What really matters- Mastery & Confidence- Toddlers begin to show joy in response to having achieved goals that they have set.  All sorts of tasks draw forth these wonderful smiles including things such as fitting a puzzle piece into a puzzle or building a tower out of blocks. Mastery smiles at this age do not appear to have an element of seeking social approval like they will at two years of age when children begin to occasionally look towards adults to seek out approval when they achieve something. Now it is just for the pure joy of figuring something out and accomplishing it. We adults want to provide opportunities for these smiles as they are not only a joy but reflect the growing confidence in our toddlers sense that they can do it! 

How to put it into practice-

Tuning In- The obvious time to look for these smiles is during a task where there is a distinct end game-- a block tower, a shape through the correct hole, a ball in basket, etc. Whitney would not only give a great big mastery smile, she would frequently clap for herself. (see videos to right)

Bridging-  This feeling of mastery is a critical confidence builder. Our role as adults is to help our toddlers do it on their own as we have said before by providing the minimal level of support so that they can do it. For example, with the shape sorter activity, Whitney would get extremely frustrated and meltdown if the shape would not go in the hole. I helped help her to develop the strategy of trying multiple holes by gentling guiding her hand to the various shapes or simply pointing. Eventually she was more observant of the shape of the object and shape of the hole and could do it by herself but as long as I could provide the minimal amount of support we got mastery smiles all along the way. (See Mastery- Shape sorter video above right)

Ensuring the Joy- Compared to the Meltdowns, this is pure bliss to connect with your toddler when they have mastered something; don’t miss these jewels.