How your toddler learns boundaries

When your toddler tests limits over and over, they aren’t  ignoring you—it’s how they understand and internalize new rules. Support their learning by modeling what you hope they’ll do and redirecting them to a new activity when necessary.

In this post:

• Article: Why to set limits with your toddler, even when it’s hard
• Article: Are they testing limits or just exploring?
• Activity: Learning to aim and throw with intention
• Ask & Learn: No matter how many times I say, ‘No,’ my toddler keeps playing with outlets and toilet paper. Help!

Why to set limits with your toddler, even when it’s hard

Your toddler needs clear, consistent limits and boundaries to learn your expectations for their behavior. But when they continue to climb on the coffee table even after you’ve told them to stop, you may wonder what you’re doing wrong or feel yourself start to lose your cool. In those difficult moments, try to pause and reflect on a few basic truths.

3 key things to remember when your toddler tests limits

1. Your toddler is doing exactly what they’re supposed to do

As frustrating as it can be, limit testing is a really important part of your child’s social-emotional and cognitive development. They’re exploring their autonomy and learning what’s safe and acceptable.

Every toddler tests limits, some more than others. If your toddler cries, screams, or pushes you away when you maintain a boundary, remember that their anger and frustration aren’t really about you, even if it feels that way in the moment. 

2. They’re going to keep testing

To understand and abide by a limit, your child needs executive functioning skills, like impulse control and attention shifting. Developing these skills will take years as their prefrontal cortex matures. For now, keep this in mind: 

• Your toddler needs to test limits, push boundaries, and break rules over and over again in order to understand and learn from them.
• Because your toddler can’t immediately generalize what they know from one situation to another, they may start to learn the limit at home but still try to climb on the coffee table at their grandparents’ house.

3. Offering acceptable alternatives may work—or not

When you help your toddler off the coffee table and say, “This isn’t a safe place to climb, but let’s build a couch cushion tower that you can climb,” you set a clear boundary while giving them a way to practice their developing skills. If your child gets upset, it’s a chance for them to practice regulating their feelings with your help. Modeling how to stay calm and being there to offer support helps your toddler learn how to manage their emotions.

Boundaries vary from family to family. What’s important is what matters to you ❤️

Are they testing limits or just exploring?

Your toddler likely didn’t unwind that roll of toilet paper or try to climb a bookshelf to provoke a reaction from you. At this stage, they are fascinated with exploring their environment and learning through trial and error. They don’t yet have an understanding of danger and aren’t fazed by messiness. In fact, many toddlers are drawn to “destructive play”—actions that topple, tear, break, or make a mess of something.

What is accidental limit testing?

Accidental limit testing refers to behaviors that may bother you, but your toddler doesn’t yet know are a problem. Common examples include throwing toys or rocks, opening “off-limits” cabinets and drawers, unrolling toilet paper, and playing with your phone. 

How to prepare for this behavior

Create safe spaces for exploration. Because your toddler learns best when they have freedom to explore, safety is key. Designate some childproofed spaces in your home where they can touch, grab, open, close, and knock over whatever they want without constant correction.

Pick your battles. Everyone has a different tolerance for messiness and disorder. As much as possible, when your child isn’t engaging in anything dangerous, consider letting them keep going, even if it involves more cleanup later. The benefits of sensory and real-life exploration are vast, and your child will be less likely to become immune to the word “no.”

How to react when your toddler tests limits

Try to stay calm. Unless your child is in immediate danger (or they’re going to cause damage to something or someone), try to maintain an even-keeled voice and demeanor. Get down to their level and redirect them to a new activity with short, precise language: “all done” or “it’s closed” work well.

Reserve “No!” and a loud voice for real danger. If you show a big reaction to something that isn’t dangerous, you run the risk of watering down the words “no” and “stop.” If your child reaches for something hot, opens a drawer of dangerous items, or is otherwise doing something that needs to stop immediately, give a firm “no!” and swiftly move them away from danger without dwelling on it.

Stay with them after a redirection. After you’ve moved them away, your child may protest. They will be much more likely to buy into a new, safer activity if you stay and play with them for a couple of minutes.

Remember that it takes time. The urge to keep going with something interesting is much stronger than the urge to stop, so each action will take repeated corrections to stick. Also, your child isn’t yet ready to transfer knowledge from one situation to another. For example, when they begin to learn not to unroll toilet paper in the bathroom, they won’t know that the same rule applies to paper towels in the kitchen.

Teach your child it’s okay to throw soft toys at the couch.

Learning to aim and throw with intention

If your toddler is in a throwing phase, they may hurl food off of their plate and drop their cup to see what happens. This is a good time to teach them what’s okay to throw and how to do it with intention. Give them a soft plaything, like one of the Bunnies from the Felt Burrow, and teach them to throw both underhand and overhand and aim to hit a target, like the sofa. 

What parents are asking our experts…

“No matter how many times I say, ‘No,’ my toddler keeps playing with outlets and toilet paper. Help!”

Answer:

In early toddlerhood, play is often risky and destructive. Your child may discover that there’s an outlet in every room—a spot where the smooth wall changes and the variation beckons. Unrolling the toilet paper roll every chance they get is fascinating.  This is called accidental limit-testing—developmentally appropriate behaviors that drive you bonkers but don’t phase your child. Even if they pause when you say “No,” it will only be momentary. Your toddler is too young to control their impulses.  Showing them things they can play with and accepting the mess if your child’s behavior isn’t dangerous are two strategies that may help. Note that there are often elements of cause and effect learning built into accidental limit-testing—your toddler may try something again and again to see if your reaction remains the same.

Answered by:

Keep Exploring:

• The power of doing something over and over
• Starting to talk about the potty
• Helping your child develop good coping skills

Learn more about the research:

Crockenberg, S., & Litman, C. (1990). Autonomy as competence in 2-year-olds: Maternal correlates of child defiance, compliance, and self-assertion. Developmental Psychology, 26(6), 961-971.

Juffer, F., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2017). Pairing attachment theory and social learning theory in video-feedback intervention to promote positive parenting. Current Opinion in Psychology, 15, 189-194.

Kochanska, G. (1994). Beyond cognition: Expanding the search for the early roots of internalization and conscience. Developmental Psychology, 30, 20–22.

Smith, C. L., Calkins, S. D., Keane, S. P., Anastopoulos, A. D., & Shelton, T. L. (2004). Predicting stability and change in toddler behavior problems: contributions of maternal behavior and child gender. Developmental Psychology, 40(1), 29-42.