The Joy of a Self-Entertained Toddler (Yes, It's Possible!)

0:00When you want your spring break to feel like... And your kid's pool day to feel like... And your hotel bed to feel like... Ooh, and room service to feel like... Because at Hilton, hospitality feels like... Your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels? It matters where you stay. Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton. For this day. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin. Way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with Kayak and get your trip right.

0:53Kayak. Got that right.

1:00Hi, this is Janet Lansbury.

1:02Janet Lansbury:Welcome to Unruffled. Often when I share success stories, which I think are very informative and a lot of parents tell me they are, there are always other parents who will write to me and say, well, this just makes me feel worse because I wasn't able to do that. I'm not having this success right now. I'm having a hard time. And there's sometimes this thought also that, oh, well, that's that parent or that child that they have that's able to do that. But I couldn't possibly do that. And what I've found, what I've noticed when I've been able to dig deeper with parents is that it's really all about us understanding the process and the perceptions we need to understand how to get there.

1:50Janet Lansbury:And of course, incredible patience with ourselves because some aspects of parenting are going to be easier for us than others. We all have our challenges and our journey. In this case, the issue on the surface is independent play. But success is also about so many other things. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to share it with you today. It's about a child who this wasn't going smoothly with at first, who was at an age where he was just getting into that separation anxiety stage. And then the parent and I had a couple of back and forths about this, how she could proceed. But this goes so far beyond play, really, all the successes that she was able to have around this.

2:37She was able to set boundaries. She was able to see how to care for herself in this relationship with her child. And it's so important that we do that, that we're not just giving up everything to make our child happy, to do what we think will please our child. And the big piece in that, of course, is what we always talk about in this podcast, it seems eventually or somehow. And that is finding that place of comfort in ourselves, where we can co-regulate with our child, where we can allow them to have their feelings without us taking them on or wanting to avoid them, make them stop, make them change, that we can actually be present when we are in conflict with our child, in a sense, when our child is having feelings about the choices that we're making or our boundaries or just what's going on with them, their own frustrations as they're building their skills.

3:38So while this success story is about play, again, on the surface, it's about all of these other things that are struggles for all of us. So first, I'll read the note that I just received from this parent that gave me the idea for the topic of this podcast episode. Hi, Janet, I emailed you about two and a half years ago for guidance about leaving my then eight-month-old, alone in his yes space for short amounts of time despite his intense feelings about it? And you answered in a very helpful episode. I wanted to follow up and just thank you. I followed your advice, and my now three-year-old adores his independent playtime.

4:21As a result, he has a rich inner life and high confidence in his own ideas and problem-solving abilities. I am a stay-at-home mom, and I get to shower and get ready and even take my time having a cup of coffee and responding to texts and such for 45-plus minutes every morning while I hear him joyfully, quote, reading with his stuffed animals, singing, building with magformers.

4:47Janet Lansbury:I don't know what that is, but building with magformers or turning his play couch, blankets, and wobble board into structures, vehicles, and all sorts of creative play scenarios. He naps about three days a week now, and the transition to an hour of quiet time on days he doesn't nap was easy and smooth. I've also had a tutoring student come to my home once a week for an hour since he was two and a half. He plays happily in another yes space nearby while I work, and I am guilt and worry-free. He truly enjoys immersing himself in uninterrupted play for that hour. One of our favorite ways to connect is reading and discussing books together, and I always observe him taking phrases and ideas from our reading and playing around with them when he's alone.

5:36It's a time for him to metabolize language and concepts. I deeply appreciate your work and the confidence it gave me as a new parent to step back, literally, and give my son the space to blossom. Wow.

5:49Janet Lansbury:So yes, this is quite a big success this parent is having. I'm thrilled for her. And again, it might seem as if, oh, this was all so easy, but I'm going to be sharing today her whole process and the back and forth that we had and how this wasn't easy at all. But I do believe that this is a possible adjustment for any family, even if you start with a child who's older. What makes it harder when children are older is they get a little more set in their ways. Our dynamic gets a little more set, but we can always change it. Children are very adaptable. That's what they're all about. If we're willing to brave the process, as this parent did with their eight-month-old, then we will get the results.

