Avoiding the ‘terrible twos’ during lockdown

This is good news for the majority of parents who face being at home in lockdown with their toddlers for an indefinite period of time.

Speaking about her recent study, which looked at how parenting style makes a difference to children’s behaviour in the early stages of life, professor Claire Hughes, deputy director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, said, ‘If you’re blessed with a happy baby, then you can get them through the “terrible twos” without things getting too bad or lasting too long, by being flexible about the way you play with your child between the ages of 14 and 24 months.’

However, she warned that those born with a ‘more irritable temperaments’ are still more likely to be ‘difficult’ toddlers.

‘Parents who don’t remember their baby having an easy temperament should let go of the idea of achieving specific goals during play and allow their children to develop at their own pace, particularly during lockdown’ she said.

More than 400 first-time parents from England, New York State and the Netherlands took part in the study and were filmed carrying out a range of specific tasks with their babies at four months, 14 months and 24 months old. This particular strand of the report focused on mothers interacting with their children using a puzzle; a picture book and a bag of toys.

'Autonomy support'

Researchers found a link between the flexible method of parenting, known as ‘autonomy support’ in 14-month-old children, and reduced behavioural problems ten months later. But this link only applied to children who had been rated as ‘easy babies’, those in a generally happy mood, who adapted easily to new experiences and quickly established routines. Children who demonstrated high levels of self-control at 14 months were less likely than their peers to have behaviour problems at 24 months.

Professor Hughes said, ‘Autonomy support is about being very finely tuned to the child – so you are challenging them but not at the cost of their autonomy. So if the child is exploring and mastering a task well, you take away whatever scaffolding you might be giving them but if they are struggling you give them a bit more support. It’s a difficult balance to strike.’

During the research, simple tasks such as puzzles were used to test the level of autonomy support parents gave to their child. Each child was given farm animal pieces that fitted into cut-out shapes on a board. Some of the parents appeared quite anxious for their child to put the pieces in the right places and gave them a lot of help. Others spotted that the task was too difficult for their child, and let the game evolve by following the child’s lead.

‘We had some children who took two animal pieces from a wooden farm puzzle and started clapping them together, and making a game out of the fact that they made a clapping noise,’ Professor Hughes said.
She added, ‘Here, our hope was that parents might respond by encouraging the child to make animal noises that match the animals being clapped together.’

Another example involved the bag of toys, which the parents presented to the children but had to ensure that they didn’t touch them for two minutes. The aim of this task was to create a natural conflict situation between the parent and the child. Although many parents resorted to physically holding back their children, some came up with imaginative ways to distract them. One mum played a game of Incy Wincy Spider and the other laid out the toys around a rug and pretended that the rug was the boat and the animals were in the sea – and could not be touched until the animals were allowed to board the boat.

‘Rather than trying to make a child achieve a rigidly defined task, autonomy support is more of a playful interaction. It promotes the child’s problem solving and their ability to learn, by letting games or tasks evolve into experiences that engage them,’ said Professor Hughes.

Young children in lockdown - study

Trying to keep children motivated and engaged all day during lockdown can be a daunting task. Yet having more time to spend with young children can also be seen as a rare opportunity to explore new ways of engaging with them, the researchers said.

Cambridge’s Centre for Family Research is launching a new online study of parents with one or more child between the ages of four and seven, to explore how the coronavirus is affecting family relationships and home learning. This will help provide the evidence base to guide effective educational and health policies. Find out more at: https://www.cfr.cam.ac.uk/groups/esd/family-impact-covid-19

More information

The study, Understanding the Terrible Twos: A longitudinal investigation of the impact of early executive function and parent-child interactions, Hughes, C., Devine, R.T., Mesman, J., & Blair, C. published in the journal Developmental Science April 2020. DOI: 10.1111/desc.12979

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.12979