Melissa's Place

Vocabulary

Our neighbour, Karen, told us this story about when her son, Mack, was just two and a half years old. Apparently, his younger baby brother was just learning to crawl and was always getting in his way. So Mack bit him.

Well, Karen was beside herself. She didn't know how to discipline a toddler. So she phoned her mother. Her mother said that you can always talk to a toddler and explain why it's wrong to bite someone else, even if you THINK they don't have the vocabulary to understand, they sometimes understand more than you'd think.

So Karen remembers sitting down with Mack and explaining in the simplest language she could use that it is not okay to bite other people, even if they make you upset and even if they are in your way. It is alright to be angry, but you cannot bite your brother. Karen wondered whether Mack understood this concept or whether the vocabulary was, indeed, beyond his grasp.

A few days later, Karen was working at her desk in the living room and she heard Mack playing around the corner from her. In his sing-song voice, she heard him chirp, "Uh Oh! The backhoe has a broken hydraulic cylinder!"