Portrait of the toddler
Toddlers “toddle” for only a few weeks. By the time they are 18 months
old, they are running, dashing, plummeting headlong into their
environment—testing, tasting, clawing, groping, eyeballing, listening,
poking, probing, stamping. They act as if they must analyze the entire
world and have only one day to do it.
At times during this period the child seems determined to conquer or
even to destroy the environment. Actually, the toddler is trying out big
muscles used for running, jumping, climbing, pounding, and hitting. The
child’s nervous system and attention span are not developed well enough
to settle down to quiet work. You are doomed to fail if you try to force
silent, stationary activity. A certain amount of time and energy must be
channeled into bigmuscle activity before the toddler can go to the next
level.
