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

CONTEMPORARY ISSUE ANALYSIS 1
Contemporary Issue Analysis
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CONTEMPORARY ISSUE ANALYSIS 2
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

CONTEMPORARY ISSUE ANALYSIS 3
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