6:36So I just want every parent to know these things are possible if you want them. I really appreciate the examples that this parent gave, because the wonderful thing about this age, it doesn't always stay this way, unfortunately, is that children, you'll hear them talking out loud, and you'll hear them sharing their thoughts in their play. And it's just one of my favorite things to be able to hear my child in the next room or in the room with me while I'm doing my thing. and they're having that dialogue with themselves about what's going on or talking to their toys. It's just this precious thing that does go away, unfortunately.

7:13But what it gives us also, besides a lot of joy and fun in hearing that, is this realization of how important play is to our children. That he can take these concepts and these words that he's hearing in books and these situations and he can process them, put them through his system of understanding and therefore internalize them in a deep way. That's what learning is. That's what we want our children to be able to do. And they are doing this all the time. But to be able to hear them kind of articulating that to us and sort of proving that to us is a gift, right? And this also reminded me of a note I recently received from a dad who was sharing a thank you with me.

8:01And one of the things he said was that the ideas I've shared have helped him to think in terms of noticing rather than managing his child's learning. And what a gift that is, right? To be able to not worry about that we're supposed to manage and make this learning happen, but that we can notice it and take interest in it and enjoy it and feel proud of our child for what they're doing or just understand them better, appreciate them more. So the podcast episodes that this parent was referring to in regard to independent play is called Struggles with Independent Play. It's on my website. There's a transcript on my website too.

8:45Some of the more recent podcasts I've done, I haven't had a chance to put the transcripts up or the posts up yet because I've been so busy working on my book, which also gives a lot of information about play. But this post struggles with independent play. You can either listen to it or read the transcript, and you can hear all the details of the advice that I gave to this parent. And actually, there's another parent that I talk about too with a slightly different issue, but all on this topic. So I'm just going to kind of paraphrase it for you now a little bit, so you can get an idea of this parent's journey.

9:22First, her original question to me. I have a question regarding my eight-month-old's independent play when I'm in the same room, even if I'm just observing, folding laundry or reading a book. I have observed him creating a challenging task for himself and focusing on accomplishing it for upwards of 25 minutes, or standing at his window observing the nature in the front yard, or getting curious about tiny details in the room like the door hinge and returning to them repeatedly to investigate. Now, if I leave the room, he stands at the gate and screams and cries, even if he can see me and we are chatting.

9:56I acknowledge and accept his feelings when this happens. My question is, is he just not developmentally ready for me to leave him alone? And will he grow into this and one day be fine with it? Or should I work on doing some exposure therapy, so to speak, leaving the room for short periods of time, even if it is just to do laundry in the hallway where he can still see and hear me, knowing he will hate it and being ready to gently support him as he rages. I'm fine with holding that boundary and giving him practice dealing with those big feelings if it is a developmentally appropriate expectation that he be able to play alone in a gated room and a skill that he should learn.

10:35Thank you. So I wrote back to her, what a wonderful setup you have. Could I please ask you a couple of questions. Can you please describe in detail what this is looking and sounding like when you acknowledge and accept his feelings? That was number one. Number two, is the gate closed or open when you're inside the play area with him? I have some ideas for you and we'll look forward to sharing them. And she wrote, thank you so much for your response. While he is expressing his feelings, I calmly say things like, wow, it sounds like you're having some big feelings about me leaving the room. You really wish I could be available right now for you and I'm not.

11:11I know you really wish you could get to me and there's a gate up. That gate is to keep you safe. I hear you. You're feeling angry, upset, frustrated, sad about having to stay in your nursery. I have some other responsibilities right now, but I will be right back to check on you. Thank you for telling me how you're feeling, etc. All in an empathetic tone. I stay close enough to continue to talk with him, acknowledge him, and reassure him while I'm working on other things within earshot and usually within eyesight. Two, I've been intentionally closing the gate most times when I'm in the space with him to get him used to it.

11:44He either ignores it and plays in the room, or he treats it like a fun challenge, pulling up on it and trying to figure out how the latch works, trying to leverage his weight to move it, etc. He's not upset by it. The issue is when he's unable to get to me. I have the same issue if I put up a play yard fence as a barrier to something in the main part of the house. He's fine as long as we're both on the same side of the barrier. If I step over it and he can't follow, he gets mad. These reactions sound much more like anger and frustration than the terrified cries a couple of months ago. If he's going to outgrow this the same way he outgrew that, I won't make a concerted effort to get him to be okay with the situation and we'll just wait it out.

