Daily Ways To Help Toddlers Lead, Socialize, Imagine, and Understand Emotions
Within today's society the ability for toddlers to understand, to manage and use different emotions correctly is needed for a healthy mental and emotional health.
1. Let Your Child Form Conversations
Powerful learning happens when children feel safe, heard, and in control. Engage in daily conversations with your child; give them time to start, control, share, and lead.
Why this matters: When your child leads conversations, they feel in control, build confidence, and develop decision-making and social skills as they learn to form collaborative relationships and conversations and to express their emotions in healthy ways. Leading gives children practice planning, negotiating, and expressing ideas.
How to do it
Give time and space. Pause and wait for your child to respond instead of filling silences.
Follow their interests. Join their play and comment on what they choose to do.
Offer open choices. Ask simple options, like “Do you want to build with the blocks or do some art?” rather than yes-or-no questions.
Support role play. Encourage characters, dressing up, using voices, and storylines, and let your child decide the plot.
Setting the mood. Let your child decide the direction/plot/mood/actions of their play. For example, if your child builds a tower, ask “What happens next?” and let them lead the next move.
Testing things out. Encourage your child to try things on their own; step back and let them try. Listen as they communicate their feelings and emotions, and praise them for their efforts.
Phrases to teach
“Can I play with you, please?”
“It’s my turn next.”
“Stop that, please.”
“I don’t like that.”
“Thank you.”
2. Encourage Social Interaction
Regular visits to different environments where your child can socialize, people-watch, interact with others, see other ethnic groups, and hear a variety of languages and perspectives can help your toddler become more open-minded and broaden social understanding. They can also learn how to safely test behaviors, emotions, cultural norms, roles, skills, and social behaviors.
Why this matters: varied social experiences help children learn empathy, turn-taking, and cultural awareness. 1 Studies show that exposure to social interactions can help young children pick up new positive behaviours that can benefit future social interactions (Eckerman et al.,1989).
How to do it
Visit various environments. Visit parks, markets, playgroups, libraries, and family gatherings.
Model positive behavior. Show how to share, be kind, have differences, apologize, cooperate with others, and invite others to play. This can be done through conversations, books, role-playing, or songs.
Use books and role play. Read stories about friendships and act out solutions to common conflicts. Also, choose some books that have pictures of different ethnic groups as the main characters.
Teach simple phrases for conflict. Give short, polite sentences children can use in social moments. Such as: “Can I play with you, please?” or “It’s my turn next.” or “Thank you.” or ‘‘No, thank you." or “Stop that, please.” or “I did not like when you”. or “I don’t like that.” or “Leave me alone, please."
3. Promote Creative and Imaginative Play
These types of games encourage your child to be creative, test different ideas and roles, engage in make-believe play, and challenge perspectives. 2 ‘‘Pretending to do new things helps your toddler practice doing things on her own in a fun and safe way. It also builds self-esteem because there is no right or wrong way to do something when you are just pretending’’ (Ontai, para. Independence, p. 3).
Why this matters: Imaginative play supports problem-solving, emotional regulation, and symbolic thinking. Pretend play lets children practice and test out real-life situations safely.
How to do it
Provide open-ended materials. Dress-up clothes, dishes, dolls, blocks, toy animals, and household items spark creativity.
Encourage storytelling. Ask your child to create their own ending of a book, ask them what they think will happen, and let them decide the story’s direction sometimes.
Toys/materials for imaginative play
Dolls and dollhouses, puppets, and stuffed animals.
Different kinds of hand and finger puppets, toy wooden people with different ethnicities, cultures, and jobs.
Dress up clothes and props.
Storybooks, homemade books, or audiobooks.
Blocks, cardboard boxes, and a variety of loose part items.
Pretend cooking tools, dishes, containers, and pretend food.
Cars, trucks, and trains.
Toy kitchens, doctor kits, toy phone, menus, and magazines.
insurments
Objects such as a cash register, laptop, old cell phones, and a keyboard.
A variety of wooden, plastic, or cardboard blocks in different sizes.
Cardboard boxes,
A variety of loose part items.
Plastic sea, land, zoo, farm, safari animals, and dinosaurs.
Stuff animals of different sizes.
4. Use Books to Model Emotions and Problem Solving
Reading books with your child about new and present emotions they have shown can help them learn faster and be more interested in listening, thanks to the images and the story format. Books that foster conversations about feelings or emotions, such as tantrums, turn-taking, separation, or making friends, can offer your child personal insight.
Why this matters: Books give children language for their feelings and show how characters handle emotions and conflicts. Reading together builds vocabulary and empathy.
How to do it
Choose simple, realistic books. Look for clear pictures and short sentences about feelings (3-4 words) and ‘‘I feel “ sentences,
Keep sessions short and interactive. Five to ten minutes is often enough for toddlers.
Choose books with multicultural characters. Having a few books with characters from other ethnic groups is healthy for your child to see.
Ask questions and share examples. Relate the story to your child’s experiences.
Model facial expressions and calming strategies. Show your child how to take deep breaths, use a quiet corner, and use different emotions. This can be done through role-play scenarios after a story.
Share appropriate personal stories. Sharing your emotional stories with your child can help them.
Use the correct emotion names: Use the correct names, facial expressions, calming-down techniques, and tone of voice when reading about emotions with your child.
Encourage freedom of expression: Have your child practice their emotional expression in front of a hand mirror. So they can see how they feel and look.
Ask open-ended questions: After reading about a character who is angry, say, “When I feel angry, I take three deep breaths”. Or “Let’s try shaking out our bodies when we get angry,” or How did you feel when Sally did not share”?
Practical Tips and Strategies to Help Toddlers Understand Their Emotions
Rageliene et al. (5, (5,2020) Vol 148. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666319306865
Adapted from building independence in toddlers. Ontal. (2006) https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=-0IlDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=building+independence+in++toddler&ots=dbwQ_LJbzK&sig=qFt8zob_zgCAZ6knC0euY3_nYIY&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false