An Update For You And Your Toddler

At this stage, your toddler is about 30 months old and probably asserting herself more and more everyday.  Why not take some time to discuss what you can expect at this stage of development for your toddler?

• Your child will be demonstrating her ever-growing abilities as a fully cognisant independent being. The main things you will notice this year is the growth of self knowledge and identity.
• Physical changes are also manifesting as well as intellectual developments. However emotional and social development is key at this age. She will question everything, all the time. You would hear her ask, why, why, why?? Answer her as honestly as you can and if you don’t know the answer, say so and tell her you can find out together. Promote that curiosity about the world and equip her with the tools for discovering answers.
• Physically your little one is quite a bit bigger than she used to be.  She will probably be very interested in photos and videos of herself when she was a baby. She is starting to understand all the different parts of her body, and how she has changed. This is a fascinating subject for her and can teach her much a lot on continuity and change.  She will probably like to see pictures of you and other family members when you were babies but she won’t really believe it’s you!
• At this age you may notice that she has developed a preference for either right or left hand when using pencils, crayons, cutlery and so on.  Also she is possibly starting to use less of a palmer grasp (where the object is gripped with the palm) and more of a pincer grasp – between finger and thumb. Help her practice these fine motor skills by giving her activities that require placing of small objects – such as threading etc.
• Role play becomes more critical to her as she can use those developing language skills to enhance her play. If you give her what we call ‘small world’ figures – basically realistic figures of people and animals then you will find that she develops intricate play scenarios around them. If you don’t have them then she can use her other toys to stimulate her imagination. As always try and give her open-ended materials to play with and allow her the time and space to explore her imaginative worlds as well as the real one