#SPMomWorkshops: All About Toddlers

Yesterday, hubby and I attended a workshop organized by Smart Parenting at Richmonde Hotel, Ortigas.  I was actually there for work, but I tagged him along because the topic was toddlers.  Lia has just begun her toddler years, so I thought the workshop would be of great help to us as parents. 

First, let's define what a toddler is.  According to trusty Wiki, a toddler is a child between the ages of one and three. The toddler years are a time of great cognitive, emotional and social development. The word is derived from "to toddle", which means to walk unsteadily, like a child of this age.

The workshop had three speakers with a different topic assigned to each, as mentioned here in Smart Parenting's pre-event poster.

The importance of storytelling.  As how Lia's pedia would always tell us, it is very important to read stories to her regularly.  This enhances kids' verbal proficiency, improves their listening skills, and encourages creativity and the power of imagination, and these are just among its many other benefits.  According to speaker Gutch Gutierrez, we should remember 3Es when storytelling: Emphasis, Emotion, and Enjoy.

Feeding your picky eater. Because toddlers are experiencing new foods and flavors for the first time, many of them are picky eaters. Speaker Velvet Escario-Roxas shared tips on how to end, or at least minimize, the struggle.  

• Be persistent. If this week, your toddler refused eggplant, try once more next week, and the week after that if she pushed it away again.  Don't give up and your kid would give in.
• Eat together. It releases oxytocin.
• Involve your child in preparing the food, so that s/he would enjoy eating it, too.
• Children should not call the shots, and as the parent, do not give in if s/he doesn't want to eat what's on the table.  
• Do not force-feed.
• Make your child eat a different color of food each day.  Complete the colors of the rainbow in a week.

Disciplining your toddler.  This is the talk I enjoyed the most as the speaker, Michelle Tambunting, was really good. She mentioned the book "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" by Dr. Harvey Karp as her reference.  Some of the things I learned:

• Never look at your child in terms of age.  Avoid comparisons at all costs.
• Understand who your toddler is:  that s/he is not a small person, s/he is more like a caveman in terms of how s/he responds to situations.  Toddlers also cannot switch off tantrums unlike bigger kids.  
• It's tough being a toddler, everything is bigger, stronger, faster!
• Our modern world is weird to them.
• Their brains are out of balance, especially during tantrums.
• When your child is having a tantrum, acknowledge his/her feelings, do mirroring.  Touch him/her, give options.

I don't think I've given justice to Michelle's talk with my very few notes above, but I promise I will find that book! It might make Lia's life easier and happier if we would just know how to manage her while she's in this terrible terrific toddler stage. :)

Anyway, these are some of the photos from the event.

The Belo Baby booth

Kelly Misa as she shares her Belo Baby experience :)

That's me sharing how unique baby's skin is and why Belo Baby is best for it. :)
Grabbed from Smart Parenting's Instagram page.

Kelly and I with our segment's game winners. :)

With my +1. hubby Rolly. <3

And that's it! Looking forward to more parenting workshops like this! :)

Cheers,