Young toddlers are so fascinating when it comes to movement. As soon as they start to do something, they have to do it bigger, harder, and faster. Maria Montessori observed this phenomenon and talked about the importance of allowing toddlers to reach maximum effort. It's not that your toddler just loves to move, they need to exert themselves fully, testing out new skills and pushing the physical limits.
Now that Teddy has mastered the skill of walking, it's time for this same maximum effort work to begin. As a fairly new walker, Teddy has one thing on his mind - pushing, pulling, and carrying all the things.
It's super interesting to observe because I feel like half the time he likes to carry something around to help him balance, and the other half I think he likes it cause it makes it harder to balance. I just love this age. But, anything Teddy can carry, push, or pull, he is into it! In fact, he spends most of his day doing just that!
Thankfully, these needs are really easy to meet and don't require a ton of extra preparation. While he does like our push toy, most of what he is pushing, pulling and hauling are just practical life tools we have around our house. Our small Swiffer and our children's rake our the top favorites this week.
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Here's a few of the options Teddy has around our house:
Plan Toys Push Toy | Small Rake | Small Broom | Swiffer (just remove the middle bar) | Small Stool | Bucket | Walker Wagon
But, more importantly, he just needs me to let him push, pull, and carry. Toddlers are so good at finding what they need. All we need to do as the adult is make sure we have a couple things in our environment, open space for him to move around, and lots of time outdoors. I guess that Teddy will be super into this play for awhile, and I will super enjoy watching all the ways he finds to meet his maximum effort and gross motor needs.
So, if you see your toddler always wants your broom, or is pushing all the things - go with it!
