Tips on aiding toddler understanding.

[HJBeans]

I have a lovely, talkative 2.5 yo DS who for the past weeks has clearly been trying to suss how time works. He keeps asking / stating which things happened 'lasterday' and is asking things like 'later or soon' when trying to separate past from future events. Also very focused on 'after X weeks' & 'after my long sleep' at the moment as we wait for the arrival of his brother. He's not making much progress understanding time or sequencing though he's clearly really keen to. Any ideas or tips for this?

More importantly, he's also begun volunteering information about things he's done wrong when we snuggle before bed and talk about what happened in the day. Ie "I hit Jaime at nursery". Talked about why "because I wanted the ball", what happened next (was told off and said sorry), and finished with why it's never ok to hit but I was proud he'd said sorry. We tend to skip over misbehaviour in our end of day summaries but this has happened a couple of times now. It's clearly sinking in that some things are wrong and I'm pleased he wants to talk about it, so want to encourage him to without him feeling hung up on what he does wrong.

He's too young to grasp the concept of time. So don't correct him, just model correct speech and he will get there.

Re the misbehaviour, we talk about a) how the other person would feel and b) better ways of doing something. Again this helps.

Although we have a wall planner up which helps with count downs! It visualises things. But with the arrival of a baby I would not talk about it much unless he does because it can make it difficult for your toddler as they get wound up about it for a long time. To you it is a huge deal but to him it isn't the same.

If you can find SAFE clocks in a charity shop or 'car boot' sale, to let him play with (whether or not they work) he may be able to turn knobs to make hands move, and although he won't 'understand' time yet, he will enjoy playing at it.

Amazon have a 'clock kit' I think - I'll come back if I can find it.

I suppose a calendar with space to write or draw on, or a diary (which you may find reduced, now we are nearly three months in) you could mark events or special occasions on for him.