What to Expect the Toddler Years (27 page)

Play provides the opportunity for children to work out feelings. A multitude of emotions, including anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety, are often worked through in role play. A toddler who’s in a panic about going to the doctor, for example, may deal with the anxiety by setting up a clinic for sickly stuffed animals.

Play spurs language development. Puzzle, truck, doll, blocks. Jump, swing, slide, climb. Mine, yours, ours, share. Up, down, under, on. During play, a toddler uses a vast number of words, many of them repeatedly, fostering language development.

Play allows children to be large beyond their years. All the things a toddler is too small to do in real life, he or she can do in play. Be a parent, a police officer, a doctor. Drive a car, fly an airplane, read a book. Build (and leap over) tall buildings. Construct complex roadways and orchestrate car collisions. This kind of power not only exhilarates toddlers but also heightens their self-esteem, teaches them about the world, and helps them identify with adults.

Play stimulates creativity and imagination. Making a castle in the sand or a car garage out of a shoe box, feeding a stuffed lamb from a bottle or setting a bowl of stew in front of a rag doll, dressing up in Mommy’s or Daddy’s clothes, allows toddlers to stretch the limits of their world and experience the joys of make-believe.

Play develops fine-motor skills (the use of hands and fingers) and eye–hand coordination. During play, the toddler builds a block tower, puts a puzzle together, manipulates clay, scribbles with a crayon.

Play matures large-motor skills. Active play—walking, running, jumping, climbing, skipping, riding, swinging, throwing, catching, pushing, pulling—builds grace, coordination, athletic ability, and a foundation for a future active lifestyle.

In other words, a toddler’s play is work—satisfying, energizing, thoroughly worthwhile work. Time spent at play is time well-spent, never wasted.

So let them play, let them play, let them play.

In the old days, it seems that families were almost never far from home. Grandparents, children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, and cousins all lived, if not in the same house, at least in the same neighborhood. Today, either because of necessity or choice, it’s the rare family that stays this close. Only one in ten grandparents live with their children’s families—and many grandchildren see their grandparents no more than once or twice a year. The extended family now extends across countries, even oceans.

If some or all the grandparents in your family (some children, because of divorce and remarriage, have as many as eight) live at a distance, helping your toddler develop close ties to them can be tricky. But with the assistance of modern transportation and methods of communication, it can be done. The following tips will help keep your toddler in touch with grandparents (and other dear-but-not-so-near relatives):

Visits.
At least once or twice a year try to manage a visit to each grandparent or set of grandparents. Keep the costs down by traveling off-season, staying alert for airfare specials, considering rail travel, or driving. (For tips on traveling with a toddler, see page 250.) Or invite the grandparents to come to you (this route can be particularly cost-effective if the grandparents qualify for senior-citizen discounts). To keep togetherness from getting on everyone’s nerves (some tension is inevitable when three generations converge under one roof for more than a couple of days), plan plenty of fun outings (to amusement parks, museums, puppet shows, and so on). If all parties (you, your toddler, your parents) seem comfortable with the idea, you and your spouse might even consider taking a night or a weekend away from home while the grandparents toddler-sit.

The telephone.
Long distance is the next best thing to being there—especially now that cell phone calling plans and Internet calling services like Skype are relatively inexpensive—that is, if your toddler will talk on the telephone. Some toddlers love to babble into the receiver, others won’t go near one, especially if they’ve been spooked by listening to the disembodied voice on the other end of the line. But since you never know when a resistant toddler will suddenly agree to speak into a phone, keep on trying. Each time you speak to the grandparents on the phone, say, “Grandma (and/or Grandpa) is on the phone and wants to speak to you.” Place the phone near your child’s ear (if you can) so that special voice can be heard. If you meet with opposition, don’t force the issue—just try again next time.

The photo album.
Make a special album for your toddler (with photos inserted in plastic so they can’t be mangled) of grandparents and other family members. Pull out the album often and connect names to the faces in the photos, talk a little bit about them, remind your toddler about gifts they’ve sent, about past visits, about holidays coming up that you’ll be sharing. Or make a slide show of digital pictures your child can look at on the computer screen.

The digital audio recorder.
Who says that Grandma can’t tuck Junior in with his favorite bedtime story just because she’s 2,000 miles away? She can if she records the tale on an mp3 and e-mails it to you. Exchanged audio files are a wonderful way of keeping grandparents and toddlers in touch between visits. Grandparents can read simple books aloud or sing lullabies to younger toddlers; later, they can add stories about when Mommy or Daddy were little, or just talk about something that’s going on in their lives (the weather, holiday celebrations, a trip they’ve just taken). Toddlers can babble, sing, giggle, moo like a cow, or bark like a dog into a digital recorder. Even if the sounds they make are incomprehensible, they’re likely to be music to grandparents’ ears.

The digital video recorder.
Digital movies bring not only the sounds of the sorely missed but the sight of them, too. The home movie doesn’t have to be artistic to be appreciated; even the most mundane documentaries earn Oscars from grateful grandparents. You can record your toddler eating, bathing,
playing, saying prayers, singing songs, even crying. (And don’t forget to record those monumental milestones: first steps, first haircut, birthdays the grandparents can’t attend, and so on.) In turn, your parents can record themselves doing what comes naturally: telling or reading stories, singing songs, talking, doing tricks, gardening, baking cookies (they can ship a box of them along with the DVD as an added bonus), making doll’s clothes, knitting a toddler-size sweater, working in the wood shop, and so on.

Not only that, but with Internet video conferencing and/or webcams, your child can watch their grandparents as they chat together. Regularly “seeing” grandparents between visits will make them seem a little more familiar when they show up at your doorstep or you show up at theirs.

Special gifts.
Many grandparents love giving, and virtually all grandchildren love receiving. But it’s important that your toddler knows who sent those gifts. A photo of Grandma and Grandpa attached to the gift wrap or tucked into the present will help. So will reminding your toddler, each time he or she plays with the toy, wears the sweater, eats the cookies, that “Grandma (and/or Grandpa) gave you that.”

Travel with grandparents.
Some toddlers can enjoy spending the night at a hotel or resort with Grandma and Grandpa. (Toddlers experiencing separation anxiety or stranger anxiety aren’t good candidates for trips away from their parents; wait until a clingy toddler feels more secure before attempting such a rendezvous.) Preparation should include at least one night, and preferably a few nights, spent together in your home. The first trip should not take the young traveler very far afield, since an attack of homesickness may cause a sudden cancellation. But once a couple of overnighters have been successful, a weekend, or even a long weekend can be attempted. Trips to child-centered resorts are best when children are young because these holiday havens provide child-appropriate food, entertainment, and sometimes even child care.