What really matters- The “Me” mental model- Research indicates that around 18 months, our toddlers are starting to merge the more isolated fragments of their experience into a unified sense of their whole person and personality-- their concept of  “me”. This fuller sense of who they are helps them take all those feelings at the visceral level and add them up into a rich concept of “me” and expectations about and for me. Categories of experience are linked with more firm expectations. For example, “my assertiveness will lead to the pleasure of getting what I want.” My anger and tantrum will be met with disappointment, humiliation and shame.” They are establishing an integrated pattern of who they are and can mentally represent and act on that.

How to put it into practice-

Tuning In- This more robust concept of “ me” is not readily apparent to us parents and caregivers. One trick to observing its growth is the “mirror & dot” test. At some point around 18 months, our toddlers will be able to look in the mirror and recognize a dot that is not supposed to be there (see Mirror and Dot” video). They have a firm mental picture of who they are and expectations for what they should look like. The seeing of the dot elicits a reaction of “hey what is that” and a desire to remove it when prior to this time it gets no reaction at all. We also see lots of subtle consequences of a stronger sense of self such as a greater assertiveness in demanding what they want and a more rigorous explosion or meltdown when don’t get it. We also eventually see the birth of the word “MINE!” (see “Mine” video)

Extending/Bridging-

Supporting our toddlers in their development of a strong sense of self entails a range of ideas. From acknowledge and emphasizing with the full range of your toddlers emotions they begin to understand that these emotions daily ebbs and flows but do not overwhelm or comprise the whole of “me”. Helping our toddlers see the effect of their actions, their “Self Agency”, such as look you pushed over the block tower and you made a loud bang. Frequent body parts games and mirror play games help them see themselves as a whole person with lots of parts. (see “mirror body parts game” video)