Toddler Parenting Observation

Good communication between a child and their parents results in a positive parent child relationship. Communication amongst parents and children is essential to building the child’s self-esteem and mutual respect. The parents and toddlers I observed show two distinctly different styles of communication active and non active communication. One parent actively communicating with their toddler and interacting with them while they played. The other parent did not interact or communicate much with their child at all unless it was warranted.

I observed two female toddlers about 18-24 months in age one with her mother and the other with her father at Irvine Regional Park. This park also has a small zoo along with lots of open grassy areas. I observed the toddlers in the zoo as well as them interacting with their parents outside of the zoo. The zoo has a petting zoo inside where the kids can feed the goats. I observed toddler one accompanied by her father feeding a goat. The father was holding her up while she fed the goat one pellet at a time. Toddler two was feeding the goat as well but instead of one at a time she was having the goat eat several from out of her hand while her mom stood off 5 feet away chatting with her friends and checking on her every once and a while. Her mom did not seem to be watching her much, she allowed her to be too independent. Neither toddler seemed to talk much they mainly giggled and pointed at the different animals. The toddlers seem to mainly be communicating through action rather than verbally. Through out the zoo toddler one’s father kept close to his daughter and interacted with her while viewing all the animals. Toddler one was very happy smiling and laughing at the different animals, while her father talked to her telling her what each animal was, a coyote, a porcupine, mountain lion, some bold eagles. Toddler two’s mother after leaving the petting zoo area, put her back in her stroller, didn’t interacted with her much and just pushed her through out the zoo showing her the animals. The two toddlers were both part of a large group of parents, toddlers and small children walking through out the zoo. Outside of the small zoo the group all met together for a birthday party. When they met outside the zoo they immediately had cake, it was toddler ones birthday. While everyone sang happy birthday to her she stood there laughing and picking at the cake. She didn’t seem too aware that it was her birthday, but she knew the cake was for her. While everyone was eating cake Toddler two was running around the grassy area trying interacting with the other parents having them feed her cake and forcing them to pay attention to her since her mother was not. She was purposefully stepping on everyone, which caused her mom to somewhat pay more attention to her, because she was eating from other peoples plates her mother told her she had her own cake and tried to feed her it. But she wanted to eat other people’s cake to cause her mom to give her more attention. At one point no one seemed to be watching her and she ran off, but one of the guests of the party caught her and brought her back. Her mother did not seem to care what her daughter was doing she seemed as though she didn’t care much and assumed since there was a big party someone else would keep an eye on her child. When it was time for toddler one to open presents all the kids ran over and tried to open the presents for her. When toddler one opened her gifts she did not seem to care what was in the packages she ripped them open and threw them aside, her father tried to show her the gifts but she was not interested in them because at first they all seemed to be clothing. When she opened a gift that was a toy she no longer wanted to open gifts she just grabbed it and started playing with it. Then her father just started opening all the gifts for her and showing her what she got. She had so many gifts that she got bored with opening them and just plopped down on a blanket near her father and watched him open the gifts and show them to her. While toddler one was opening her gifts toddler twos mother was busy watching the gifts being opened rather than keeping an eye on her child. Toddler two then began running around and decided to pick up a dogs ball and place it in her mouth. Another parent noticed this and told her no that the dog puts that in her mouth and toddler two then made a disgusted face and threw the ball. This response would fall into the first stage of Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development, the sensorimotor stage. Toddler two seems to be in the fifth substage in which tertiary circular reaction appears, allowing her to experiment. By reacting that tasting the ball was disgusting because an adult said it was she knows that she should not eat the ball. References

Lucariello, J. & Lerner, J. (2005). Human lifespan development. In R. Coombs (Ed.), Family therapy review: preparing for comprehensive and licensing examinations (pp. 21-40). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/parenting/communication.shtml

References: Lucariello, J. & Lerner, J. (2005). Human lifespan development. In R. Coombs (Ed.), Family therapy review: preparing for comprehensive and licensing examinations (pp. 21-40). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/parenting/communication.shtml