Two-year-olds: Child Behaviour - Tune in

The two-year-olds arriving in our settings on funded places will in many ways be typical two-year-olds. They will be beginning to show a strong awareness of themselves as individuals, striving for independence through their words and actions.

They can be stridently self-reliant one minute but clingy and dependent the next. They follow their impulses and can move fast when they want to, with seemingly endless energy, but might still need a nap during the day. They become easily frustrated when their desires are thwarted or when they can't express themselves, and although they like the company of other children they aren't ready to share their toys or the attention of carers.

Their brains have just gone through perhaps the most dynamic period of growth in response to the external stimuli of their home and family environment. The love and nurture they receive and experience around them, the talk and communication they are exposed to, the opportunities they have for healthy movement and play are as fundamentally important to brain growth as their physical care.

From the very first moment, brain architecture is linked to sensory experiences because of the neural pathways that develop as a result of sensory stimulation. However, in the first two years of life, as Maria Robinson reminds us, the downside is 'that brain function is also more vulnerable to all types of adversity during this period, including both underand over-stimulation'.

This matters because 'the human brain optimally survives and builds on a continuous stream of information from both body and environment, but too much or too little information can cause stress in one form or another' (Robinson 2010).

EARLY EXPERIENCES

The reality for some of our children on funded places is that their early experiences and family circumstances may not provide 'typical' stimulation - both overand under-stimulation can cause trauma to the brain. Their bodies and brains will already be storing responses to the resulting stress. Their neural pathways and the way their brains are shaping will have already adapted to the environment in which they find themselves.

But it has to be remembered that particularly as the categories for funding grow wider, referral may not automatically imply that the child's development will be 'atypical' or that they will present behavioural or learning challenges. Being the child of a family on income support is not an indicator in itself of a challenging home environment, nor does a child from a travelling family (for example) automatically come with a prescribed set of challenging needs.

This is why it is important to gather, right from the start, as much meaningful information as we can about the child's development so far. Along with their likes and dislikes, their sleeping and feeding patterns, we need to know as much as possible about their physical and sensory development, their temperament, how they cope in different situations, the things that cause them distress and the best ways to soothe them.

STRESS

A stressful environment for a baby or young child is one that doesn't take their needs into consideration. An over-stimulating environment might be one where there is lots of noise, ever-present loud TVs, frequent arguing or even violence. But it could also be a home where routines such as sleeping and feeding are driven by the needs of the adults - for example, where a child is left to cry themselves to sleep or where parents' rush to have their child reach developmental milestones ignores the child's natural pace of development. In either case, the baby might receive attention but it will often be inappropriate and at times that don't respond to the baby's own rhythms for rest and quiet or interaction and alertness.

An under-stimulating environment is one where the baby receives little loving attention, nurture or warm responses to their attempts to engage with their environment. A lack of loving touch, in particular, can have devastating effects on the child's sensory and emotional development.

This is not always deliberate on the parent's part. Post-natal depression, for example, can have a profound impact on a carer's ability to interact and respond appropriately to their child. As a result of parental instability, some babies and young children may even experience a chaotic environment with both overand under-stimulation. In these stressful situations, unnatural levels of the stress hormone cortisol are present and can cause lasting damage to the body and the brain.

TRANSITION

So, the two-year-olds arriving in settings on funded places are potentially experiencing stress in their home environments as well as the potentially overwhelming stress of transition to a new environment.

It is easy to think that coming from a stressful environment into a setting that is safe and geared up to meet the needs of small children would reduce the child's stress levels, and it may well do in the long term. But in the short term, there appears to be evidence that babies and young children will have already laid down neural and developmental pathways that help them to survive their stressful, chaotic or insecure early environments, maybe even before they are born (such as in Welberg and Seckl, 2001).

For example, the child who receives little attention may learn to do without it, making few demands and no longer crying to seek attention. But they might pick their skin, bang their head, bite or talk to themselves.

On the other hand, the child who lives with a high level of stimulation might be very agitated and permanently 'on guard', ready to respond to threat. Conversely, their cortisol levels might have stabilised below normal so that they are slow to respond and seemingly hard to stimulate.

These adaptive behaviours 'work' for the child in their home environments, but are not so useful in other more 'benign' environments, such as a nurturing childminder's or a caring nursery setting (Ayoub and Rappolt-Schlichtmann, 2010). If the stress is not recognised, the behaviours might escalate - after all, they are all the child knows and it is what they do to keep themselves safe - and could be misjudged as naughty, bullying or manipulative.

The transition to care outside the home is threatening to all children at this age. This is when their separation distress system kicks in so as to ensure that their primary attachment figures stay close and don't abandon them. A typical two-year-old will not take kindly to being left with someone they don't know, and quite rightly too. It is less typical at this age to not react and to go happily off with a stranger without tears, clingy behaviour or a tantrum. Over-compliance can be a sign that the child is internalising the stress of transition and needs just as much attention as if they were overtly asking for help to cope.

TANTRUMS

Tantrums or 'intense storms of feeling', as Margot Sunderland describes them, are also typical of all two-year-olds. There are two kinds, the ones that stem from distress and those that are driven by frustration. 'Typical' two-year-olds will respond well to calm, unfazed adults who show the child they are not alarmed and are ready to soothe or 'repair' when the child is ready.

A tantrum that is well handled is not just 'survived' by adult and child, it can actually take the relationship forward. The adult is not just reaffirming boundaries, but is also reaffirming the unconditional regard that they have for the child even when the intensity of the child's feelings threaten to overwhelm everybody. The bond of relationship is strengthened by the 'repair'.

ATYPICAL?

Some two-year-olds, however, will not have experienced such consistent and reliable responses and although the tantrum may look 'typical' it may last longer, be more frequent or more extreme for some children, reflecting not their wilfulness, but their overwhelming fear and insecurity.

This is perhaps the essence of 'typical' and 'atypical 'behaviour at this age. We might think, 'Oh, they all do that', which is true, but we need to be aware of those two-year-olds desperately trying to communicate their vulnerability to us by doing it longer, more frequently or in a much more extreme way than the rest. And that includes not doing it.

The two-year-olds who never have tantrums may have already learnt to shield their feelings from those around them. These children will need careful monitoring to assess their development and strong multi-agency partnerships to ensure their safeguarding and welfare.

Regardless of Government agendas for earlier education, if we are to provide these children with what they need, we must be mindful of the important role we play in providing security and attachment.

All of them will require an abundance of sensitive, personalised attention from 'tuned-in' carers able to judge exactly the degree of sensory and social stimulus these two-year-olds can tolerate. That way, they will not in a permanent state of 'overwhelm' and can make the most of their new experiences.

MORE INFORMATION

Child Development: an illustrated guide by Carolyn Meggitt, 2006, Heinemann

'Prenatal stress, glucocorticoids and the programming of the brain' by L Welberg and J Seckl (2001) in the Journal of Neuroendocrinology, 13(2), cited in the chapter 'Child Maltreatment and the Development of Alternate Pathways in Biology and Behaviour' By Catherine C Ayoub and Gabrielle Rappolt-Schlichtmann in Human Behaviour, Learning and the Developing Brain: atypical development ed Donna Coch, Geraldine Dawson, Kurt W Fischer, 2010, The Guilford Press

The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland, 2008, Dorling Kindersley

Understanding Behaviour and Development in Early Childhood by Maria Robinson (Routledge)

'What to do if you are worried a child is being abused - summary'