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Questions & Answers - Behavior Concerns
My daughter is 33 months and I have a few concerns about her social
behavior. She seems to have a lot of issues playing with other children
her age. I think it's more of a possessive thing, but she refuses to
share her toys with other children who come over for play dates at our
house. She will rip toys out of any other kid's hands and becomes very
aggressive, and has even hit other kids before for taking her toys (even
when they ask her permission).
It is to the point now where if I take her to our local
playground, she will get agitated if another child comes to play in
the same area as her. She even will not allow myself or my husband
to "play" with her toys and will tell us "no" and take the toy away
from us. I feel like a broken record because I am constantly trying
to address the concept of sharing with her, but she is not seeming
to get it.
Her interactions with other children other than toys is fine. While
I do think she is a little shy, she will run and play and even hug
other kids, as long as it does not involve any type of sharing of a
book or toy. I've also noticed that she seems to do better with kids
who are a few years older than her. She does not have any siblings
so sharing is a concept that is very difficult for her it seems. She
is not aggressive at all in any other way except in these
situations, and it usually only happens with items that she feels
are "hers".
From what I understand she does fine in our church nursery when
it comes to sharing those toys. I'm not sure how "normal" this
behavior is because it seems to me that most children her age can at
least cope with sharing for a few seconds. My other concern is her
speech. She says many words and can talk in complete sentences, and
is able to comprehend a lot. My concern is it seems that the only
people who understand what she is saying are my husband and I.
Anyone else who she talks to always has to ask her to repeat what
she is saying. She is definitely saying words, it's not gibberish,
but she's just very hard to understand and it seems as though the
words get garbled. Her pronunciation seems to get better and better
as the months go by, but I feel as though I'm listening to her
through a filter since no one else seems to be able to understand
her.
I'm wondering if she should get evaluated for her social and
articulation problems, or if these are common and she will
eventually "get over it". I'm most concerned with her social skills
with other children because she gets very agitated when it comes to
interacting with other kids her age.
Sharing for most toddlers is still a foreign concept, and although your
daughter is nearing age three it is not atypical for her to still be
refusing to share toys (particularly at her own house) with same age
peers. She is exerting her toddler independence and believe it or not,
defiance is a typical toddler social milestone. Most young children do
not play reciprocally with peers until they have well passed their third
birthday, and the majority of two year olds will play side by side
within a peer group, but you won't see sharing and the kind of
reciprocal play you might see with preschool aged children.
It is typical for 2 year olds to snatch toys from one another and to
even hit other children to obtain toys for retaliation if another child
takes their toy. Many children at this age just don't have the social,
cognitive or language skills at this age to be able to share. You may
have seen the popular Toddler's Creed:
If I want it, it's mine.
If I give it to you and change my mind later, it's mine.
If I can take it away from you, it's mine.
If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
If it's mine, it will never belong to anybody else, no matter what.
If we are building something together, all the pieces are mine.
If it looks just like mine, it is mine.
This is why in Toddler rooms in child care centers you will often see
10 of the same toy, because every time one child picks up the toy phone,
all the other children want it.
Having said that, it is great that you are having play dates since
she is an only child and exposing her to same age peers to encourage
sharing and turn taking. Toddlers learn to share by having the behavior
modeled for them by adults and older peers. Implementing some
turn-taking games at home, first with you and your husband and later
with her playmates, might be a good start. You can start turn-taking
with things that don't involve toys, such as "I am sharing a bite of my
sandwich with you...will you share a bite with me?" or "I am stirring
the soup, now it's your turn" or "I am sharing my phone with Daddy" and
emphasize when you are sharing with her or your husband. Praise her for
all attempts at sharing with you and try to ignore her if she says "no"
or resists.
You want to use positive reinforcement as much as possible. For
your play dates you could tell your daughter to pick three of her
favorite toys that she can put in her bedroom and doesn't have to
share with her peers, but when the friends come over, the toys that
she didn't hide in her bedroom will be used for sharing and
turn-taking. You can even set a timer for 3-5 minutes (most 2 year
olds don't play with one toy longer than this) and when the timer
goes off, all the kids will be asked to pass their toy onto a
friend, making it into a game.
Also let her see you praise the other children for sharing. You can
use a reward system with stickers or anything your child (or for her
friends too) finds reinforcing and every time she shares she can get a
star, etc. When she collects 5 or 10 stars, whatever you decide, she can
then get some special reward like a treat, etc. If sharing the toys is
especially difficult to start with during play dates, you can instead do
something such as a craft or Playdough and build in turn-taking/sharing
with "Can you pass the blue paint to Susie?", or "Can Joey use some of
your red Playdoh?". Again, praise all attempts verbally and call her
attention to other playmates who shared "Did you see Susie shared her
doll with Amy? That was such nice sharing!".
As for speech and language skills, if your daughter currently has a
vocabulary of at least 50 words and will imitate new words and seems to
be picking up new words weekly and if she is putting 2-3 words together,
then she is within normal limits. It sounds like you are more concerned
about the clarity of her speech. We do not become concerned about
clarity of speech (articulation) until a child reaches age 3. If after
age 3 your child is not intelligible at least 75% of the time by people
other than her immediate family you may want to have her evaluated. Many
children work on pronouncing specific sounds of speech until around age
8, so some sounds we would not expect a 2-3 year old to pronounce
clearly. However, if you are still concerned about clarity/articulation
after age 3, a Speech Language Pathologist will be able to let you know
if your daughter is eligible for speech therapy services.
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Questions & Answers - Behavior Concerns
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