Lindsay Writes

Going boneless.

Two words that strike fear and exhaustion into the heart of any young parent. It’s that season of childrearing in which your adorable toddler is able to walk, run, express delight, throw tantrums, and of course, go boneless in protest.

In their advantage, at this age, kids often weigh more than 25 pounds, 98% of which parents can agree is pure muscle. Or non-Newtonian fluid. This makes holding the hand or carrying someone who does not want to be held impressively challenging.

Dare I say, impossible?

So, what’s a mom to do?

Aside from clothing your kiddo in frictionless items so they can just be gently dragged along every time they go boneless.

Just kidding.

I discovered a powerful tool when our oldest, Eadie, was a little over a year old and began to go through this phase.

Enter narration.

What is narration?

Narration is the technique of talking your toddler through every part of what they’re going to experience for the next several minutes. It casts of a vision of how they’ll behave, what your expectations are, and what they can look forward to.

Consider yourself as now the voiceover narrator of the riveting documentary called “Your Day with a Toddler“.

Even as adults, we’ve learned that what we fixate our thoughts on is powerful, and that it’s easy to 1) focus entirely on ourselves and 2) dig deep grooves into unhealthy thought patterns.

The same is true for toddlers.

But, what if there were a voice in your head that was wise, kind, optimistic, funny, and purposeful?

Enter narration.

As a parent, it is powerful to be that voice in your toddler’s world.

What does narration look like?

Let me explain with a scenario that I went through with my strong-willed oldest daughter when she was about 20 months old.

One morning, we visited the mall play area with some friends. Not only was it exciting to be somewhere new, but it was a high stimulus environment with lots colors, lights, people, and echoing noise. I knew getting her out of the mall and back home for lunch without a tantrum was going to be a challenge.

Enter Lindsay: Toddler Narrator.

Before we ever went into the mall, I began to narrate what would happen.

Today, we’re going to go to the mall. It’s going to be so fun. First, Mommy’s going to unbuckle your seat belt, then we’re going to hold hands and walk quiet down the hall like little mice. Then we’ll play and go down the slide!

When Mommy says it’s time to go, we’re going to find our shoes, and you’re going to run right over to me and we’re going to put on one shoe, and then the other shoe, and then we’re going to hold hands and tiptoe like little mice back to the car.

Then I’m going to buckle your seatbelt and we’re going to pick out our favorite music to listen to. Do you want to listen to VeggieTales today? And then we’re going to drive home and do you know who we’ll get to see there? We’ll get to see Daddy! I think we’ll have macaroni and cheese and applesauce for lunch. I hope then we can read a book together.

On and on it would go, outlining and explaining our day. Painting a picture of our adventure, my expectations for her actions, and the good things we had to look forward to. My words were detailed, helping her mind understand each small step of our routine. I’d offer her choices that were within her power, such as what song we should listen to in the car, or whether we should have applesauce or grapes with our lunch.

But the overall message made it clear that I was the leader of this outing.

Over and over again, I’d gently repeat my expectations and what we were doing, as we walked through the morning.

And amazingly, it worked.

What about those times when you feel a tantrum brewing in your toddler?

Often, what worked best in these scenarios was not meeting this tantrum with head-on intensity, but responding with upbeat verbal direction and distraction, while still gently directing her to follow directions.

Arching her back when trying to be put in her carseat?

While I’d gently, but firmly continue buckling her up I’d say, “Let’s see if we can hear the seatbelt click! Oh, we’ve got one more click to go. Do you think Daddy is on his way home for lunch now? I’m excited to have mac and cheese. You did a great job getting buckled! I’m going to go around to my seat and turn the car on now. You’re going to hear it go vroom vroom! Oh look, did you see that red car? Wow!”

Then, mercifully, you can turn some music on and take a break from narrating.

When my kids were this age did I narrate like that absolutely all day?

No. While it was a season that required lots of words from me (which is so good for your child’s language development), I saved that intense narration for activity transitions or unfamiliar situations.

In retrospect, it’s a short season in which you have to narrate your day so exhaustively for your toddler. But, I’ve found narration was an immensely helpful tool to help navigate new situations, smooth over transitions, avoid tantrums and, of course, prevent the dreaded act of going boneless.

Give narration a try with your toddler, and let me know how it goes. Have more questions about what I’d say in a specific scenario? Leave me a comment below.