Building Relationships in Infants, Toddlers, and 2-Year-Olds

This article discusses the importance of building relationships in infants, toddlers, and 2-year-olds. It provides tips on how to build strong relationships through good environmental arrangement, interaction encouragement, caregiving assistance, and more. The article also highlights the benefits of play dolls and infant materials in developing laterality, motor skills, language skills, and trust with each other.

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Contemporary Issue Analysis
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Relationship Building: Infants, Toddlers, and 2-Year-Olds
It is clearly evident that relationship between children as they grow from infant to toddler
years have been deserted. Children need to relate with one another just like adults need to
develop relationship with one another to help them in their development stages. Fears of
children’s safety have been a great obstacle to interaction between toddlers and infants but this
can be conquered through close supervision of children as they interact with one another.
Through close interaction, children develop strong feelings towards one another as they discover
their personalities. Building relationship in children refers to developing emotional closeness
with others and it is built by intimacy and trust from infancy to adulthood. As 2 year olds and
toddlers witness their caregiver’s actions they tend to approach the world with enthusiasm and
openness as they develop to be very caring and responsive people (Bronson, 2001).
As babies are born, they are driven to connecting and relating to other. Their social skills
continue to develop to form healthy and strong relationship as they grow to adulthood. An infant
will always look at her mother face when they are breastfed and they recognize a caring and
special person. They tend to calm down immediately there is somebody beside them because
they trust that they are loved and cared for. This alone helps in building relationship when infants
are near one another and this is evident in the smiles they give each other. Furthermore, an infant
will discover that any time spent with others is pleasurable and satisfying. When infants are in a
group setting their chances of demonstrating depression symptoms are inclined when one of
them is relocated. Thus, group settings can give positive outcome in children relation. Nothing
succeeds without a good foundation. Therefore, the relationship between infants, toddlers, and 2-
year-olds can be built through these themes: Good environmental arrangement, Interaction

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encouragement through playing with dolls and infant material, Caregiving assistance, Isolation
of social interaction opportunities and spontaneous interaction opportunities (CDC, 2018).
Good environmental arrangement has a very great impact on children’s learning as well
as relationship development. Well-designed environment will allow toddlers and infants to
strongly interact, gain sense of control and take part in self-directed and focused plays. In
environments that allows children to see each other, they develop security sense as they play
independently or with one another. Good relationship can be well built during occasions like
mealtime, bottle feeding, diapering and play. During meal times crawling babies can easily move
to meal table. Toddlers and 2 years old will be seen developing interest on the infants as they
want to help caregivers in bottle feeding them. Diapering routine in a group of children is
another routine that engages children and help them develop good relationship with others. Older
children will always imitate their caregivers in diapering the infants. In close range 2-year-olds,
toddlers and infants tend to interact by exchanging smiles, touches, laughs, and toys. If an
environment where a child is taken good care of, it can give an array of a child’s interaction
experience. Therefore, a chosen environment should be able to support emotional, physical,
social as well as cognitive growth. Caregivers environment should be safe, healthy, convenient,
comfortable, children -sized, and flexible enough to encourage children movement (Karen,
2011).
Play dolls and infant materials is a gadget of building relationship between children as
they play together. The dolls help in developing laterality, motor skills, language skills and trust
with each other. Children find it easy to practice these skills on one another as they grow. 2-
year- old and toddlers like engaging in materials they see infants using. They tend to play with
materials in infants environ and this help them to revisit their infancy as they develop. Dolls help

