A Useful Little Tip for Handling Imaginative Toddlers

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While in Australia, I discovered a very handy tactic that works about 90% of the time whenever Gavin gets restless, upset (I’m talking about mild cases, not the full-blown meltdowns) or refuses to do what I want him to:

Tell a story.

Instances where I’ve found the “tell a story” tactic to be very useful:

• Whenever Gavin gets restless in the car, aside from bribing him with toys or junk food, I find that telling him a story about Thomas and his friends is an excellent way to keep his bottom firmly planted in the car seat.
• When he starts to get distressed by his environment and I need him to stay calm (for example when we were on board Puffing Billy and Gavin wanted to get off the train but it was already starting to move).
• When I want to get Gavin to sleep but he refuses to lie down in the bed or close his eyes (which is usually all the time), all I have to say is: “Do you want Mummy to tell you a story?”  Initially, I had to tell him to close his eyes and put his head down.  Occasionally, he would peek at me or lift his head back up, but the moment I threaten to end the story, he immediately closes his eyes and promptly rests his head down.

I find telling a story to be a very effective way to help Gavin fall asleep without unintentionally stimulating his eyes with pictures and objects.  The main danger of telling stories while lying down beside Gavin is that I usually start to feel sleepy before he does.  Have you ever tried telling a story when you’re falling asleep?  I’m sure someone listening in would have found it extremely funny.  I woke up to the sound of my voice talking about something completely irrelevant to the story I was supposed to be telling.  I’m not sure I was even making any sense at all!  The way I get around this is to carry Gavin and walk around the room instead of offering him the breast first.  Then when he’s already heavy with sleep, I nurse him to sleep.

I probably should have remembered the tip about engaging a child’s imagination by telling stories from the Child Behaviour lectures I had in University when they were teaching us how to get into the skin of our child patients and learn how to manage them. If I recall correctly, my lecturer told us that three year olds could be managed quite easily by engaging their imaginations.  For example, telling a story or playing “let’s pretend”.

Gavin hasn’t quite hit three years old, but he’s about to enter his third year of life.  When I read about the Terrible Twos starting in the second year of life, perhaps the Imaginative Threes also begin in the third year of life?  It might explain why Gavin is responding so well to my poorly made-up stories about Thomas which are largely based on the shows and books he’s read.

There is one thing to be said about young toddlers -- they aren’t very particular about whether you’re a good singer or story teller.  I used to sing Gavin to sleep -- even when I didn’t know the song and would make up the words and tune as I go along, he never once complained.  Sometimes he would even ask me to sing the songs I made up.  Likewise, he doesn’t complain about how ridiculously meaningless my stories are or if they end rather abruptly simply because I’ve lost the plot or if I can’t think of a proper ending for the story.

I believe that one of the biggest benefits of making up stories for your child lies in the way it helps your child’s imagination develop.  More and more, I am beginning to observe Gavin making up dialogue for his toys as he plays with them.  Likewise, when we go to a book store, he’ll pick up a book and make up a story by looking at the pictures.  If he’s heard the story before, you can pick up elements of the actual story the words he uses when “reading” out loud to himself.

Here’s a short video of Gavin “reading” a story from a book I’ve read to him so many times even I know the story by heart.

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