a lot they can't yet do that we're expecting of them. And there's a lot that they can do if we slow down and give them the time and space and scaffolding that she knows the word frustrated because we've said it to her. I mean, she's given us plenty of opportunities to say it.

Rachel: [00:46:05] A billion times.

Alyssa: [00:46:07] Over her 21 months on planet Earth. But we have said like, oh man, that's frustrating. Oh, you feel frustrated right now and just put language to her experience without making her say something back to us, but have narrated her life. And I think that's one of the things we don't expect toddlers to a be able to have emotional literacy and b the language development to communicate with us. I have worked with thousands of toddlers at this point, and they are capable of so much more of that than we give them credit for.

Rachel: [00:46:53] It's interesting because we don't expect them to be able to do what Mila just did, but we do expect them to have the self-control to not melt when they don't get their way. And it's like those two ideas are in direct opposition to each other.

Alyssa: [00:47:07] Correct. Yeah. If you can't expect her to do what she just did, you can't expect her to have self control.

Rachel: [00:47:14] Right. Yeah.

Alyssa: [00:47:15] Yeah, yeah. Or even to remember the like to override I guess that is self control. I was just thinking about how we go up and say good night to Seiji. And it's her favorite part. She, like, wants to say good night to him, and he hates it. And he's like, get out of my room. And so we talk the whole way up about how we're gonna say good night to Seiji, and then we're gonna leave. We're gonna wave or blow him a kiss. He's probably not going to want to be touched. We're gonna say good night. We're going to blow a kiss or wave, and we're gonna leave. And she's like, yep. Got it? Yep. And then we enter the room and she's like, night night, Seiji. Hug, kiss. And I'm like, we just went over this. But once she sees him, she's like. She's like.

Rachel: [00:48:05] She's like, I gotta try.

Alyssa: [00:48:06] Just shoot your shot, baby. Shoot your shot. Oh, and those moments, I'm like, we're not gonna be able to keep coming up to say good night to him. If every time we come in here you're trying to touch him, he doesn't want to be touched. And I get so annoyed in those moments and have to remember, she's not even two years old and is from a need. She's like, I just need to be as connected as humanly possible to everyone around me. But it is tough to like balance that, like what is developmentally appropriate and what isn't.

Rachel: [00:48:41] Yeah, that's the challenge is like, what can I expect from this child? What skills are they capable of that I could be teaching them that whole dance. And it varies too, right from kid to kid, because I think about like, Nora at Mila's age, was also like articulating her frustration. And we were able to talk through problem solving and like, I got cancer and she was able to talk about it, you know.

Alyssa: [00:49:03] Yeah.

Rachel: [00:49:04] And able barely had like ten words at Miller's age. And so also just that dance of like, who is this individual kid and how do I build expectations around that?

Alyssa: [00:49:16] Well, and Seiji and Mila both had early language and and emotional literacy, but they it showed up very differently because he is she's an auditory processor like me. And so she wants to talk through things and have that back and forth and right away when something's happening, like, I can speak to her in the moment and say, whoa! Instead of screaming, you can say, mama, I need help and say that to her in the moment. Whereas for Seiji, building his language development meant first Co-regulation and then access to language. Whereas for her part of regulation includes language. And that is the like nerdy Part that's fun for me as a teacher, and it does require differentiation from human to human to know when's the right time to be building that language and communication, and who can access what when that in the moment, Seiji cannot access words. It's very hard for him in the moment to access language. And Mila doesn't stop talking. Whether she's dysregulated or regulated.

Rachel: [00:50:27] It doesn't matter.

Alyssa: [00:50:28] And so it does not matter. For her access to language is it is more accessible for her.

Rachel: [00:50:35] It's a regulation like strategy for her.

Alyssa: [00:50:38] Correct. She wants to be talked to in the same way that I do. In fact, we were in conflict recently, Zak and I, and he's like, Seiji, I'm like Mila where he like kind of shuts down and gets quiet. And I was sitting there and kind of stewing, and I started to notice my annoyance that he was quiet and I said it. I said, I know that your brain right now needs quiet, and I need to talk a mile a minute in this very moment. And so unless I can access somebody else to share everything that's in my brain about this, I need you to just be a sounding board. Even if you can't take it all in and have the most thoughtful response. I need to be able to say the things.

Rachel: [00:51:26] For sure.

Alyssa: [00:51:27] And have some semblance of a back and forth conversation. Yeah, he was like, okay, but it is. He's like, all right. And then he's so overwhelmed. It is really cool to get to see in toddlers. And when we can step back and just observe them, we get to learn so much about what can they handle, when and how. Yeah, and I think her Instagram profile is really helpful for. I think of her as like a knowledge broker, similar to like Alisa Pressman, where she takes information from psychology and brings it together to make it consumable in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming.

Rachel: [00:52:11] Yeah, feels accessible for parents who are in the toddler trenches.

Alyssa: [00:52:16] Baby right there with you, sister.

Alyssa: [00:52:19] Thanks for tuning in to Voices of Your Village. Check out the transcript at Voices of Your Village. Com. Did you know that we have a special community over on Instagram hanging out every day with more free content? Come join us at. Ssw, take a screenshot of you tuning in, share it on the gram and tag and to let me know your key takeaway. If you're digging this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. We love collaborating with you to raise emotionally intelligent humans.