10 Tips to Entertaining Your Toddler

How to Make the Most of One-on-One Time with Your Toddler

By Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D.

OK, the older kids are at camp and you’re at home alone with your toddler, who is demanding your 100-percent attention and entertainment.

Oh the ecstasy! Finally you and your youngest child get some time alone.

Oh the agony! What are you going to do all day with this nonstop bundle of energy?!

Here are some tips for keeping both of you happy. Along the way, you may even do something more constructive than screaming and pulling out your hair. Namely, helping your toddler develop all those social, emotional and cognitive skills that you somehow had all the time in the world for with your oldest, but never seem to get around to doing with your younger one. Spending the day with your toddler might also give you greater appreciation for your older children for all the time they spent entertaining their younger siblings. Maybe they weren’t actually fighting and fussing all the time!