How to win friends and influence people

Facilitating toddler interactions can be quite challenging.  If one child has a toy and there is another child in the room, they will often want the same toy even though there are dozens of others to choose from.  The "toyless" child might then grab the toy from the first child, resulting in crying and looks to a nearby adult to correct the injustice.  When Tani was 1.5 years old, if he took a toy from a child, rationally explaining how it wasn't nice and to give it back often didn't work.  Now he understands a lot better and I think knows he shouldn't do it.  We were at a birthday party last Sunday and two girls were playing with a small toy kitchen.  Tani, who is 30% bigger than the next largest child even though they're the same age, swooped in and brushed the two girls away and started playing with the kitchen.  "Tani, that's not nice.  They were there first, let them play with it".  He reluctantly moved out of the way and a microsecond later was on to something else.

In Tani's daycare, if a child bites another child the teachers write up the incident and send home a sheet to both the vicitim and perpetrator's parents but won't identify the children involved.  That way the parents know their child bit someone or got bit but don't know who the other party was.  When Tani turned two, he bit one of his classmates.  By then he was talking so I asked him who he bit.  "Devora" he said matter-of-factly.  "She cried".  (Note names in this posting other than Tani's have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty).  Melissa asked his teacher the next day about the incident.  She smiled and wouldn't confirm who but said the girl was running around the previous afternoon proudly telling everyone "Tani bit me!".   A couple of weeks ago Tani got bit for the first time - or at least it was the first time we got a white form explaining Tani was bit.  These forms also state when it happened, what was going on at the time, and what was done about it.  For example, "at 10 AM Tani bit a child who was trying to play on the same toy.  We explained to Tani 'it's not OK to bite your friends'".  So I asked Tani who bit him.  "Orli" he said again matter-of-factly.  "I cried."  I recalled that about a month ago during bedtime Tani was telling me that Orli had been misbehaving and the teachers had to tell her not to hit her friends.  He said, "Orli hit Shoshana.  Shoshana cried."

Believe it or not after reading all of the above, the kids have great affection for each other.  When I drop Tani off at daycare, often the kids who are there will happily shout "Tani!" or "Nani!" if they can't quite pronounce his name yet.  Luckily toddlers forgive and forget quite quickly and if they remember a bite or hit it seems to be remembered either fondly or as a noteworthy event, not something to be resented.