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The Emotional Life of the Toddler
3/5. A book discussing the various phases and forces operating beneath the surface of toddler emotions, most centrally the alternating waves of independence drive and safety drive that bring toddlers in and out, in and out. Useful for the exercise in taking toddler feelings seriously and giving them the courtesy of allowing them to be complex. To be fair, I didn’t need a book to tell me that Casterbrook’s occasional objection to having his clothes taken off – the same clothes he objected to getting put on hours earlier – is often an expression of a desire for control over his body and his environment. That has always seemed obvious to me. But this book credits toddlers with even greater depths than that, and also described eighteen-month-old Casterbrook’s separation anxiety to the letter, so there’s that.
I’m not sure it offered up all that many actionable solutions for me at this moment, as I already have a peaceful marriage and a safe home and a degree of self-awareness. By which I mean this book made me aware of a lot of ways I could make Casterbrook’s separation anxiety worse, but didn’t provide any particular way I could help him right now, which is probably because I can’t, and only a bit of time will do that.
I do want to flag some weirdly heteronormative comments in this book about fathers and mothers as gendered roles. Particularly notable as the book thinks it is not engaging in that sort of thing, and occasionally noted where the author wishes there was more research into queer family dynamics to back up her impressions that dynamics do not differ all that much with straight families (not sure I agree entirely with that, but I could be persuaded either way by, you know, good research).
3/5. A book discussing the various phases and forces operating beneath the surface of toddler emotions, most centrally the alternating waves of independence drive and safety drive that bring toddlers in and out, in and out. Useful for the exercise in taking toddler feelings seriously and giving them the courtesy of allowing them to be complex. To be fair, I didn’t need a book to tell me that Casterbrook’s occasional objection to having his clothes taken off – the same clothes he objected to getting put on hours earlier – is often an expression of a desire for control over his body and his environment. That has always seemed obvious to me. But this book credits toddlers with even greater depths than that, and also described eighteen-month-old Casterbrook’s separation anxiety to the letter, so there’s that.
I’m not sure it offered up all that many actionable solutions for me at this moment, as I already have a peaceful marriage and a safe home and a degree of self-awareness. By which I mean this book made me aware of a lot of ways I could make Casterbrook’s separation anxiety worse, but didn’t provide any particular way I could help him right now, which is probably because I can’t, and only a bit of time will do that.
I do want to flag some weirdly heteronormative comments in this book about fathers and mothers as gendered roles. Particularly notable as the book thinks it is not engaging in that sort of thing, and occasionally noted where the author wishes there was more research into queer family dynamics to back up her impressions that dynamics do not differ all that much with straight families (not sure I agree entirely with that, but I could be persuaded either way by, you know, good research).