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Little Mr. Bossy
Tips for Taming the Demanding Toddler
By Jacqueline Bodnar
Many parents enjoy reading to their toddlers, especially when it's the child's idea. What they don't love is when a toddler approaches them, throws the book at them, and yells "Read it," in a forceful and bossy manner. Yet many parents encounter this type of scenario on a daily basis, whether the children are telling their parent to read to them, to get them some milk or to obey other simple commands to appease their wants.
For Denease Hager of Las Vegas, Nev., bossy requests are pretty much a daily occurrence in her home. "In the last couple of months, my daughter has come to treat us like she's a drill sergeant barking out commands," she says of her 3-year-old. "It's very unsettling when she acts like this. What makes it harder is that, while we know how to counter the behavior, her little brother doesn't, and ends up getting the worst end of it."
Like Hager, many parents wonder how they went from waiting eagerly for their child's first words to being bossed around by the very child they taught to speak. It leads one to wonder how children get bossy in the first place. Could it be that they are mimicking the way they believe they are being treated? After all, parents frequently tell toddlers what to do. They may think that's the way the world goes: When you want something, you order someone to do it. Clearly, toddlers need to be taught otherwise.
More likely than not, they are just focused on what they want, and haven't yet developed the communication and reasoning skills to more politely present the proposition to those around them. Each time a child is bossy is an opportunity to teach him the correct way to ask for something he would like.
