"Toddler Testing"

Some days it seems my two-year-old is just out to get me mad. Emma bangs on the window with her toy hammer, throws the dirt from the potted plants, and unrolls toilet paper all over the house. When I ask her to stop, or tell her "No," she just smiles at me and does it more. It feels like she's doing it on purpose to bug me. When I finally blow up and get angry, she laughs. She seems to enjoy disobeying me! Why does Emma insist on driving me crazy?

-- frustrated mother in Tulsa

It's understandable that you would feel frustrated and upset by Emma's difficult behavior. Yet she is working on some important discoveries. Emma has already figured out that there's this category of things that you don't want her to do, and she's now purposefully doing them to test you. She's doing this for several reasons. One is that she's making sure that what she discovered yesterday is still true today: "Mom stopped me from banging the window yesterday. I wonder if she will do the same thing today?"
    While this kind of testing can drive us crazy, it is actually good, solid research on Emma's part. Through her testing, she will eventually find out that she can't bang on the window with the plastic hammer, the baseball bat or one of her rocks, but that she can knock on the window gently with her hand to get the bird's attention on the other side, or that she can spray it with window cleaner and rub it with a soft cloth.
    Emma may also be testing out all the different ways she can get your attention, and trying to see if you will reliably keep her safe from dangerous activities day after day. While it seems confusing that she delights in your response even when you are stern or mad at her, it is very exciting for a two-year-old to be able to "make something happen" predictably.
    Emma is also just beginning to understand anger as an emotion. When anger first happened to her, it caught her off-guard. She didn't know what it was or why it was happening to her. Now she is beginning to comprehend that anger happens to adults, too, and that certain things can make it happen again and again. She may be trying to find out what it takes to get you mad, what anger looks like, and what makes anger come and go. The next time she unrolls toilet paper all over the house, it is an opportunity for you to teach her about the nature of anger and also to show her appropriate ways to express feelings.
    It sounds like one of the most frustrating things for you is that Emma persists even when she clearly understands that you don't want her to do something. If she's banging on the window and you haven't yet noticed, you may have even seen her "call" your attention to what she's doing. Even though she "knows" that she isn't supposed to bang, she will still do it, because she believes that it is your job to stop her and her job to bang.
    Given what your daughter is trying to understand through her testing, you might want to think about a way to respond that will do two things: help her figure out her world and keep her (and your window) safe.
    Here are some possible responses:
. Use words and follow-through. Your words can give her information about safety and how windows work. This lets her know that you want her to have information so she can make wise decisions on her own some day. But, she may not yet be able to make those wise decisions, so she needs you to gently stop her or take the hammer away.
. Help her find something she can do. Often toddlers get "stuck" in an activity and are unable to figure out something else to do. If you can suggest other safe things to bang on with her hammer, you let her know you appreciated her idea about using her hammer, but it just needed some refinement.
. Express your feelings, honestly and safely. If you begin to feel mad the tenth time she returns to the window, it is important to communicate your feelings to her. Children are experts at reading feelings, so it's useful to give her a name for what she's already perceiving. Communicating honestly gives her useful information about the nature of anger. Yet it's also important to avoid blaming or scaring children. Saying, "I feel really frustrated when I tell you over and over to stop banging on the window," is a lot clearer and less judgmental than, "You never listen. You're driving me crazy!" The tricky part is that most of us are still learning appropriate ways to express our anger, so we may not get it "right" the first time. But, as we try to learn more effective ways to express our anger, we demonstrate to our children that adults can grow, too.