Evening star., 1942-12-16
Each Day a New
Experience to
TWo>Year Old
He Must Learn to-
Accept World and
Those In 1t
Bv Leffice Lee Street,

Will you think back for moment
and try to recall your childhood i'm
preston of the house you first re-
member having lived in? Picture
it either inside or out. Does 1t re-
turn to your minds eye as being
very large and spacious, with rooms
as long as bathrooms, in which were
mysterious recesses and giant-slzed
furniture? Think of the bannister
on the front porch, the steps, or the
gate at the end of the walk. Don't
they all appear massive?
A friend of mine lost her father
when she was d. She dimly re-
members him. The other day she
said, Dad was big man, we'll over
feet"
why, Alice!" her mother eX-
claimed. Your father was short,
emily an inch taller than I am"
I am going into all this with a
purpose, because 1 want you to get
/ little child's point of view so that
lou can understand how battling
the world must seem when regarded
from the wide eyes of 2-year-old,
Ind how surprising its unreason-
able and often grotesque inhabi-
tants must appear.
We expect things to look as they
DO, people to behave as they do,
machinery to operate as 1t does,
But new sounds, objects, acts, words,
rolors and people are continually
bursting upon a tiny chllds con-
sciousness with a suddenness that
Is confusing and frightening. 1t is
all a new world to the 2-year-old.
Think how huge We must seem to
the toddler! Just as though you, an
adult, were the only normal-Sized
person In a tremendous house filled
with gruff giants who had colossal
hands and feet, ate with shOvels and
pick axes and strode, laundering,
up steps with risers feet tall.
Maybe the Goliathlike appear
ance of everything and every one
around them is one reason small
people seem to crave and cherish
small, cuddly toys, or even better,
small, live animals. Little children
love any living thing that is smaller
and more helpless than they.
In his second year child absorbs
an enormous amount of knowledge,
far more than we do in the same
number of months. unless we are
studying a subject intensely. He is
gradually learning to accept the
world as it is, not to try to change
1t or argue with the inconsistent
actions of those in it.
He will have Setbacks from time
to time when he will go through
periods of negativism. weeks when
he will be rebellious, unwilling. stub
born and so on. These are just
mental growing pains. Taken as
a whole, he will. if he is normal
child, progress steadily during his
second year.
Mothers should realize what a
great difference there is in babies.
I have prepared here bare outline
of what the average 2-year-old can
accomplish, but mother reading
1t should remember that her baby
Is a little individual with his own
obvious personality, tastes and de-
gree of development both inwardly
and outwardly.
A 2-year-old child who is happy
and healthy-runs, walks up and
down stsirs. obeys simple orders,
such rs to walk backward; will imi-
tate an easy motion, such as waving
the hand, touching the forehead: re-
peats simple words initiates vertical
and horizontal strokes, makes a
block tower with six blocks, recog-
nizes himself in the mirror.
These are the requisites of the
normal 2-year-old. Other accom-
plishments may be noticed according
TO the temperament Of the child,
but he should not be forced and be-
Valdered to efforts beyond his yearA