Best Parenting Tips For Toddlers [2023]

Your search for parenting tips for toddlers is an instant sign you care. That’s the first step to being a good parent. 

Your toddler is your responsibility and that can be overwhelming at times. You’re wholly in charge of her well-being and development into a decent adult.

And it seems like every step you make towards achieving that goal tests your limit. This doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent.

Infact, that is the norm for parents dealing with toddlers. Your toddler is trying to figure the world and has begun to walk and jump. She is curious and adventurous but has no understanding of the consequences for her actions.

She is also having a hard time clearly expressing her needs, dealing with limits or conducting herself properly.

She may hit or bite you when she is displeased with something you are doing or wants to get your attention.

Getting her to stop doing something you don’t like could turn out to be a hard thing to do.

This is where you step in to help her navigate this stage of her life without causing her physical and emotional damage.

Be The Perfect Parent: A Guide With Parenting Tips For Toddlers.

In this article, we would be sharing parenting tips for toddlers and different ways to implement what you’ve learned.

A Mindset Prep For Parenting

It’s no secret you love your little one and you want the absolute best for her. This means you wouldn’t mind going the extra mile for her.

Parenting from the time she could only suckle and cry, to her becoming an adult would be both stressful and exhilarating.

And many a time, you would catch yourself feeling like you are at your wits end. I’ll encourage you to hang in there. It will be worth it.

You have to remember that you don’t have forever with your kid. In just less than 20 years, they’ll be out of the house and into the world as full fledged adults.

The times you spend with them now won’t last forever and therefore are to be considered a privilege.

With this kind of mindset, you would approach the parenting of your toddler with more positivity and patience than you would have previously had.

This is the foundation for a solid parenting strategy and any endeavour that you want to succeed in.

Parenting Tips For Toddler Tantrums

Your preschooler is at a point in her life where communicating her feelings clearly can be quite challenging.

She may be reacting to a certain rule you have instructed or a limit you have imposed on her and she isn’t having it.

Although your first reaction maybe to explain in explicit detail why she can’t do what she wants to do, that hardly yields any positive result.

The crying and tantrum throwing might even escalate and thus leave you frustrated and exhausted.

Sally is pissed she can’t have another candy today and can’t understand why mummy won’t grant her her wish.

And that stuff about spoilt and rotten teeth mum’s talking about isn’t important. You can avoid this by making a little tweak to your lecture.

First off, let her know that you understand what she is going through. You may be amazed at the simplicity of this trick but it does work.

Your kid feels better when she knows that not only do you understand she struggles with your rules but you respect and acknowledge her feeling of frustration.

The situation is diffused if you say ‘Sally I understand that you are mad you can’t have another candy today but that is because bla bla bla…’

They are humans you know, just as your stress is greatly elevated knowing someone else understands what you are going through, so it is for your toddler.

Parenting Tips For Aggressive Toddlers

Your toddler is full of energy and abhors any ideas of down time and you have to keep up with her.

In this rollercoaster of emotions you could find yourself losing it when it comes to reprimanding or disciplining your preschooler.

You’re doing your damnedest to stop Sally from hitting the glass table with her toy but she won’t stop till you must have corrected her multiple times.

And when she seems to have gotten the memo, she off to paint the wall with crayons. It is a never-ending cycle at this point and you may be tempted to scream when talking to her.

This of course won’t work. It will only worsen the whole situation. You may not realize it but your kid is very observant of your facial expressions, tone of voice and body language, all that tell her how you feel at any given time.

Apart from your message being lost in transition due to your emotional reaction, your kid could continue misbehaving if she gets a kick from seeing you animated when she acts a certain way.

Also she may view your reaction to her behavior as a personal attack on her which would be a disservice to get emotional and mental development. She should always feel you love her always.

Your love for your toddler should be expressed frequently through hugs, praises and special treats.

When you discipline her for bad behavior, make sure to quickly accept her back into your loving arms and reassure her that you love her.

Parenting Tips For Toddler’s Discipline

As I said at the beginning of this article, your toddler is struggling to understand the world around her and a routine would help her overcome this challenge.

Giving structure to your preschoolers life could range from having timetables for feeding and bedtime to being consistent with your reactions to her behavior.

When Salty is told that throwing a ball in the dinning isn’t acceptable yesterday but then today she is ignored when she tosses her ball at the dinner table, reinforcing the dinner table rule becomes tough.

