A three-year-old is a real puzzle to parents, sometimes anxious to please and befriend, sometimes strong-willed and difficult to get along with. At the heart of the three-year-old’s personality is often an emotional insecurity—and this causes a host of problems for parents! Drs. Ames and Ilg, recognized authorities on child behavior and development, help parents understand what’s going on inside that three-year-old head, what problems children have, and how to cope with the toddler who is sometimes friend, sometimes enemy.
 
Included in this book:
• Jealousy of a new sibling
• Toilet training
• How to improve a child’s eating habits
• Friendships with peers
• Common fears
• Developing language skills
• Nursery school
• Books for parents and three-year-olds
 
“Louise Bates Ames and her colleagues synthesize a lifetime of observation of children, consultation, and discussion with parents. These books will help parents to better understand their children and will guide them through the fascinating and sometimes trying experiences of modern parenthood.”—Donald J. Cohen, M.D., Director, Yale Child Study Center, Irving B. Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology, Yale School of Medicine

Excerpt

chapter one
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE
 
Just as the tides have their rhythms, so does human behavior have its own predictable rhythms. As the child grows older, “good” ages alternate with “bad”; times of equilibrium alternate with times of disequilibrium; and periods when behavior tends to be expansive and outgoing alternate with periods when everything seems to be pulled in.
 
It should come as no surprise, then, to the mother or father of a rambunctious Two-and-a-half-year-old, that sometime around the age of Three their son or daughter does seem to calm down conspicuously. He says “yes” instead of “no”; “will” instead of “won’t.” He smiles instead of frowns, laughs instead of cries, gives in comfortably to your requests instead of resisting them.
 
Around thirty-three months of age, many children go through a stage of reliving their babyhood, of thinking about themselves in terms of their own past. The child may pretend that he is a baby, even going back to the use of baby talk, though some are loath to give up their glorious acquisition of speech. So, a child may say, “I’m a little baby. I can’t walk, I have no teeth, I drink from a bottle. But I can talk.”
 
However, by Three, most have caught up with themselves chronologically and are now in a state of equilibrium and of no longer looking back. In fact, by Three, many children seem to be developing a rather good self-concept, seem to have a solid set of feelings about themselves. There is little question that this sense of self is influenced by the way others treat them.
 
At thirty months the opposition of “I” and “you” was so strong that there seemed to be a chasm between them, with the opposition of “Me do it myself when he really could not, and “You do it” when he actually could do a thing himself. But at Three years of age the chasm seems to be bridged by that delightfully cooperative word “we.”
 
In fact, Three is a highly “we” age. The child likes to say “let’s,” as “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?” The sense of togetherness or “we-ness” seems to make him depend on the adult and makes him lean on him or her, though he also enjoys the sense of sharing. The very child who has been so independent earlier may now ask his mother: “Help me,” “Show me.”
 
But even though the increased maturity of Three allows him sometimes to share or even lean instead of resisting, as earlier, Three is also aware of and proud of his increasing maturity and increasing ability. He frequently asks, after some particular display of prowess, “Could a baby do this?”
 
Dr. Arnold Gesell has described Three as a “coming of age, a time at which the many strands of previous development converge, and a new self comes into focus.” The conflicting extremes of six months ago give way to a high degree of smoothness, integration, and self-control. Emotions are well in hand.
 
Three seems, for all his relative immaturity, to be rather highly aware of what other people like and do not like. In fact, many seem quite able to tell whether another person is happy or sad, pleased or angry, by watching that person’s face.
 
At any rate, the typical Three-year-old wants to please. He wants to do things “right.” “Do it dis way?” he may ask hopefully. He is highly susceptible to praise and favourable comment and also highly responsive to friendly humor.
 
The increased smoothness seen in the typical child of Three has a strongly motor basis. His body is now delightfully at his command. It does not surprise him with inadequacy as it has done in the past and will do again in another six months or so, when motor insecurity seems to lie at the basis of much of the marked emotional insecurity the Three-and-a-half-year-old exhibits.
 
Three is sure and nimble on his feet. He walks well, and he runs easily. He can turn sharp corners without elaborate preparation and precaution. His motor sureness is evident even as he walks. He no longer stretches his arms out for balance but instead walks securely and swings his arms with ease.
 
Three now enjoys other children, but most of all he enjoys his mother. He loves to do things with her—go for a walk, go to the store, “help” with housework, and, above all, play. He is happiest when his mother finds it possible to give up other activities and concentrate on him. Almost anything the two of you do together brings him joy. It is bliss to have Mother read to him, play games with him, talk to him, just be near him.
 
Emotionally, it is fair to assume, the typical Three-year-old is a rather happy person—calm, collected, secure and capable, friendly and giving. He conforms easily, and thus, liking to please, he pleases.
 
