Nursery World - Positive Relationships: Behaviour

In the first of a series of articles looking at different aspects
of two-year-olds' development and the behaviours that arise from it,
Julia Manning-Morton explains why characteristics often considered
'challenging' in this age group are a vital part of individual
growth.

Two-year-olds are often labelled as 'terrible twos' who need 'taming'. They are stereotyped as egocentric people who flit from one thing to another wreaking havoc in their wake, are arbitrarily defiant and bite and have tantrums. So, their behaviour is often termed 'challenging', and parents and practitioners alike veer between digging in their heels in a determined effort to be in control or throwing in the towel and giving up.

These views and approaches are unhelpful to positive practice: labelling the ways in which two-year-olds behave as 'challenging' suggests that these behaviours are somehow a deliberate attempt by the child to be difficult or that they are abnormal in some way.

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