Tips for writing toddlers:
Here's a few things that have helped me write toddlers more accurately!
1- Questions.
Toddlers (2-4) and children (5 and 6) ask a LOT of questions, so many that it becomes insufferable. It's easy to fall into the trap of making their questions seem annoying or uneccesary, but this is not an accurate deception of a toddler.
Toddlers show one of humans most natural traits, which is curiousity. We are always curious, we always have been, that's how we've come this far, and how we'll keep going.
Toddlers don't ask questions to annoy you, while this may be the case for older kids, toddlers have not yet developed the emotional maturity to actively want to bother people.
So while yes, you can and should make the toddler character's questions ridiculous, never make them downright stupid.
Always make sure that there is some thought process behind why a question is asked, that there is something the toddler wants to understand, no matter how insignificant it seems.
The questions are insignificant to adult characters, but to toddlers they are great scientific discoveries they are embarking on.
2- Speaking.
Your average toddler will not be forming full coherent sentences, so absolutely do not leave it up to them to make important revelations in your story.
Unless you are willing to take up a page or two of an adult character deciphering what they're saying.
Another important detail for writing how toddlers speak is that they are still learning how naming works, they will generally refer to things and people by their most distinguishable trait, no matter how rude it may come off.
3- Sharing information.
A continuation to my 2nd point, toddlers are simply not good at sharing information. Even if they are more developed than others their age when it comes to speaking, they just don't know what information is and isn't necessary for telling a story.
Think of yourself telling your friend a story, you generally want to give your friend an overview of where you were, your mood, who you were with, and what happened. You probably wouldn't bring up what you had for breakfast that morning unless it's relevant to the story.
Toddlers don't yet have the ability to know what is and isn't relevant, so again, don't have your toddler innocently remember details that will change a character's perspective on life.
4- Attention.
If my ten year old sister can't focus when I'm scolding her for more than 5 minutes, your toddler character certainly cannot focus for more than two.
This point supports my 3rd, toddlers don't know what information is and isn't relevant, this applies to sharing and receiving information. You have their full attention for a few seconds, and it gradually goes downhill after that until they're throwing a temper tantrum to be let go.
5- Personality.
I like to think that babies have distinct interests, and when they're toddlers they build personalities based off of those interests.
Your toddler is not gonna be able to distinguish personalities, they will assume that everyone thinks the way they think, and feels the way they feel.
This applies to humans in general imo, but it's especially true in toddlers.
6- Empathy and sympathy.
For this next point I will refer to empathy as simply feeling what others are feeling, and sympathy as being able to apply that feeling into comforting people.
There are few conditions where a human doesn't feel empathy, psychopathy being one of them, but generally your toddler will feel empathy for others.
Not just other humans, but animals and maybe objects as well.
Empathy is a strong feeling, and you need to learn (yes, learn) sympathy to know how to deal with it. Toddlers are empathetic, as humans are naturally, but not sympathetic.
If one of their parents is crying or stubs their toe, the toddler will feel upset and not understand why, which could result in a tantrum. I will dive deeper into tantrums a little later in this post.
But keep in mind that our empathy develops as we age and mature, so toddlers are not fully empathetic, they just have the stepping stones to empathy.
Which is essentially just: this person got hurt, if that happened to me i would feel sad, now i feel sad because that person is hurt.
Toddlers will generally only feel empathy for pains that they have felt, because they can not yet comprehend hypothetical scenarios. So if a toddler is dealing with a pregnant woman for example, they may seem apathetic, only because they don't understand what that feels like.
7- Intelligence.
It's not unlikely for a toddler to show high levels of intelligence, but remember that an intelligent toddler is still a toddler at the end of the day.
Their intelligence may inflate their little ego, but it won't make them act more mature.
8- Tantrums.
Toddlers are known for throwing temper tantrums, and you likely won't be able to avoid writing one if your toddler character appears frequently in your work.
Unlike tantrums babies throw, toddler temper tantrums aren't done out of necessity.
Well, they kind of are, but they are done out of a necessity that adults can't comprehend.
Babies really only cry when they feel something bad, something that is unlike their natural blob-like state.
Hunger, thirst, tiredness, a full diaper, or a need to burp, you get my point.
Toddlers are similar to babies in this, except what they view as a necessity is not always necessary for their survival. A toddler probably wouldn't cry for any of the above reasons, they wouldn't cry to alert you, because they will probably have a better method of communicating those basic needs to you.
Unlike babies, toddlers have emotions that they can kind of decipher, your average toddler will be able to connect a reason for their emotion, unlike a baby who is only crying out of instinct.
So essentially, toddlers are seasoned babies. They do cry out of necessity just like babies, but their reasons are much more personal to them rather than to evolution.
Your toddler will tell you when their hungry, but if you offend them with the wrong colored plate they will scream at you to change it.
Because in their mind, this isn't the plate I wanted, I'm sad because this isn't the plate I wanted, I want the plate I wanted not this plate.
That's their thought process for most temper tantrums.
Another common reason for tantrums is just that they have no control of their life, and to an extent they're aware of it. Normally the parent chooses when they sleep, when they wake up, what they eat, when they drink, when they go out, what they wear. And these are all completely normal things, but it does get overwhelming, especially for mini humans who just discovered that there are emotions and feelings aside from the ones they need for survival.
So toddlers, like babies, only cry when they feel something bad. But the difference is they have more complex emotions, so a lot can feel bad, sometimes all at once, and they are yet to learn how to handle their emotions aside from crying.
So, don't make your toddler character's temper tantrums random, there is always a reason behind it, there is always a reason behind misbehavior.
I'll end this post off by stating that toddler behavior is almost never random, they are about as random as your average adult, what makes them seem random is the fact that their thought process is disguised beneath layers of tantrums and endless questions.
The most accurate way to write a toddler character is to just try to think as a toddler for a few seconds, it's much simpler than it sounds, and will give you a more realistic deception of a toddler. And you should always aim for realistic deceptions of age groups, especially when it comes to younger children, because this adds a layer of depth to your story.
The final thing I'll leave you with is advice. There are parents everywhere, if you want to understand how to better describe toddlers, just ask mothers and fathers who have/had toddlers, they'll likely offer you a perspective you never considered before.
Something I personally love to do when I write toddlers is read the scene to my mother, this helps me point out dialouge and internal monologue that is too complex for a toddler.
This turned into an information sharing post rather than a tip post, but that's mainly because I can't tell you exactly how to write a toddler, but I sure as hell can tell you what to avoid when writing one.
I'm in no way a psychologist or a child specialist, a lot of the tips I've given are observations I've made from remembering when my younger sister was a toddler, and just interacting with toddlers in other enviroments, as well as writing toddlers myself.
Expect more posts regarding writing children in the future ^^
Maybe some of this advice will help, maybe it won't, either way, I hope this feline has enlightened you!