Not only is he secure physically and happy socially and calm emotionally, but language now means a great deal to him. He loves new words—new words, big words, different words. He loves such words as “surprise,” “new,” “different,” “secret.” Even when a situation may seem to be beginning to deteriorate, it is often quite possible to pull things together by the use of just the right word. And if the word is “surprise,” and if it is accompanied by an actual physical surprise (no more than a cracker or cookie will usually do), the young child’s delight is truly rewarding to the provider of this delicious occasion.
 
And then, just as you are really beginning to enjoy this tractable little creature, growth forces push your child’s behavior a little farther along in their ever-evolving cycle, and he hits Three-and-a-half, a wild and wonderful age with characteristics all its own. As at other times in life, an age of disequilibrium follows an age of equilibrium.
 
Three is a conforming age. Three-and-a-half is just the opposite. Refusing to obey is perhaps the key aspect of this turbulent, troubled period in the life of the young child. It sometimes seems to his mother that his main concern is to strengthen his will, and he strengthens this will by going against whatever is demanded of him by that still most important person in his life, his mother.
 
Many a mother discovers that even the simplest event or occasion can elicit total rebellion. Dressing, eating, going to the bathroom, getting up, going to bed—whatever the routine, it can be the scene and setting for an all-out, no-holds-barred fight. Techniques and tricks formerly useful can no longer be guaranteed to work. The mother’s equally resistant response may be tempered by knowing that soon, when he is Four, her child will have developed a self-concept strong enough so that he can sometimes conform, and also that he will sometimes enjoy going out-of-bounds and saying and doing things he knows full well will not be permitted. But even when out-of-bounds at Four, he will usually be much less difficult to manage than now, at Three-and-a-half.
 
You may not need much help and advice when your child is Three. When he is Three-and-a-half you may need all the help you can get, and then some! Since forewarned is forearmed, we shall tell you here about some of the things you may expect to experience when your child reaches the admittedly somewhat difficult age of forty-two months.
 
We may fairly, and in all friendliness, describe the Three-and-a-half-year-old boy or girl as being characteristically inwardized, insecure, anxious, and, above all, determined and self-willed. One might assume that his strong-willed self-assertiveness, which is so conspicuously evident, might be rooted in a strong personal security. Not so! In fact, the very opposite seems to be the case.
 
The Three-and-a-half-year-old child seems emotionally very insecure from the word go. This insecurity is even shown in physical ways. He stutters. He stumbles. He trembles. A child who six months earlier may have walked a proud one-foot-to-a-step up the stairs may now go back to a more babyish two-feet-to-a-step. Quite steady at Three, he may now express fear of falling. Steady-handed at Three as he built a sturdy tower of blocks, his hands may now tremble as he adds blocks to his tower. Handedness may even shift at this age, and it may seem as if the child actually does not know which hand to use.
 
Stuttering, which in many comes in at this age (though a very early talker may already have stuttered as early as Two-and-a-half, that earlier age of disequilibrium), causes many parents undue anxiety. We ourselves tend to label stuttering at this age as mere “preschool non-fluency” and unless it prolongs itself for several months, let it go at that.
 
Actually, tensional outlets of all sorts are conspicuous at this age. The child may suck his thumb, bite his nails, pick his nose, rub his genitals, chew on his clothes. And he may well hang onto his security blanket as onto life itself.
 
Vision, too, may pose special problems. Not only does the child fear heights, but he often complains that he cannot see when he is being read to in a group. He wants to be right on top of the book and often holds his picture book very close if he is looking at it by himself. He does best being read to alone, preferably sitting on the reader’s lap so that he can adjust the book and see it at his preferred visual distance.
 
Emotional insecurity as well as physical insecurity is commonly expressed at this often difficult age. Sometimes it almost seems that nothing pleases. Three-and-a-half attempts to control his environment in ways that will, perhaps, make him feel more secure, more sure of himself. “Don’t look,” “Don’t laugh,” “Don’t talk,” he commands those around him. But, in his immaturity, he is often inconsistent. “Don’t look,” he may order at one minute, and at the next may become very angry if not given full attention. He may then insist that all attention be focused on himself and may feel left out if it is not. He may refuse to let Father read his paper, or Mother chat on the phone, or any two adults talk to each other.
 

About the Author

Louise Bates Ames is a lecturer at the Yale Child Study Center and assistant professor emeritus at Yale University. She is co-founder of the Gesell Institute of Child Development and collaborator or co-author of three dozen or so books, including The First Five Years of Life, Infant and Child in the Culture of Today, Child Rorschach Responses, and the series Your One-Year-Old through Your Ten- to Fourteen-Year-Old. She has one child, three grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
 
Frances L. Ilg wrote numerous books, including The Child from Five to Ten, Youth: The Years from Ten to Sixteen, and Child Behavior, before her death in 1981. She was also a co-founder of the Gesell Institute of Child Development at Yale.