12:24However, since it's anger and not fear, I think I'm more okay with practicing if this is a skill he can learn and not develop mental.

12:31Janet Lansbury:Thank you so much. So as I say in the podcast episode that it was helpful to get all this information from this parent, she's very much on track, and that I just want to help her with a couple of thoughts. The first one is about the examples of things that she gave that she's saying to him when she's acknowledging and accepting his feelings. I don't believe that she's saying all of those sentences at once. But even just one of these sentences, it's a lot of verbiage for somebody that's eight months old, especially, and really for even a toddler or older child, because they're not going to keep up with that.

13:10It's almost like we're trying to convince our child that it's really okay, that we're giving them all these reasons why we need to do this and why this is happening. And while it may not feel like that in the moment, often we're doing that from a place of we're trying to reason with our child and talk them into something that they just maybe need to get the chance to be in conflict with us about and object to. So I suggested that she focus more simply on really acknowledging his side of this. And this is true, not just in this situation, but in any boundary that we're setting. Where we want to put our focus is not on, this is what I need to do and why I need to do this.

13:53It's great to say something simple about that maybe, but it's more the way our child is responding that we want to acknowledge. Where what we're acknowledging to him is, you've got a right to say no to this. And I want to hear that. And really wanting to hear that because that is part of how every boundary works with a child. by them having the right to disagree and us not being intimidated by that and not letting go of the boundary because of that. Knowing that that's a healthy dynamic for us, assuming we're not doing something unreasonable. So I recommend being much more in the moment and less explanatory.

14:34Here's the example I gave her, like, I'm going to go do this and be back in a few minutes. I can't wait to see you again then. That kind of thing. And then from there, mostly focusing on his reaction. Whoa, you're not liking this. I hear you. You're saying, no, you don't want me

14:50Janet Lansbury:to ever leave you, right? You want to be on the same side with me. And this may sound like we're encouraging him to feel a certain way, but this is only reflecting what our child is sharing with us. And while it feels scary to put it out there, that is the key to this and all boundaries. And as I said in this episode, these reactions he's having make sense. First, it sounds like he is a child with that stronger type of will. And these children, they do tell you everything that's on their mind. They don't just accept things easily, especially when it's a new situation or something where they're not as in control of us.

15:32At eight months, this child doesn't have the words yet to explain. So the way this starts with an infant, when children have this kind of personality, where they're very expressive that way, it can sound like they're deeply upset about everything when they're actually being emphatic. And this parent made a comment in her note that she really does hear the difference in her child when he's fearful versus when he's saying, no, I don't like this. And that's something that we do want to try to gauge as early as we can, to hear those different cries, which, you know, we have to be able to hear them to be able to decipher them.

16:10If we're trying to make all the feelings go away, like a lot of us, maybe all of us have the urge to do, then it's not going to be as easy for us to detect all the different things that they're communicating.

16:23Janet Lansbury:So it can be tougher as parents to assert ourselves when we have these stronger, more expressive types of children, especially when they're this little, when they're only eight months old, they're just tiny, you know, but think of the power of that. He's this little boy's telling her in no uncertain terms that he doesn't approve of her being the one to decide to separate from him and have a gate between them. That's a strong position. That's something we want to encourage in him, right? It's okay if he separates from her, I'm sure. It's this whole exploration of control that young children do and need to do.

16:59And it kind of comes to a head in the toddler years, usually. What do I control? And what do I not control? Do I control my parent 24-7? Or are there times when, shoot, I can't be in control of where they are, and they have their own will, and they're separate from me? This really healthy learning that children do, it's not comfortable learning for them a lot of the time. But expressing the strong feelings, as hard as that is to see as positive, it is positive because we are being responsive to it. We're letting our child know that we hear it and we're listening and we are there for them, even when we're leaving them.

