Never chase a toddler!

I had a conversation with a young mum recently who said she was having trouble with her 1 yo running from her and laughing, wanting to be chased. We talked for a bit and I conveyed my reasons against it.

When my kids were small, good behaviour was very important. Manners, no tantrums and first time obedience was what I strived for.

I didn’t alway get it but I was consistent in trying. Chasing my toddlers never made any sense. A one or two year old cannot distinguish between mummy chasing  for fun or mummy chasing to grab him/her from the path of a car in the parking lot. How can you make a game of it one day and then get angry when they run away in a dangerous situation the next! You can’t right? Case in point 🙂

Chasing games were for other fun people. We had plenty of games but I NEVER chased! Something I did play was the go, stop game. We would be walking along and I would say go and give them a little distance and call stop. The object was obviously to make sure the automatic response to ‘stop’ was to comply, no matter what they were doing or how far away they got. It was a fun game and they didn’t even realising I was training them for safety.

I have walked with friends over the years with my children and theirs and have been freaked out the entire time with children going wild everywhere and not listening and getting very close to dangerous situations. I had to stop doing it actually and say I’ll meet you there because I couldn’t handle the perilous situation I had no control over. My kids always stayed close and walked properly in the street because it’s what we did and what was expected.

Of course I know there are friends reading this post saying to themselves “Ah, now I understand”. I wasn’t able to control the situation and feared the worst so I just removed myself and adopted some sage advise from my mum-NMP (not my problem).

However I always prayed for safe arrivals. So far they have been answered.

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