Has your toddler ever given up at a task they barely even started? Have you seen them start to color in a coloring page, but one stray scribble out of the lines leaves them frustrated? Or have you found them screaming because the tower they built fell down, and they meltdown instead of rebuilding it? Toddlers naturally have low frustration tolerance, but there is a simple shift we can make to help our toddlers become more resilient. Heather is here to share three reassuring phrases we can say when our toddlers make mistakes that will help them move through their frustration and learn valuable life lessons.

In this post you will find: 

• Insights into toddler meltdowns
• Real life examples of toddler frustration and teaching moments
• 10 common toddler perfectionism triggers
• Reassurance scripts to help your toddler move through frustration

**Listen to the full podcast episode here or read on for the tips!

Real Life Examples and Understanding Frustration Meltdowns

Example #1: Remote Truck Frustration

Recently Heather’s twin toddler boys were driving some new remote controlled trucks around a loop at the park. One twin was having lots of fun while the other was getting frustrated because his truck kept veering off the path and into the grass. He started to panic and enter a full blown meltdown, stomping, screaming, and flailing his arms.

Though she wasn’t sure how he would respond, Heather decided to try reassuring him. She told him how it was okay if the car went onto the grass sometimes. He didn’t need to drive it perfectly to still have fun. She encouraged him to keep trying. His control would get better with practice. He should just go for it.

To Heather’s surprise, her toddler took her positive words and ran with them. He calmed down. He tried. And he ended up getting his car to go all the way around the big sidewalk loop, only going into the grass a few times.

Heather realized that when her toddler was so focused on driving his truck perfectly, any mistake felt like failure and made him want to give up and shut down. But when he realized that he didn’t need to drive it perfectly to still have fun and get around the loop, he relaxed and was able to push through and control the car better because he was less stressed by needing to be perfect.

Teachable Moment

The lightbulb moment for Heather was that her reassurance lifted the pressure to be perfect off of her toddler, leaving space for growth, which happens most often when we make mistakes and learn from them. Our toddlers need us to remind them that mistakes are part of life, part of being human, and they can always try again.

Example #2: Accidental Crash at the Park

On another occasion, one of Heather’s sons was walking around at the park and accidentally crashed into another child who was on a bike. Both of them were not really looking where they were going and were feeling a little guilty and scared after ending up in a collision they didn’t see coming.

Teachable Moment

After making sure both children were okay, Heather again used reassurance, instead of guilt or shame, to make sure that both her son and the other child knew that accidents happen and it was okay, but that they could learn from what happened so that it didn’t happen again. Whether on a bike or walking around, both should be on the lookout for others. This reassurance gave both of them a plan of action, helping them move through their upset feelings, instead of getting stuck in them.

Mistakes are practice opportunities. We want our children to realize they can learn from their mistakes, they can do better next time, and they don’t have to beat themselves up. This is the power of having a growth mindset. We want to teach our children this early so they have that foundation for the rest of their lives.

10 Common Toddler Perfectionism Triggers

There are many common scenarios that trigger frustration meltdowns in our toddlers. Knowing what these triggers are can help us see them coming so we can prepare to help them ahead of time.

1. Drawing or coloring: Maybe they colored outside the lines, or their drawing didn’t look how they wanted it to in their head. This is what Heather calls the “picture perfect mindset.”
2. Building blocks or Legos: When pieces are hard to put together, fall apart easily, or what they built doesn’t turn out the way they wanted, our toddlers can shut down and want to quit instead of try again.
3. Puzzles: Maybe they can’t get pieces to fit together right, they are frustrated at the challenge, or they are missing pieces.
4. Learning new physical skills: Riding a bike or a scooter for the first time, zipping their coat, buckling their car seat, and tying shoes can all be frustration triggers, especially when our toddlers want to be able to do these things by themselves but aren’t quite able to yet.
5. Arts and crafts: Creative activities sometimes don’t go as planned. Maybe the glue isn’t sticking, the tape is folding over and sticking to itself, or the stickers are coming off. 
6. Games and turn taking: These situations can be tricky because everyone wants to win. Not doing well, making a mistake, and losing can feel like the end of the world, making our toddlers not want to try again.
7. Language and Speech: Maybe they can’t pronounce a word correctly and refuse to repeat it. This can also happen with reading when they feel like they can’t get words right. They can feel embarrassed and want to just give up.
8. Pretend play: Sometimes our toddler’s pretend play plans don’t work out the way they wanted and something small, like the car not balancing right or the stuffed animal not sitting, can set them off.
9. Learning letters and numbers: It is common for toddlers to mix up letters, write them backwards, and struggle with numbers, which can be very frustrating, especially when they feel pressure to perform.
10. Social moments: Accidents in front of others, embarrassments, and feeling pressure can trigger deep emotions that are hard for toddlers to push through without help.

The same loop can be found in all of these triggering scenarios: when something gets hard, we get frustrated because we aren’t perfect, then we shut down. This is something I think we all struggle with sometimes, even as adults.

Three Scripts to Reassure Our Toddlers

Here are three scripts we can use and modify as needed to help reassure and encourage our children, cutting through that negative loop so that they can overcome and push through their frustration over mistakes.

#1. “It’s okay if it doesn’t go perfectly. Every time you try you get better.“

#3. “You can try again. I’ll be right here cheering you on.”

#2. “That’s how we learn. When something goes wrong it teaches us what to do next time.”

When we reassure our children that mistakes are normal, that they are teaching moments, and that they are safe to learn and grow, we help them build resilience for life. These three simple phrases are like seeds of reassurance that we plant in our children’s hearts and minds that will grow with them as they become critical and creative thinkers. It is amazing what a big impact such small seeds can make.

If you’re struggling with toddler tantrums and behaviors like hitting and not listening, I have a free guide for you! It’s called the Tantrum and Behavior Guide: 7 Toddler Struggles and How to Solve Them Fast. Sign up for it here!

Hi! I’m Dabney, mom to three boys in three years! I found Heather through her podcast while searching for tools to help my own toddler’s aggressive outbursts and button pushing behaviors. Few voices in the parenting world address how to manage the intensity of these toddler behaviors when you have not just one but two or more children with you.

Enter Heather, an educator for ten years turned twin mom of two boys with stories and strategies that highlighted how to manage these hard moments while also being outnumbered. I participated in her Happy Toddler, Confident Parent Cohort and found her strategies simple and effective. Not only is my parenting better for it, but I am growing in my confidence along this journey collecting more tools along the way!