Why Kids Need Emotional Vitamins

Welcome to Toddlers Made Easy where there's no fluff, just practical research based 15 minute or less parenting strategies to help you calmly manage all those crazy awesome toddler moments. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Dr. Catherine, a pediatrician with more than 33 years of experience. I'm the author of two parenting books, the founder of Healthiest Baby, and most importantly, the mother of four amazing adult kids. And I just became a mother a few days ago. And then there's also Smudge My great big golden doodle. Today we're going to be talking about emotional vitamins and why they're so important. I've picked this topic because I receive a lot of messages from parents asking me, why does my child keep hitting and throwing toys and not listening. I'm trying to manage challenging behaviors with respect to and I'm setting boundaries and holding them, but these difficult behaviors just keep cropping up. This is a common concern and I'd like us to delve into it here. So here's the thing. We tend to go about inspiring good behavior completely backwards. We think fixing a problem will stop it from happening in the future. But let me ask you something. Let's say your child's playing and unfortunately she runs into the edge of the kitchen table. She's screaming, there's some blood pouring down her face. You quickly put some gauze over the area and you rush her to the emergency room and she needs some stitches, but you're told it's going to heal beautifully and there should be no scar. Now, this laceration has been taken care of and the ER doc did a lovely job of suturing it. But are you expecting these stitches to prevent future injuries? Well, no, not at all. Well, the same thing goes for behavioral fixes. When you intervene after your child throws a toy across the room, you're resolving the current problem, but you're not truly preventing future ones from happening. So this is where emotional vitamins come in. Emotional vitamins are how we keep a child feeling seen and heard and understood and valued. And when a child feels this way, they naturally behave better. Emotional vitamins are tiny acts of love and kindness that are so easy to do and they're powerful. They're a way of letting your child know they are loved and they're lovable. They help kids feel good, which in turn contributes to good behavior. These little love bites are a crucial way of keeping family life on track and for showing up as the best big hearted parent you want to be and already are. Emotional vitamins they don't have to be grand gestures. In fact, it's the little daily things that matter the most. And these simple acts of love can build a strong emotional foundation for our little ones. And it strengthens their confidence, boosts their self esteem, and it builds a secure attachment with you. So here are some examples of emotional vitamins. For instance, a quick I love you whispered in your child's ear, A hand on her shoulder, spending five minutes of quality time together every day. A big hearted attitude with challenging moments and especially kind words when behavior is being corrected. So how do emotional vitamins help? Well, they meet the emotional need for love. They show your child you love them unconditionally, they help you repair after tough moments, and they allow your big heart to be seen and heard. Toddlers crave love in different ways and there's three ways we're going to focus on physical touch, kind and caring words, and together time. So let's look closer at each one of these and we're going to start with physical touch. Research shows we only touch our little ones when we need to. Like helping them get dressed or holding their hands to cross the street. Now I'm not sure this is entirely true, but the reports surprised me. However, I guess it's possible with our busy lives. I get it. This type of emotional vitamin is so easy to give and it's also easy for your little one to absorb. You can prevent emotional so called deficiencies in various ways like hugging or kissing your child, holding their hand, wrestling playfully, letting a child sit on your lap, giving high fives, or even simply placing a hand on your child's shoulder. Also, piggyback rides or gently rubbing your child's back are all physical forms of emotional vitamins. You remember those early days when your little one was a baby and we'd hold and cuddle them for countless hours during the day and even at night. But as they started to look more like mini adults, our physical contact decreases. Also, research shows that boys get less physical touch than girls. So let's break this pattern. I'm going to go over a few additional ways to increase physical touch. So for instance, read to your child while they sit in your lap. Give a great big bear hug, hold hands while you're walking, stroke your child's hair. Next, let's look at kind and loving words as a form of an emotional vitamin. Every time my sisters and I would visit our grandparents when I was little, my grandfather would write I love you in the air and I loved this little ritual. Another easy but hugely powerful way to give emotional vitamins is to whisper I love you in your child's ear many times throughout the day. Also, gossiping with stuffed animal is another way. And if you haven't already listened to the episode, my favorite way to encourage good behavior, please scroll down. I'd highly recommend you take a listen to this episode. It's all about this hugely effective and really sweet way to boost your toddler's confidence. Also, you give emotional vitamins. When you acknowledge your child's efforts in the artwork he's doing, or building towers, or really anything that's required effort, you don't need to heap on the praise. Just a quick comment is all that's needed. I like to acknowledge kids when they're acting really stubborn by saying something like boy, you sure know what you like and this is how you can end a power struggle while also giving an emotional vitamin. Also offering words of encouragement when your child is getting frustrated, saying something like wow, you're working really hard on that puzzle that can really boost a child's confidence. Getting down on their level is another way of giving an emotional vitamin. Eye contact is so important and kind and loving words are such a powerful way to boost your bond and prevent emotional deficiencies. The last thing we're going to talk about is together time. What makes a child feel important and valued and actually helps them behave better? Together time or quality time or magical time? Max time? Call it whichever time you want, but together time is important. And this is the time where you spend, say five or ten minutes each day where your attention is focused solely on your child. You can let your child decide how they want to spend this time. Give them your full attention with no distractions and no hidden agendas. Don't use this time to talk about a problem. In my day, we called this quality time. So here are a few other ways to give emotional vitamins that are focused on spending time together. Pillow talk. In other words, those meaningful talks at bedtime, cooking together, doing chores together, reading books together are all possibilities. But at the end of the day, every child, well, every human actually needs to feel loved and cared for. And our toddlers are no different. So let's make sure we're remembering to provide these precious emotional vitamins to them every single day. Now, if you want to learn more about how to be the big hearted parent your child needs and deserves, take a look at our popular courses Toddler Made Easy and Potty Training Made Easy. Plus check out our freebies too. There's a webinar how to tame those tantrums without losing your cool. And then there's also our amazing and hugely popular pre potty training guide called five Must Do's Before Starting Potty Training, you can find a link to all of these goodies in the show notes. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. And until next week, happy parenting. Sam.