Stages of Toddlers and Preschools - Episode 66
We embark on a journey through the intricate stages of toddlers and preschoolers. In this episode, Tamo shares his fascination for developmental models, describing them as maps that guide us through the panoramic landscape of growth. From personal experiences to popular personality tests, he emphasizing their role in fostering self-awareness. Join us as we connect these models to to our children. In a world where each child's journey is uniquely their own, Tamo and Akko encourage parents to embrace individual paces, savoring the nuances of their child's distinctive growth.
If you find this episode helpful, please share it. Subscribe for more insightful discussions, and join the conversation on our Instagram at Akko and Tamo .❤️ 💫
IG: @akkoandtamo
TIMESTAMP:
►00:00 - Intro
►00:13 - TOPIC: Stages of Toddlers and Preschools
►00:27 - Recent Happening: Our daughter's inaugural school bus field trip!
►00:53 - Introducing the various developmental models and maps
►06:05 - How developmental models align with children
►10:14 - Celebrate the uniqueness of every child
QUESTION: Have you observed any patterns in how your children interact with you?
MUSIC:
► Copyright Chillhop Music - https://chillhop.com
#developmentalmodels #spiraldynamic #consciousparenting #realizeyourtruenature
Podcast Transcription
The transcription below is provided for your convenience, please excuse any errors made by the automated service.
Tamo: This is episode 66
Akko: the topic of the day is Stages of Toddlers and Preschools. And before we get started, please take a quick moment to subscribe to our show. Now let's get back to our recent happenings. So recently, our daughter went on her first field trip. Not necessarily our first field trip, but first field trip on a school bus.
And so she was super excited. As soon as she woke up, she was like, Field trip! I'm going on a field trip!
Tamo: Yeah, she was really excited to go on a school bus, so hopefully she's having a good time.
Akko: Yeah, so we're excited to hear what happens when she comes home, so We'll see!
Tamo: Alright, so yeah, let's talk about the topic of the day today.
We That titled, it's a stages of toddlers and Preschoolers. What we wanna do today is to give you a overall view and share the understanding that stages do exist. And it's really helpful to know especially for people like me.
I love developmental models and the broad view of development. They can also be called maps. And just understanding those, it gives me motivation to grow to the next level because, once you become an adult, physically doesn't mean that your growth ends there. It's just only the beginning and there's so much more growth that every one of us can have.
It's a really exciting part, at least for my personal life and, growing and becoming better and better. Version or even more so saying that shedding all the stuff that isn't me to become the true me. That's something that I wanted to share today. So again, it's not going to be a detailed step by step what happens at this age.
It's not like that because all kids are different, everyone's different. And yet at the same time, we're all the same too. So it's pretty much personal experience mixed with what I've learned.
And so some of the things that I've gone through in my personal life , the tests the personality test that I've come across that I found pretty helpful. Let me just share a couple like a big one was Myers Briggs. were really into Myers Briggs for a little
Akko: while we were, to a point where we were guessing people's personality and we were just like really into it and really took a deep interest
Tamo: in it.
Of course there are times for these type of things and not using it so concretely that you make a person a certain way. For example, with Myers Briggs, there's four letters that designate a person's personality or type. In my case, I was an I N T P, which means introverted intuitive.
And then that combines together to give you a kind of a broad idea of how a person may exhibit themselves in a certain situation. But again this is not. Complete picture of a person. So it's just a small subset of that person. So please understand that these are just tools that you can use in order to just understand a person better.
Maybe that's a better way to see it. It's a better way to understand yourself and others not to make judgments or cage him into a certain category.
Akko: Yeah. And our, and it always changes like I was categorized as an ENFJ, before I used to be more extreme on like being an extrovert, but now I feel like I'm more in the middle.
You do change as you grow and develop. So that's something to also consider. Yeah.
Tamo: And I think the more mature you get the extremes of either You get less and you become closer and closer to the middle and so one personally, what I've noticed is when I'm extremely stressed, I go into the extremes of each I become more introverted.
I become more in my mind. I become more just slower to make decisions and things like that. Whereas Akko she's actually the opposite and she needs to become more extroverted and go out and talk to people. And make\ quick decisions and things like that. So it becomes opposite.
Yeah, it does. But with a lot of personal work and development and things like that I noticed that's not the case anymore. It's just we stay more so in the middle, more, a lot more balanced. Absolutely.
Akko: What are other tests that you've taken? Yeah,
Tamo: another one is the Big Five. That's a personality test. Another one is called DISC, which is D I S C. That's also a personality test. And then other ones that I find interesting. These are more something called Developmental Development Models.
Or maybe Maps, you can say. One that I really love and What I really got into is Spiral Dynamics, and for anyone remotely interested in how humans develop, I really strongly recommend looking into Spiral Dynamics. Now, this type of map is such a departure from normal thinking. I would recommend just getting on YouTube and looking for Spiral Dynamics, and if you come across a YouTube channel called Actualized, and he describes in quite detail each stage of Spiral Dynamics and I found that very useful and it helps me understand bigger perspective of culture where a culture is in terms of development or even my personal beliefs and how I see the world and knowing that and then also knowing that there's a stage beyond that and getting myself to let go of old patterns and old thinking so that I can step into the next level.
