The Social Antisocial Toddler

Something I’ve been experiencing with the whole owning a two-year-old human that confuses me greatly is the complete disregard for other two year old humans she seems to have.

Put two of them in a room, like we did yesterday with Maggie and her cousin Erik, and watch as they both play with separate toys, on opposite sides of the room, not interacting at all with each other.

This is, however, something both seemed to enjoy, and when confronted with a water toy they finally did, at hour two, look at each other and acknowledge each other’s existence.

There doesn’t seem to be any shyness, dislike, or anything negative there, just an “oh, you’re there, I’m going to go play with all these toys now.”

I’m not worried, it’s just something I didn’t expect. In her class there are a couple of the older kids who interact, but mostly it’s just a bunch of freakin’ goths playing with their toddler toys and listening to Morrissey, so everything seems to be pretty normal here.

I’ll see her pop out of the insane hyper focus occasionally. When her and her pal were on American Toddler Warrior she was acutely aware of other children and their accomplishments.

But generally it appears toddlers have little interest in people their own size and age. Maybe that’s just my circle. Maybe I’m expecting them to blab at each other constantly and their actual form of communication is “I like sitting in corners and playing with puzzle pieces,” “well I like knocking bowls of food off of the table,” “oh that’s dandy, have you ever pulled a cat’s tail like this?,” “why yes my good toddler, look at this wall, so devoid of handprints, it’s a travesty, someone should do something about it”…

Maybe I’m just attempting to impose my vocal-centric worldview on the short stacks, but it does make me feel sometimes like it would be easier on everyone involved to just throw a bunch of stuff on the floor and skip going to meet another toddler for anything.

I know nothing