The good habits can nourish and the bad ones can be abounded, however this is only possible when parents are able to set themselves as a strong example to be followed and learn to stay patient and work consistently with their toddlers until they get ready to adopt good behavior.

Genetics play a role diffidently but environment proven itself as a bigger contributor. It can’t be one of them but moving forward in life, the surroundings and environment shapes most of their behavior. Children never learn dos and don’ts only by telling; rather most of their learning is based on observation.

The genetics play a role and shapes up some behavior which is exhibited by a child right after birth. For example, some babies have good sleeping habits, are sweet and calm, don’t bother parents much whereas others have disturbing sleeping cycles, are noisy and cranky and annoy their parents with as much mess as they can possibly do. This mostly is observed that such habits are natural and may therefore be linked to genes.

The environment start playing its role normally after one year of age, as after one year babies are able to move around on their own and start learning through their own observation. Have you ever seen a boy talking like girls or a girl taking like boys? This is common with young toddlers. In a house dominated with females or a boy with elder sister would adopt a female expression of talking. He would explain himself as a girl because he learns that as way of communication. Similarly a girl with elder brother would most probably copy her brother’s way of expression. Reason for this is that at this early age, they can’t differentiate the use of pronouns for different genders. This basic example is actually to show how strongly surrounding and environment impact toddler’s behavior.

Parents therefore have a strong role to provide right kind of learning environment to their toddlers. It is not possible as well as practical to make a list of good and bad habits, make them learn those and then expect them to follow the same because understanding of good or bad comes much later with earliest possible time is around 5 years or the school age. So with toddlers we need to accept a fact that they actually have “no sense” at all. They like to explore everything around them. Therefore all is good for them. They learn through observation so expect them lying if they would see others around them lying in front of them. They would be messy if the house is messy and this can be applied to all their learning from their surroundings.

The good habits can nourish and the bad ones can be abounded, however this is only possible when parents are able to set themselves as a good example to be followed and learn to stay patient and work consistently with their toddlers until they get ready to adopt good behavior.  Parents need to create a positive environment by providing them safe opportunities to explore around, encouraging and rewarding their good behavior and making them practice good habits e.g., tidy up after play time, regular brushing, changing before bed time, washing hands before and after meal etc. However never punish bad behavior or what you find against the rules. In their world nothing is bad so punishment wouldn’t give any positive benefit. It would rather make them frustrated because their little minds would take it as a bad behavior towards them for sake of nothing and they may become aggressive in response. There are alternate ways to divert their attention from what is bad for them and engage them in some other positive thing.

Remember they need your attention and when they know you are engaged with them, they will happily stop doing what they are not supposed to do to what you like them to do.