17:38And yes, when children do have separation anxiety, like this boy had earlier, we definitely want to be sensitive to that, but we can't let ourselves be completely ruled by it. Or we end up unwittingly giving our child the message that we fear separating from them, that we can't be comfortable in that situation, even when it's just us taking care of our needs. And I mean, generally, this is one of the really hard things about parenting, is that most children, and definitely children that seem to have the stronger temperament,

18:11Janet Lansbury:they're almost never fine with just letting us go. And that's a hard pill to swallow. but it goes with the territory that they're not going to say, okay, go. Oh, enjoy your time off, mom. And I'll just see you when you get back. I'll just be playing here. Go do your chores, do your thing. I'm totally cool just to hang out. I mean, that would be unusual if a child felt like that. There's usually a bit of a complaint at least. But to this parent's question, Is he developmentally ready to be left alone for a little bit? Absolutely. And the earlier we start this, the easier it is. Now, we don't have to do some kind of training or exposure therapy.

18:55This is all just natural, relationship-centered learning. All the learning we want our child to do with us is not about that we're trying to get them to do a certain thing, but that we're taking our place in this relationship. That means we do the things that we need to do. A lot of times it's doing things like getting something together in the kitchen that's actually for our child. But even if it's for ourself, we deserve that. And they deserve to have a parent who feels whole, who feels cared for. So this can be a totally organic way our child learns through this rhythm of my parent is with me.

19:39And when they're with me, they're totally with me. They're not on their phone. They're not distracted at least a few times a day. But then sometimes they're not with me. And yeah, maybe I wish they were with me then, but I can let go of them when that becomes part of our routine, when it becomes part of our ritual. So one of the things I encourage this parent to do is make a routine, which it sounds like she did, because in her note, she's talking about the mornings, having this whole 45 minutes to an hour to herself, which is just amazing, right? At the same time, being able to observe from afar or hear her child doing this incredible learning.

20:19So it's like everything, everything we need, right? It's like our cake and eat it too, right there. But that requires us developing this different routine so that our child can get accustomed to it and comfortable with it and that they know that we feel confident with the choices that we're making. We collect hundreds of photos on our phones, most of us.

20:42Janet Lansbury:Holiday celebrations, family trips, sporting events, baby's first step, first birthday, first day of preschool. But for the most part, that's where these precious memories live, right? On the phone. Journey print makes it ridiculously easy to finally do something meaningful with them. In just minutes, you can turn your digital photos into beautiful, high-quality photo books. Simply drag and drop. And JourneyPrint's smart algorithm organizes everything by date and handles the layout for you. Just like that. You're telling a story. And the quality? It's so good. Thick pages, lay-flat binding, and your choice of matte or glossy finishes.

21:23Janet Lansbury:Personally, I've got a zillion pictures of our dog Diego with the kids. He's a bit of a ham. So I made a book. It took all of five minutes and I gave copies to all my kids. A photo book is something real and tangible you'll cherish forever and enjoy sharing with friends and family. And so much easier than scrolling through your camera. So go to journeyapp.com slash podcast slash unruffled and use the code unruffled to get 30 % off your next purchase. That's journey spelled J-O-U-R-N-I app app.com slash podcast slash Unruffled and use code Unruffled at checkout. No one looks forward to tax season.

22:09It sneaks up and suddenly you're hunting for receipts, downloading statements, trying to piece together a year of spending. For most of us, it's the only time we're forced to take a look at our finances. Monarch gives me the tools to be proactive year round and actually plan ahead. Everything's organized all in one place. So tax season feels less like a reckoning and more like a simple check-in. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or laptop.

22:49Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50 % off your Monarch subscription with code UNRUFFLED. So it's not just about tracking expenses. I can do that with bank statements and credit card bills, right? Monarch helps me focus on the future with a complete year-round picture of my financial situation and what I need to do to hit my goals. Achieve your financial goals with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple. Use code UNRUFFLED at monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50 % off at monarch.com code UNRUFFLED.

23:30Janet Lansbury:So again, I'm kind of paraphrasing this, but if you're interested, I encourage you to read or listen to the whole podcast episode, Struggles with Independent Play, because there's a lot more detail that I provide there that I'm not going to provide here. But one thing I also wanted to make clear to this parent that I talk about is that she realized there's nothing about this that is abandonment, that she's abandoning her child. He knows where she is. She's being honest with him. She's not sneaking off without telling him. I think I mentioned that in this episode that I don't recommend that. I recommend her, even if it seems like it's interrupting him, to say, now I'm going in there and you could be mad at me if you need to.