Happiness for Your 2-Year-Old

Now Is the Right Time!

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play an essential role in your child’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-child relationship, and developing feelings of happiness is a great way to do it.

Happiness, or a sense of joy or well-being, comes through our connection with others and a sense of meaning or purpose in our lives.¹ Two-year-olds build their skills through loving interactions with you, other family members, and friends. Many of your child’s joyful experiences will occur within these essential relationships. Happiness also comes when children feel a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. This comes through play and learning in the earliest years, which is critical to your child’s development. Parents and those in a parenting role share in this learning and exploration.  

Yet, we all face challenges. Feeling joy all of the time is not realistic or beneficial. Doing so would limit your child’s experiences with a wide range of important feelings that play a role in their development. Rather than focusing on helping your child be happy every moment, helping them build healthy relationships with others and engaging in meaningful activities and play can grow happiness. 

Further, growing happiness in children begins with parents who recognize and attend to their own needs for self-care, like eating healthy foods, exercising regularly, connecting with friends, and engaging in enjoyable activities. It may feel like you rarely have time to care for yourself because you are focused on caring for your child. But not taking time for yourself can get in the way of the joy and connection you feel with your child. Even small amounts of time (taking a walk or calling a friend) can make a big difference for you and your child.

The steps below include specific and practical strategies for developing happiness and building a relationship with your child, including reliable and unconditional support and love.

Why Happiness?

Your child’s connections with you and others and their ability to engage in meaningful learning and play are essential to developing lifelong happiness. Today, in the short term, growing happiness can create

• more significant opportunities for connection, cooperation, and enjoyment
• a sense of belonging as a member of your family
• a sense of optimism and well-being

Tomorrow, in the long term, helping your child grow happiness

• develops a sense of fulfillment
• strengthens their immune system and physical health
• builds skills that foster resilience
• builds skills in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision-making
• deepens family trust and intimacy

Five Steps for Growing Happiness

This five-step process helps you and your child develop feelings of joy and connection to one another. It also builds essential life skills in your child. The same process can also be used to address other parenting issues (learn more about the process).

Two-year-olds may use short phrases to communicate and add new words to their vocabulary regularly, but they do not know how to name their big feelings yet. Frustrations with needing to be understood may result in them losing control more frequently. Despite your child’s new ability to use words, continue to pay close attention to their facial expressions, movements, and sounds to work on understanding what they are trying to communicate. Your efforts to learn from your child build trust, create empathetic interactions that promote happiness, and let them know you are interested in their thoughts. In becoming sensitive to your child’s verbal and nonverbal expressions, you

• are responding to their needs
• are growing their trust in you, sense of safety, and sense of healthy relationships
• are improving your ability to communicate with one another 
• are growing your own and their self-control (to calm down when upset and focus their attention)
• are modeling empathy and problem-solving skills

Actions

• Each time there is an opportunity, share how you are feeling and ask your child how they feel: “I am getting sleepy; are you feeling sleepy?”  Two-year-olds do not yet have a feelings vocabulary and cannot describe their body sensations when dealing with any big feeling. They will need your support to be successful. 
  • For example, if your child is with others who feel very happy at a family birthday party, help them notice their feelings and those of others. You might even name the expressions and body language you notice. For example, “I notice a lot of children running and smiling. Many of them are singing and waving balloons, too. Do you think they feel happy?” 
  • You can also point out when your child feels differently from other children and let them know that is ok. “I notice that you are staying away from the balloons and standing in one place. Your eyebrows are squeezed together like this. I do not think that you are feeling happy right now. How are you feeling?”
• When reading books, look at the images of people and talk about what you notice about their feelings. Point out the different ways that people may feel happiness. Ask, “I think drawing makes that person feel happy. Does drawing make you feel happy, too?”
• If your child is feeling unsure about how to describe their feelings or how others are feeling, consider asking questions, naming what you notice, and leaving plenty of quiet space after your questions so they have an opportunity to share their ideas, too.

“How did you feel when you saw the balloons at the party?” 

“I noticed some children were very excited about the balloons.”

“I noticed other children stepped away from the balloons and got closer to their parents.”

“Are you feeling nervous?”

“How do you feel now?”

“Is there anything we can do to remember what  made you feel happy at the party?”

Each time your child expresses any big feeling, be sure to name it. “You seemed really happy when you were listening to the music. You had a smile on your face. Were you feeling happy?” This builds their feelings vocabulary and adds to their self-awareness and ability to manage their feelings. This includes describing and naming the joy they may feel when they have fun with you and the pride they feel when they can do something for the first time. Pointing out how they can experience happiness will help them notice it and know what experiences bring them joy. 

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, there is much to learn about understanding your child’s rhythms, temperaments, and needs. Because of all this learning, you will make mistakes and even poor choices. How you handle those moments can determine how you help grow your child’s happiness. Offering yourself the grace and permission not to be perfect can ease your anxiety in responding to your child’s needs. Learning about developmental milestones can help you better understand what your child is going through.²

• Two-year-olds are starting to see themselves as their unique person. They are just beginning to understand that they can have their own thoughts and feelings and that someone else could have different ones. This is key for beginning to empathize with an idea or feeling that is different from their own, such as, “Why is my friend happy?”
• Two-year-olds are eager to engage in imaginative play and, at times, cooperative play with other children. Through play, children gain vital practice with all of their developmental milestones.
• Two-year-olds can show defiant behavior and test boundaries as they learn about the rules and attempt to understand your values.
• Two-year-olds can recognize common feelings like happiness, sadness, and anger.
• Two-year-olds may begin to experience separation anxiety when you leave them.
• Two-year-olds can imagine what response might be appropriate or comforting in a particular situation.

