Oh Crap! I Have a Toddler: Tacking These Crazy Awesome Years—No Time-Outs Needed

Potty training guru Glowacki (Oh Crap! Potty Training) brings a pragmatic attitude and plenty of experience with the two-to-four-year-old set to her useful guide to setting one’s child up to be “the best kid they can be.” Feeling modern parents are pushed into “going above our kids’ developmental limits in some areas and not challenging them nearly enough in others,” Glowacki directs them toward a “governing” approach, based around setting strong boundaries to make toddlers feel psychologically safe while they develop their own individual personalities. To contextualize disruptive and defiant behavior, Glowacki observes it’s a child’s “developmental job” to offer pushback against parental control, testing limits and thereby figuring out who’s in charge—hopefully, the parents. She advises against focusing on early formal academics, in favor of developing life skills, and against disciplining via time-outs and empty threats of “ginormous things you have no intention of doing,” in favor of setting reasonable but real consequences for misbehavior. Glowaski’s humor, aimed toward presenting herself as irreverent and relatable, falls flat (“Time-outs suck”). But her intuitive insights into toddler behavior, and skill in pulling practicable takeaways from these insights, make her manual well worth any frazzled parents’ time. Agent: Allison Hunter, Janklow & Nesbit. (June)