Sally is confused as to what is allowed and what is not and listening to you becomes even more complicated than it already is.

So it is important that you’re consistent with the consequences of her actions, if she says please before she asks for something you praise her immediately and if she throws her food across the dinner table, you reprimand her.

Bringing this level of consistency to her life will go a long way in making things a lot easier for her.

Parenting Tips For Encouraging Good Behavior

If you study your child long enough, you’ll be able to anticipate certain behaviours. You’ll notice certain objects or situations that trigger your child to behave a certain way.

This can be very helpful when you want to discourage your toddler from misbehaving.

If you notice that your preschooler acts out when she is hungry, bored, tired or frustrated, you can now do something about it.

Remove these situations that trigger your kid to misbehave. If Sally refuses to stop coloring the wall with crayons then you take the crayons out of her reach.

Provide her with a painting paper and crayons and be there to monitor her color her book instead of the wall.

Also noticing your toddler’s pattern of behavior can better help you plan activities to help keep her in a good mood throughout the day.

This will reduce the amount of time spent struggling to get your toddler to act accordingly thereby avoiding stress for you and your little one.

How To Be A Better Parent?

Yes, you are responsible for encouraging your little one to adopt good habits and drop bad ones.

But you must also remember that your preschooler is a toddler and can’t be expected to act like an adult.

So to parent your toddler effectively, focus on encouraging your kid towards good behaviors that can’t be compromised.

Then ignore other ways your child behaves that may not necessarily be desired but can be outgrown.

Do know that your toddler should not get used to you saying ‘No’ all the time. She would soon get used to your disapproval of almost all the things she wants to do. Disobey you frequently and won’t care anyways.

This of course would only lead to more conflict between the two of you. And this is the exact opposite of what you want your relationship with her to be.

You have to remember that above all, you should have a positive relationship with your little one. That is the only way to make true progress when it comes to parenting.

Keep it simple with your toddler. Parents often overlook this but it’s an important part of interacting with your preschooler.

Your kid is still growing and still hasn’t developed a long enough attention span to listen to you explain in detail why she has to stop hitting you with her toy guitar.

So with this in mind, don’t waste time trying to reason with your toddler. Don’t go on and on about the consequences for her dropping her doll in water. You have to keep it short and simple.

Instead of explaining the effects of water on her battery-run doll, go like this… ‘No Sally! Don’t put Lizzy in the water! Don’t Sally! Don’t! Lizzy won’t sing anymore!’

You must learn to use short sentences and repeat your directions. To that, add facial expressions and adjust the tone of your voice to suggest you’re disapproving of her behavior.

That way, she learns to understand what exactly is expected of her. Keeping things simple when talking to your toddler will help with effective communication between you and your little one.

Your toddler is heavily dependent on you to live a happy life. But at the same time you also have to help her learn to be independent without leaving her entirely to her whims and caprices.

To do this right, you will try to make choices available to her within a list of things you want her to do.

For example, if you want Sally to share her toys with a playmate, you could suggest she choose between giving up Lizzy the doll or Gendry the stuffed bear.

Your goal here is for her to learn how to share her toys while getting to make an independent choice of which toy to let go.

Another way to do this is to let her choose  from a set of pre-selected clothes, one she would like to wear to the mall.

In this case, you get to guide her towards taking the right actions while she feels she is in control of her life. With time you give her more options. This helps her grow up to take more responsibility for her life.

As We Draw To A Close…

It is important to note that these parenting tips for toddlers will remain theory till you practice them.

Every toddler is different and should be treated as such. Take your time with your little one and no matter how frustrated you get, don’t lash out on your kid.

If at any point in time you feel like you can’t keep it together, please share your struggles with your spouse or see a counselor.

You could also go online to find mothers who are in the same parenting stage as you are. You’ll get a lot of insight into situations that arise as a result of taking care of toddlers and their approach to solving problems will be of immense benefit to you.

When it comes to disciplinary measures such as time outs. Make sure that the space designated for such an activity is safe for the child.

Also your toddler shouldn’t spend more time than is speculated for her age. The minutes are proportional to her age. If she is 2, then she shouldn’t spend more than 2 mins in time out.

This will help her understand what she can and can’t do without her feeling neglected.

Also, the consequences you have created for her behavior should be immediate.

This would help her link her actions to these consequences. Waste time and you are punishing her for no reason… at least that is how she sees it, and it makes parenting ineffective here. After all, the goal is to help these cute little kids grow into big strong and decent adults.