Teaching is different than just telling. Teaching builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and prepares your child for success. Teaching also involves modeling, practicing the positive behaviors you want to see, promoting skills, and preventing problems.

Actions

• Read and “pretend play” together.
  • During reading time, select a book with faces to help your child learn to identify different feelings. Point out how you can tell each face’s feelings and practice recreating those cues with your child.
• After reading a story together, act out the story and use feeling words and expressions to match how the characters are feeling throughout the story. This expands their feelings vocabulary and teaches them how to recognize a wide range of perspectives and emotions they might not encounter in daily interactions with others. 
• Replay moments that made your child feel joy during pretend play. “Do you remember how much fun it was to pretend we were animals in the forest yesterday? Do you want to play that again?” 
• Make your thinking and feelings explicit. Talk about what you notice, how you feel, why you feel it, and what signs you are giving. “We worked so hard to make cookies together today. It was fun! It made me smile like this.”
• Talk aloud about your big feelings. “Singing with you makes me feel so happy. I want to give you a big hug.”
• Help your child see that feelings will change and all emotions are essential and welcome. For example, when your child uses definitive language like, “I don’t like that,” you may respond with:
• “Sometimes we don’t like something now, and that is okay. But we might like it later.”
• “Do you remember the last time you did not like something? You took a deep breath and tried it, and it was ok.”

Your daily routines allow you and your child to practice new vital skills if you seize those chances. With practice, your child will build relationships with others and engage in meaningful play that will bring you both joy and happiness. Practice grows vital new brain connections that strengthen (and eventually form habits) each time your child works hard toward a goal or demonstrates belief in themselves.

Practice also provides essential opportunities to grow self-efficacy (a child’s sense that they can do a task successfully). This leads to confidence. It helps them understand that mistakes and failures are part of learning.

Actions

• Provide opportunities for your child to do more challenging things than they have done before. The goal is to create experiences beyond what they are comfortable with so they can experience working hard and mastering a new skill. This may be a challenging social situation like playing with a new friend or trying a new experience.
• Create regular routines that build your child’s relationships with others. A daily walk around the block with a parent can become a cherished, comforting, connecting, and joyful routine.
• Use your child’s dolls or stuffed animals to act out moments of happiness so that they become part of your child’s stories and memories. This is an excellent way to relive special moments and remind your child about family members’ and friends’ roles in their happiness. 

At this point, you are developing your child’s skills to notice what makes them happy. You are helping them notice that other children may react differently to the same situations. You are teaching them that all feelings are important and welcome. You are allowing them to practice to learn how to handle their feelings independently. 

You can offer support when needed by reteaching, monitoring, and coaching. This support reinforces your parent-child relationship and helps your child know you support them when they experience feelings. Parents and those in a parenting role naturally offer support as they see their child fumble with a situation in which they need help. This is no different.

Actions

• Recognize effort using “I notice…” statements like: “I noticed you liked singing songs at the library storytime today. You were smiling when you sang. I love seeing that.”
• On days with extra challenges, when you can see your child is not feeling particularly happy, let them know that it is ok not to feel happy sometimes and that they are likely to feel happy again soon. In a gentle, non-public way, you can whisper in your child’s ear, “We thought this would be fun, but it is ok if you don’t like it.”
• Actively reflect on how your child feels when doing something that brings them joy. You can offer reflections like:

“You smiled a lot while we all talked at the dinner table. It seemed like you felt happy.”

“I remember last time we were at the park, you did not like being on the swings. You went on the swings with your friend this time and had fun.”

 

No matter how old your child is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement have a significant impact.

If your child is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worthwhile to recognize it. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your child’s confidence. Your recognition also promotes safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow. 

There are many ways to reinforce your child’s efforts. It is essential to distinguish between three types of reinforcement: recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three distinct parenting behaviors have different impacts on your child’s behavior.   

Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your child. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is key to promoting more of it. For example, “You are smiling and seem happy after your nap! I love that!!”  Recognition can include nonverbal acknowledgment, such as a hug.

Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely, and positive incentive for doing a good job.  A reward is determined beforehand so the child knows what to expect, like “If you behave in the store, you will get a treat on the drive home.” (If you XX, then I’ll XX.) It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment.  A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your child progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a child’s internal motivation.     

Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis (like in the grocery store checkout line and a child is having a tantrum. To avoid disaster, a parent offers to buy a sucker if the child will stop the tantrum). While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change and should be avoided.

Actions

• Recognize and call out when things are going well. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy not to notice when everything moves smoothly. Noticing and naming the behavior provides the necessary reinforcement that you see and value your child’s choice. 
• Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for significant accomplishments—like the whole bedtime routine going smoothly—to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your child is making an effort and let them know you see them.
• Build celebrations into your routine. For example, after you’ve completed your bedtime routine, snuggle and read before bed.

Closing

Engaging in these five steps is an investment that will strengthen your skills as an effective parent or someone in a parenting role on many other issues and develop essential skills that will last a lifetime for your child. Through this tool, children can become more self-aware, deepen their social awareness, exercise their self-management skills, work on their relationship skills, and demonstrate and practice responsible decision-making.