Taming the Toddlers on Your Team

by Lois Raats, Quill Contributor

The following article originally was published in The Kitchener Record and is being reprinted with the permission of Lois Raats. 

Ever been standing in line at the grocery store next to a toddler who's kicking and screaming? If you're like most people, you want to tell that mother what to do with her kid, and it wouldn't be a pretty sight!

Now it's one thing to be standing next to a toddler in the grocery store. At least you can leave the store if things don't settle down…

But what about working with a toddler? We're not talking about the kind of toddler who looks 2 years old, we're talking about the kind who acts 2 years old. Adult "Toddlers" can evoke pretty much the same feelings in their colleagues, employees, and co-workers as did that cantankerous kid in the grocery store: irritation, frustration, outrage, and, over the long term, anxiety and depression. 

Adult Toddlers are basically people who have never really grown up emotionally. Co-workers say they're "immature", relatives say they're "impossible", mental health professionals call them "character disordered", to teachers, they're "bullies". Basically, Toddlers tend to comprise the 20% of the workforce that creates 80% of the problems. 

Unfortunately, since Toddlers have often become highly skilled at manipulating people to get things done, workplaces often promote them…so you're just as likely to be working under a Toddler as working beside one. 

Okay, so you find yourself in close, long-term proximity to an adult Toddler. You can't "leave the grocery store" easily. Maybe there's a lot at stake, like your income, your professional standing – or your sanity! 

The first thing you need to do is understand with whom you're dealing. Toddlers have a number of unique characteristics that make them different from regular people. 

First of all, both big and little Toddlers are highly self-absorbed. They have difficulty seeing things from any perspective but their own. This can be improved through coaching – but only if the Toddler wants to change. 

Toddlers are grandiose - they have an inflated sense of what is possible for them, and an inflated sense of their own worth. Adults might take on impossible projects and then bully people to get them done. Or they might delude themselves that everyone loves them, when no one can stand them. 

Toddlers have poor impulse control. They do what pleases them at the moment, with no thought for the consequences. This gets them into no end of trouble. Poor impulse control in a meeting usually comes across as a tantrum of the yelling, swearing, name- calling variety. 

Toddlers have a poor sense of self, often feeling helpless or powerless inside. Studies have shown that internally, bullies often feel as weak as their prey, and victimize others out of this sense of oppression. Feeling powerless to relate at an equal level, they are always testing and manipulating others to see what they can get away with. 

So here are a few pointers to help you deal with the Toddlers on your team… 

1. Understand their emotional age – generally about 2 years old – and modify your own behaviour accordingly. Treat them firmly and fairly, and don't allow them to manipulate or bully you. Toddlers will understand limits, as long as they're enforced consistently and with confidence. 
2. Use "I-statements" when communicating with Toddlers. "You-statements" invariably cause insecure people to feel attacked or blamed, and they will defend themselves by attacking back. For example, it is more productive to say to a Toddler, "I am feeling annoyed that this happened", rather than "You idiot, how could you let this happen!" 
3. Don't take their craziness personally – they are more often the problem than you are. Don't spend your life allowing immature people to make you miserable. 
4. Mirror them. Mirroring simply means noticing the person and reflecting back what you are seeing or hearing. Both child and adult Toddlers deeply fear feeling unloved and abandoned. When you notice them, their anxiety goes down, and it is more often possible to reason with them. You can do this whether they're behaving well or poorly. Sentences beginning with "I'm noticing…", or "I'm hearing you say…", set you up to begin mirroring. 
5. Affirm them. Affirmation is a logical extension of mirroring. Once you have let the other person know that you have noticed or heard them, focus on their positive characteristics – even Toddlers have them. Toddlers have an amazing way of attracting and generating negative attention, unconsciously sensing that negative attention is better than none at all. Don't fall for this ploy. Keep your focus on the positive.

On the bright side…there can be many pluses to interacting with Toddlers. Some of life's most interesting lessons are learned through seeking to understand and relate to these people. The rules that Toddlers break often needed to be challenged by someone anyway. Toddlers can learn with practice. And when understood and accepted, and properly managed and coached, they can eventually come become valuable players on any team.

© 2004 Lois Raats 
MEd Meta Team Solutions

About Lois Raats

Over the last eighteen years, Lois Raats MED has helped over 2500 individuals and teams in both profit- and non-profit organizations to achieve results by leveraging their strengths and abilities. Lois combines deep insights with pragmatic tools and techniques to help people move forward in achievable and sustainable ways. She very quickly and incisively cuts through layers to get to the heart of the critical issues at hand.

In her spare time, Lois hangs out with friends, putters in the garden, reads novels, and works out at the gym.