Mental health articles

Essential tasks of parenting in the toddler period Parenting a toddler is a challenge to any parent. Parents who find the high demands but dependency of the baby enjoyable and rewarding are often nonplussed with the energy, determination and contrariness of the toddler. The common characteristics of the toddler are developmentally determined, not a factor […]

Development of empathy in the toddler As the toddler’s internal sense of a loving protective parent grows he takes on the qualities that the mother or father has demonstrated and the infant has experienced. The toddler develops empathy, an understanding of how an experience is for the other, a reliable sense of right and wrong, […]

From 18 months, most toddlers use a number of single words, although they may not be spoken clearly. They understand a lot of what is said to them, and start using two- to three-word sentences. Between two and three years of age the quantity of speech increases. At this age, toddlers can talk about events […]

Emotional processing and control There are two predominant anxieties of toddler years—separation anxiety and fear of disapproval (Lieberman, 1993). The toddler has to learn to satisfy curiosity and explore while remaining close enough to the parent to feel safe, and balance asserting his own will with maintaining the parent’s approval. As an intensely curious being […]

Self-awareness and self-assertion in the toddler ‘Toddlers are coping for the first time with a lifelong existential dilemma: having to negotiate a balance between relying on others and doing their own thing’ . Stern  makes the cogent point that the essential issues of emotional development—trust, attachment, dependence, independence, control, autonomy, mastery, individuation and self-regulation are […]

Significance of oral experience for development Developmentally, hand-to-mouth activity gives the infant strategies for selfsoothing and practising self-regulation, and opportunities for the tactile exploration of objects by mouthing them (Field, 1999). Dowling (1977) studied the development of a small group of infants with oesophageal atresia (OA)—a condition, apparent at birth, in which the oesophagus is […]

Infant–parent relationship influences on feeding Feeding behaviours are a reflection of the blending of a number of intricately interrelated physical, maturational and interpersonal factors. The substantially automatic responses of the newborn to root and suckle and to engage in handto-mouth activity begin a learning process that culminates in self-feeding. The first year of life is […]