Handling Toddler Conflict

Two-year-old Jimmy is happily playing with a toy telephone, pretending to talk to his daddy at work. Rachel, also two years old, has been making a tower of blocks. She notices Jimmy, walks over to him, and tries to take the toy phone away. Jimmy screams and pulls Rachel´s hair. Rachel begins to cry.

This is probably a familiar scene to persons who care for toddlers. Conflict between very young children occurs frequently and without warning. Such behavior in young children often causes strong emotions in adults. To us, such behavior seems uncivilized. And that is just what it is! Toddlers don´t follow accepted social rules. Rachel didn´t ask for the phone, and Jimmy didn´t ask her to give it back. Both children resorted immediately to physical means to solve the problem.

Why do toddlers act like this? Are they just selfish? Don´t they care about other people´s feelings? What should adults do when toddlers fight?

In order to understand how to handle toddler conflict, it is necessary to understand why it happens. If adults or even older children behaved this way, it might be appropriate to think in terms of right and wrong, or good and bad. But toddlers fight simply because they have no other way to deal with social problems.

For toddlers, conflict is a skill issue, not a moral issue. Toddlers can´t solve multiplication problems because they lack the necessary math skills. Similarly, they can´t handle problems with other people because they don´t yet have the social skills needed to solve them.

Several skills are necessary to get along successfully with other people. These include the ability to:

• See the other persons point of view: to understand how they feel, what they want and need, and to correctly “read” their intentions;
• Communicate clearly: to let others know what you need, want, and think;
• Predict how others are likely to react to your own behavior;
• Understand and control your own emotions and behavior; and
• Think of many different solutions to problems that arise in dealing with others.

When you consider all the skills needed to be successful in getting along with other people, it is easy to understand why even adults find it so difficult!

Toddlers, however, have none of these skills. Because of their limited mental abilities, they don´t understand that others have a point of view. They certainly don´t understand what those feelings or needs might be, and their newly developing language skills don´t allow them to communicate well with others.

Interpreting toddlers´ speech is difficult for most adults; it´s almost impossible for other toddlers to understand. Toddlers also have a very poor grasp of cause-and-effect relationships. Therefore, they seldom think about how their actions might affect others.

Emotions are also overwhelming to young children. Toddlers have trouble distinguishing between anger, sadness, and fear. It is almost impossible to control what you don´t understand. Furthermore, the toddler has few alternatives to try when attempting to solve problems with others. Therefore, when toddlers are faced with social problems, especially ones that raise strong emotions, their immediate reaction is to respond physically. When they want something, they take it. When they are hurt or feel threatened, they lash out or physically defend themselves.

Prevention is the most important part of handling toddler conflicts. No matter how you try, though, there will still be occasional arguments and fights. When conflict occurs, deal first with the strong emotions involved. Rachel can´t hear anything you say about fairness and rules while her head hurts. And Jimmy won´t listen to you while Rachel still has the toy phone. Let the children know that you understand their points of view, but also tell them about how the other child feels.

Dealing with conflict is not easy. When you prevent problems from occurring in the first place and teach young children social skills, you are helping them learn to interact effectively with both children and adults.

Mary Chandler, M.S.

Reprinted with permission from the National Network for Child Care - NNCC. Chandler, M. (1992). Handling toddler conflict. In Todd, C.M. (Ed.), *Day care center connections*, 1(3), pp. 3-4. Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service.