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children to engage in pretense play as they imitate interactions they observe between caregivers
an adult in their environment. Children will tend to handle their dolls with a lot of care the same
way adults did to infants. For example, children will strip, bathe, massage, diaper, swaddle and
feed their dolls. They also take part in caregiving activities they observed like rocking,
comforting and singing to dolls before taking them to their beds. All this makes children to be
more loving and caring (Christiekiley,2012).
Older children can always participate in caregiving assistance if they fell safe in the
hands of their caregivers. Allowing children to help in caregiving promotes caring relationships
that cater for babies thriving. An infant tend to develop trust if her caregiver together with her
assistance responds appropriately to her need, interests and unique temperament. Caregiving
assistance includes comforting crying infants, carrying infants and singing lullaby to those who
want to sleep after feeding them (ZTT ,2016). Toddlers security when their caregivers are more
positive and know all their wishes. If a holistic relationship exists between children, they tend to
feel more secure and trusted and this makes toddlers and 2 -year old flourish and explore
everything in their reach. If an infant is left around same children for a long period of time, they
are spared from trauma of adjusting to different people each time. This stabilizes their emotional
development which is the foundation of a good relationship. There is extreme richness in
caregiving assistance as toddlers and 2-year-olds’ increase their sense of empathy which they
later extend to their age mates. Some children will tend to be more helpful and even assume
parent roles when they are left with infants (En español ,2010).
The relationship between these young children needs to be spices by planning for
activities that makes them learn more about each other. Increasing the time, they spend together
support their expressions towards each other. This strategy can include, mixing small mixed age

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groups by having toddlers visit infants and vice versa. It also includes taking 2-year old children
and toddlers to the playground the same time or even taking them for a nature walk together
(Sameroff, McDonough & Rosenblum, 2003). When planning for this activities, types of play
materials and situations that contributes to great interaction between toddlers, children and
infants should be highly considered. Open ended materials are an ideal in children interaction
between different age groups. Paints, boxes, and water related materials allows children of
different developmental stages to participate in play. Never forget that children are prefer real
world materials rather than toys. For example, they prefer real infant dresses more than their
dolls clothing’s. Adult participation in children interaction is very important. This involves
working to overcome unnecessary fears about infants being injured by older children.
Furthermore, they should learn that presence of older children in caregiving is more important
especially when caring for more than one infant (Landy,2002).
In conclusion, parents and caregivers are the main obstacle in children relationship
development as they continually fear that the older children can injure infants. Toddlers should
be viewed as competent and capable people who can greatly take care of the young ones. Letting
go of inappropriate fear makes caregivers understand that toddlers are likely to play positively
and support infants under appropriate guidance (Dams,2005). Appropriate guidance in this case
includes, molding desired behaviors, giving clear instructions and appropriate caregiving skills.
Playing together in a conducive environment makes children to be more friendly to one another.
Furthermore, while interacting with one another toddlers realize that their interests and emotions
are understood by others and this builds a strong relationship. In case of any injury during
children’s play time they are able to empathize with the injured and this also constructs a
stronger bond between themselves (Parlakian,2002).

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References
Bronson, M. (2001). Self-Regulation in Early Childhood. Nature and nurture Journal. New York,
pp.263–292.
CDC. (2018). 10 Components of Infant and Toddler Care. Retrieved Sep. 5, 2018, from
https://www.childdevelopmentcouncil.org/resources/10-components-of-infant-and-
toddler-care/
Christiekiley. (2012). Why Kids Should Play with Baby Dolls. Retrieved Sep. 5, 2018, from
http://mamaot.com/why-kids-should-play-with-baby-dolls-yes-even-boys/
Dams, K. (2005). Promoting Positive Behavior: Guidance strategies for early childhood settings.
Columbus, OH: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall, pp.63–92.
En español . (2010). Tips on Helping Your Child Build Relationships. Retrieved Sep. 5, 2018,
from https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/227-tips-on-helping-your-child-build-
relationships
Karen, H. (2011). The importance of physical environment in child care. Retrieved Sep. 5,
2018, from http://www.troyrecord.com/article/TR/20110224/NEWS/302249961
Landy, S. (2002). Pathways to Competence: Encouraging healthy social and emotional
development in young children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
Parlakian, R. (2002). Building strong foundations: Practical guidance for promoting the
social/emotional development of infants and toddlers. Washington, DC: Zero to Three.
Sameroff, A., McDonough, S., & Rosenblum, K. (2003). Treating Parent-Infant Relationship
Problems: Strategies for intervention. Washington, DC: Zero to Three pp. 19-21.

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ZTT . (2016). Toddlers and Challenging Behavior: Why They Do It and How to Respond.
Retrieved Sep. 5, 2018, from https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/326-toddlers-and-
challenging-behavior-why-they-do-it-and-how-to-respond