Child Proof
The Scientific Cause of Sudden Toddler Meltdowns
Most parents think kids can control their emotions long before their brains are equipped to do so
Toddler feelings come at you fast. One minute you and your child are having a joyful tickle-fest on the sofa; the next they’re lying on the floor and crying because you suggested wiping snot off their face.
As much as it may feel like your toddler is the world’s least rational human, there are scientific reasons for this unpredictability. Understanding what’s going on in your kid’s head can help you teach them to handle their feelings—or, at the very least, keep you from ending up crying on the floor yourself.
Around age two, kids’ personalities are blossoming, says Rebecca Parlakian, parenting expert for the nonprofit Zero to Three. Two-year-olds are funny and charming and may express themselves well verbally. The downside of this is that they kind of fool us into thinking they’re more mature than they really are, Parlakian says.
That’s because the toddler brain is changing in major ways during early childhood, says Mary Margaret Gleason, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist at Tulane University. It’s sprouting new connections between brain cells at an astonishing rate, and it is…
