There was a fun article in the New York Times the other day; once I spotted the headline (Coping With the Caveman in the Crib), I knew I had to read it. The piece focused on a pediatrician who has written a book on how to best handle and communicate with toddlers. From the text: “In his view, toddlers are not just small people. In fact, for all practical purposes, they’re not even small Homo sapiens… Dr. Karp notes that in terms of brain development, a toddler is primitive, an emotion-driven, instinctive creature that has yet to develop the thinking skills that define modern humans. Logic and persuasion, common tools of modern parenting, ‘are meaningless to a Neanderthal,’ Dr. Karp says.”

I’ve never really thought of Zoe as a cavewomen, but I guess given that her main forms of communication are grunting, pointing and talking in what this doctor terms “toddler-ese,” it makes a bit of sense. I think we should buy this guy’s book! Or maybe just start grunting back at her…

-M

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 1:56 pm and is filed under 17.Fourteen to 15 months. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.