It's really awesome. Spiral Dynamics and if you love Spiral Dynamics, let's talk. It's really great. Yeah. And another one that I found interesting was something called the ten ox herding pictures. This is a brush painting. For spiritual progress, I believe it was done in Japan.
And it shows you a map of how the spiritual journey occurs. And so there's a step by step from one to ten. And yeah I found that quite interesting too. And there's a lot more of these maps that you can look into, but these are some of the kind of more impactful ones that I've gone through.
And so with that sharing, I want to go into how does this apply to our children, right? So to toddlers, preschooler age and, after the child becomes more verbal, saying mama and dad and things like that, they go into the no stage, right? Oh, yeah. Saying no to everything.
Everything. And then, we come across the why stage asking why for everything. We've also noticed the look at me stage. Look at me. Yeah. And then also we find that especially with our daughter, she loves to ask what we are talking about. So if Akko and I are speaking talking to each other our daughter would be very interested in what we're talking about and she wants to know the details
Akko: of everything.
Yeah, she really wants to know everything
Tamo: that we talked about. Yeah, and so You know, we can make connections there and say that so for example in the no stage there's work by Eric Erickson, which is called the Erickson's psychosocial theory And that shows you the development stages from childhood on.
And the no stage could be seen as the autonomy versus shame and doubt stage, right? What does that mean? Autonomy and shame and doubt is when a child is trying to become a lot more independent and confident about themselves. And they're exploring things for themselves.
In this stage, maybe they might start dressing themselves, or picking out their own clothes, or saying, I like this type of food, I don't like that type of food. And also playing with the toys that they want to play with, or, learning to use the restroom by themselves, potty training, things like that.
And then, we can also say when it goes into the why. stage. We can connect that to Piaget. He was a big developmental psychologist. It's called the Piaget Theory of Cognitive Development. And this stage of no could be seen as the pre operational stage, which is usually from ages two to seven.
Yeah. Something like that. And during this stage, The children start to develop the symbolic thinking and they engage in questioning. So this aligns with the why stage that we've been seeing in our children. And, they're curious and that's exactly the reason they're asking.
And, sometimes we don't have the energy to answer real well, but, it's them trying to learn. About the world, a lot more about the world. So when they're asking why, just indulge him in explaining why and, something else I've noticed is sometimes I haven't thought deeply enough about something.
And so if my daughter asks me why it gives me a chance to go deeper and say sometimes I tell her Oh, you know what? Actually, I don't know. Let's find out together. Let's find out why that is and then share that time with her and also teaching her how to research and that the answers are out there and if you're curious you can do that for yourself.
So yeah, I've been doing that specifically with our daughter because she's in curious and in the why stage.
Akko: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great thing. and you're also showing the kid that, hey, you don't have all the answers too, so you don't always have to have an answer.
Exactly. You're showing them, Hey, it's okay. I don't know everything, and that's normal. And so that's okay.
Tamo: Yeah. And I think that's also shows humility.
Hopefully that's how our children take it , like Akko mentioned, we don't know everything, but we have humility to say, I don't know. And then, okay, but I would like to know let's research it. And so with that said, there's also the look at me stage, which pretty much shows that, our children are imitating us and learning from the environment, right? They want to show what they're learning what they're doing and things like that. Although it may feel like they're just attention seeking and validation, things like that. I think it is good to give them the attention that they're needing and just showing them, giving them support. If they're just jumping off the couch, hey, awesome. You're able to jump off the couch.
Awesome. Or, hey, look at me. I'm showering myself. Great. Great. And just giving them warm. Empathetic not only energy, but just validation for them.
Akko: Yeah. Reassurance or whatever they need, right? The security that
Tamo: =they need.
Yeah. And so with that, our hope is that. By sharing this, it brings some more light into understanding that this is completely normal, children go through all these stages and even if it doesn't really match in terms of what the study says about the age, don't worry about it.
I feel that even for us to, we become much better about letting go. And, if we feel like, Our children are, not matching up to what these development stages say. We don't stress out about it because each child has their own pace and that's perfect for them.
And so that's something that we also keep in mind. Yeah, absolutely. And so just make it light and fun and, even during the difficult times knowing that things are okay and it's just a natural part of the growth process. Yeah,
Akko: yeah, absolutely. There's no need to stress out about anything. It's a guide. And being present with their kid or kids are what's more important and being able to observe what they're going through.
Tamo: If you think this episode is helpful for other parents please share it. And if you haven't, please take a quick moment to subscribe to our show.
Akko: And the question of the day is, have you observed any patterns in how your children interact with you?
We'd love to hear from you. Please come say hi by commenting on our website by going to akkoandtamo. com and clicking on the podcast tab. We're also on Instagram Tamo. That's A K K O A N D T A M O and come say hi!
Tamo: Alright, take care!
Alright, bye!