Part OneTantrums, Picky Eaters, and What’s NormalParenting, Development, and MoreHow do you plant the seeds of parenting a toddler? This part of the book begins by exploring the nuts and bolts of toddler parenting, including picking your battles, surviving the public tantrum, and more. Next, I’ll cover how you can stimulate your child’s development with play, along with a lowdown on enrichment programs, preschool, and other activities. Finally, it’s on to milestones. Learn how a toddler grows—physically, socially, and emotionally—and which behaviors are normal and which should concern you. We’ll discuss how to spot autism, plus explore the other challenges parents might face with their toddlers, including sensory processing disorder and more.
Chapter 1Parenting“You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.” —Franklin P. Jones
What’s in This Chapter• Parenting styles
• The nuts and bolts of parenting
• When the Terrible Twos really start
• Is it okay to spank?
• The Twenty Commandments of Parenting
• Time out—or time in?
• Ending whining as we know it
• Thirty-five classic parenting challenges (and solutions)
Have you hit the PIZ? You know, the Parent Insanity Zone—that exact moment when you question why you had a child in the first place. Yes, every parent has multiple PIZs . . . as a parent myself, I feel your pain. Really!
While parenting is the most admirable job in the world, living with a toddler sometimes makes a parent consider selling their child on eBay . . . or paying big money to hire a full-time, live-in babysitter.
No matter how many parenting books you read, the actual parenting of a toddler is more like a prizefight than a classical ballet. In this corner, we have your toddler, weighing in at twenty-seven pounds. Don’t let their size fool you, they’ll go ten rounds with an adult nine times their size and get a TKO. In the other corner, we have . . . you, the parent.
In Vegas, I’d be betting on your toddler with two-to-one odds. It’s not that I don’t have faith in you, it’s just that I know how resilient toddlers can be—by sheer determination, they figure out how to wear their parents into submission. Don’t be embarrassed; we have all been there.
Here’s an important point: Kids are not born with social skills. It is the nature of animals (and that includes us humans) to be born with a “survival of the fittest” mentality. It’s what helped us survive as cave dwellers before we owned SUVs and had a Home Depot and McDonald’s on every corner. It’s our job as parents to teach our children social skills, responsibility, emotional regulation, and self-control, while preserving self-esteem.
The goal of this chapter is to teach you how to manage your toddler and preschooler so they learn how to act appropriately, safely, and confidently . . . both when you are around and when you aren’t. Your job is to implant a “good citizen” memory chip in your child’s brain that will remind your child how they are supposed to act.
Here is the take-home message: The seeds you plant now will blossom later, and you will be thankful for the fruits of your labor. I also think you will enjoy your child more if you don’t feel that you spend 90 percent of your day yelling or saying no.
So, let’s get started by having a big-picture discussion about parenting styles . . . are you running a dictatorship or democracy in your house? Your style impacts your toddler’s behavior, so we’ll go over how this fits in the puzzle.
Next, it’s the nuts and bolts of parenting. Join us as we reveal the Twenty Commandments for Parenting. Finally, we’ll give you specific tips (look for “Teaching Moment”) on how to deal with common toddler challenges, like the biter, the nudist, and the public tantrum in the cereal aisle of the grocery store.
Note: All of these wonderful behaviors—and opportunities for teaching moments—may appear at any moment from ages one to four. So don’t be alarmed if you witness your child’s first tantrum at thirteen months of age. And don’t believe your two-year-old is immune to tantrums because they haven’t had any (yet). You will be referring back to this chapter often over the next three years.
Parenting: The Big PictureFull disclosure: The original title of this chapter was “Discipline.” The word comes from the Latin word “disciplina,” which means “to teach.” Discipline is teaching your child to learn self-control, and with that come confidence and self-esteem. While this is your exact goal as a parent, that word has been removed from the modern parenthood dictionary. While there are various forms of discipline, the word became synonymous with children being punished or physically hurt for misbehavior.
While our understanding of what discipline means has changed, our goal as parents is still the same: to teach and guide our child. The parenting tips I provide in this chapter are meant to help you do this. Your role as a parent is to give your child tools to manage conflict, problem-solving, and their emotions when things don’t go their way. You are creating a world where they feel safe to have all feelings and feel safe to express them. In the end, helping your child process and regulate their emotions is one of the most critical life skills you can teach them as a parent. You are also building a foundation for making good choices and taking personal responsibility for one’s actions. Children are capable of learning that there are natural consequences for their behavior. Their behavior impacts them and others. You can teach your child all these things in a positive way. And you can call it whatever you like!
Now, I’m not just talking about teaching your toddler to be nice to the dog, but much more. You’ll learn how to teach them they are capable of falling asleep on their own; they can’t eat chicken nuggets for every meal; and so on. It’s important to be consistent and follow through with your plan in all of these situations. Setting clear boundaries on behaviors now turns out to be pretty important later in life. Your toddler’s offenses right now may seem minor. But the lack of limits may come back to haunt you—as your child gets older, the stakes will be higher. When your child demands candy in the grocery store checkout line, are you going to give in just to keep the peace? And when your teen asks for the car keys to go to a party where the kids are drinking underage, are you going to hand them over? These are two sides of the same parenting coin. You will see more specific tips that really fall under the category of parenting throughout other chapters in the book. But the message remains the same: Have a plan and stick to it.
Being a parent is often a thankless job. You will not always be your child’s friend or buddy. There will be whining, screaming, and full-blown tantrums. And yes, at some point in your child’s life, they may slam their bedroom door and say the dreaded words, “I hate you.” That’s because you are doing something to protect them by setting a limit they dislike. That’s okay. Your child will always love you, no matter what. You are guiding them to become the best person they can be.
Q. I hate to admit it, but my toddler is driving me nuts! Why do I feel this way?Welcome to the club. This phase in your child’s life can be very challenging. Their job is to try to be independent. Your job is to create safe boundaries for their behaviors. As you might guess, those two occupations are in direct conflict.
But there is good news: After the toddler phase, you enter the blissful “I Want to Please You” zone. This happens around four or five years of age—go ahead and put that in your calendar to look forward to! From there, you get about six years of good behavior before the teen years start . . . and then the water gets choppy once again. The good news: The toddler years are the most challenging. If you survive parenthood over the next few years, you can handle anything (including teenagers)!
But back to the present tense and those toddler years. If you are spending more time being annoyed with your child than being happy with them, it’s time to take a step back and look at the situation. Think about what is working and what is not. Actively try to modify your approach. Your default mode for parenting may not work for the way your child is wired. And if you have more than one child, you will need to personalize your approach for each of your kids. Consider getting professional help if you need some parenting coaching. Above all, live in the now and celebrate the great things that your little one can do! It’s easy to get caught up in the chaos.
Q. When should we start to actively “parent” our child?Now.
Copyright © 2026 by Ari Brown, MD. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
