It is not uncommon to hear someone refer to their baby (under 12 months of age) as a 'good' baby. This question leaves me wondering, 'what makes someone define a baby as good or bad?' Parents (or the ones using those descriptors) are often referring to the baby's sleep habits, responses to others, level of fussiness/crying, and what used to be referred to as how 'agreeable' they were. The challenge is that the perception of the baby's demeanor can affect attachment, attitudes, stress-level, and a parent's feelings, even as the child gets older. This starting point has lead me to often question what parents consider to be good or bad behaviors at different age ranges and how strongly or deeply these beliefs go. Are children good or bad or is it just a reference to behaviors? The beliefs that begin as a passing comment about a baby's temperament, habits, behaviors, and responses quickly transform into a parenting style or strategy. For a parent whose baby always seemed to be calm, content, and happy, it is not uncommon for them to say, 'he was such a good and easy baby' when the child enters toddlerhood and starts showing more of his own personality. Parents can feel quite blindsided or confused. However, even when parents/caregivers are not relating back to the time when their child was younger, the late infancy, toddler, and preschool stages can be quite a challenge not for the faint of heart. It is a time of such challenge that toddlers are often known to go through the 'terrible twos.' Ironically, many children make it through their second year of life with little discord or behavioral challenges. Just as parents breathe a sigh of relief believing they missed the storm, the terror of the 3rd year hits seemingly out of nowhere. Children from birth through age 6 are not experts at much of anything. They haven't really been in the game of life long enough to have points of reference, experience, let alone management over their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Children (all the way to age 6) are developing autonomy, they actually have difficulty seeing and understanding themselves outside of the context of their primary caregivers. The younger they are, the less of a capacity for understanding the concept of independent-individual human. As a society, we often expect too much out of them Now, more than ever, we live in a very confusing society filled with access to rapid firing of emotions on screens, disconnected parents/adults focused or preoccupied with work, their own challenges, adult worries, and attention given to devices. We are in a society where there is a lot of conflict and disregard for fellow adults and little tolerance for learning children. We can get what we want by the click of a button and get angry when it isn't at our doorstep in 24 hours or less. That goes for food, material products we need or don't need, prescriptions/medication, or services. It isn't wrong, it is just the way the world is moving now. I see so many things that are becoming harder and harder to distinguish between appropriate response given the way we navigate and interact in our daily living or atypical symptoms or behaviors, despite the ever-changing world. One thing that doesn't change, no matter what evolves in the world is our children's need for certain levels of care and attention, as well as the fact there are expected developmentally- and age-appropriate expectations and milestones. A young child's behavioral and emotional response can happen for a number of reasons. The most significant reason is that very young children have rapid cycling of emotions, often feeling them for the first time without any language, points-of-reference, understanding, or strategies to manage them. I can't imagine, now as an adult, experiencing an overpowering and new emotion, especially due to fear, distress, profound sadness, or confusion and having those surrounding me getting angry, frustrated, and critical. I point out the adult perspective because most of us respond to hurt adults with compassion, empathy, or understanding unless we simply don't know how to respond. However, the reaction is still rarely anger or frustration. With young children, there are indeed times that they know very well what they are doing or are testing the waters. It's actually the job of a healthy developing toddler to predictably engage in certain behaviors at certain periods of development. That doesn't mean that all children will or there are problems with the child or parenting if a child doesn't, but it is to explain that even the best behaved children can turn into a seemingly different child or have a sudden lapse in predictable behavior. That's why it is strongly recommended that young children are constantly closely supervised because we don't know when the toddler who never put things in her mouth will suddenly decide to eat something toxic. Toddlers are not masters of impulse control. Typically if they don't engage in a certain behavior, there is either no desire to do so or it didn't occur to them. In other words, sometimes just not showing a young child that a certain option exists can be the very reason they don't do it.  The adventurous, daring, boundary-testing toddler tends to have a lot of ideas occur to them. The earlier we can start appraising behaviors that appear to be a challenge as a strength and finding ways to positively use them, the sooner we can get ahead of those that might otherwise be an ongoing challenge. This blog series is going to focus on true tantrums, meltdowns, and testing the water behaviors in infants, toddlers, and preshoolers. The aim is to help parents and caregivers better understand the important differences because response matters. I will discuss 'typical' behaviors, what to watch for, and behaviors that should be assessed and when to get more support. My blog title, it's not always a tantrum, is a critical part in understanding that our toddlers aren't doing things 'to us,' but are engaged in an important time in their development. Not everything is a tantrum--meltdowns and tantrums have very different implications. While it is beyond the scope of this posting to describe he nuances of tantrums, meltdowns, and the cause and effect tantrum and how exactly to respond, I will dive into that more in-depth in my coming blogs. I look forward to offering blogs with information and insight, organized in series so that you can more easily stay informed on the topics that matter most to you.