77 parenting decisions for the toddler and preschool years

Whether your child will see you disagree, and how: never, calmly with a visible resolution, or without a filter.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

Your theory of how children learn to behave: through rewards and consequences, through a mix, or through the relationship and teaching skills.

3 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

How much you protect your child from difficulty and risk versus how much you let them try, struggle and sometimes fail on their own.

4 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

Where your child sleeps once they are past infancy: their own room, a room shared with a sibling, or your bed, and whether they may come into yours at night.

4 options · Your call · Toddler

How firm bedtime is: a fixed early time and routine, a flexible window, or letting the child decide when they are tired.

3 options · Well established · Toddler

Whether you would ever spank or hit a child as discipline, from never to occasionally to routinely.

4 options · Well established · Toddler

How you respond when a child is out of control: a time-out (the child is separated for a short time), a time-in (you stay with them and talk), or something else.

4 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

What happens after a child breaks a rule: letting natural results happen, a related consequence, taking away a privilege, an unrelated punishment, or solving the problem together.

5 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

Whether you use rewards, like stickers or treats, to encourage behavior, or avoid them.

4 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

How you tell a child they have done well: lots of enthusiastic praise, specific praise, praise for effort, or low-key acknowledgment.

5 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

Whether you raise your voice or use harsh words when frustrated, and what you do afterward.

4 options · Well established · Toddler

How you respond when a toddler has a meltdown: ignoring it, staying nearby, helping them name the feeling, distracting them, or giving in.

5 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

How you respond when a toddler hits or bites, which is common at this age: stopping and removing them, a time-out or a time-in.

3 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

How much children are expected to simply obey versus how much rules are explained, chosen or negotiated with them.

5 options · Your call · Toddler

Whether one parent is the disciplinarian, whoever is present handles it, or each parent does it in their own way.

3 options · Your call · Toddler

How you respond when a child lies: punishing the lie, giving credit for honesty, making truth-telling safe, or treating it as normal development.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Preschool

Whether you require a child to say sorry on the spot, coach them to, model it, or leave it to them.

4 options · Your call · Preschool

How you handle disputes over toys: requiring sharing on request, setting timed turns, letting a child keep a toy until done, or staying out of it.

4 options · Your call · Toddler

How you handle misbehavior in shops, restaurants and at other people's houses: same rules, removing the child, doing what gets you through, or avoiding hard situations.

4 options · Your call · Toddler

What you do when your child is upset, angry or sad: validating every feeling and limiting only behavior, acknowledging briefly, distracting, minimizing or disapproving.

5 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

How much you let your child struggle and fail before helping, from clearing every obstacle to deliberately toughening them up.

5 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

How you respond when your child is afraid: avoiding what scares them, comforting them while gently facing it, or pushing them through.

3 options · Evidence leans one way · Preschool

What you think builds a child's sense of worth: frequent affirmation, warmth with honest feedback, real responsibility, or achievement.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Preschool

Whether you fill your child's time or deliberately leave unstructured space, including letting them be bored.

3 options · Evidence leans one way · Preschool

Whether you treat sons and daughters the same when they show feelings, or hold different expectations such as telling boys to toughen up.

3 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

How you respond when a child refuses most foods: cooking a separate meal, serving one family meal with a safe food on the table, one meal take-it-or-leave-it, hiding vegetables, or repeated exposure without comment.

5 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

How sweets fit into meals: earned by eating dinner, scheduled and limited, served alongside the meal, unrestricted, or avoided entirely in the early years.

5 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

What your child drinks: only water and milk, juice within limits, soda and sports drinks occasionally, or no rules.

4 options · Well established · Toddler

Whether eating happens at set meal and snack times, on demand all day, or with no snacks at all.

3 options · Your call · Toddler

Whether food is ever used to reward good behavior, soothe upset or motivate, such as a treat for using the potty.

3 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

Ultra-processed foods are industrially made products with ingredients you would not use in a home kitchen, such as packaged snacks, sugary cereals and ready meals.

3 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

Whether and how often the family eats together, and whether screens are allowed at the table.

4 options · Your call · Toddler

Whether the same rules apply at restaurants, parties and relatives' homes, or whether they relax.

3 options · Your call · Toddler

Potty training, also called toilet training or toilet learning, is teaching a child to pee and poo in a potty or toilet instead of a diaper.

5 options · Your call · Toddler

How you encourage potty training and respond when it goes wrong: whether you use praise, stickers or treats, and what you do about accidents, refusal and steps backward.

5 options · Well established · Toddler

Staying dry overnight is a separate step from daytime potty training and usually comes later.

5 options · Well established · Preschool

What words you use for body parts: the anatomical names, family nicknames, or avoiding the subject.

3 options · Well established · Toddler

Whether a child must hug or kiss relatives, or is always allowed to choose, which shapes how they learn about their own boundaries.

3 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

How relaxed the household is about being undressed in front of children, and how body privacy changes as they grow.

3 options · Your call · Toddler

How much risk you will accept in everyday childhood, from keeping children as safe as possible to letting them take supervised or free-ranging risks.

4 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

When your child wears a helmet for biking, scooting and snow sports, and whether you wear one too.

3 options · Well established · Toddler

Whether you allow home trampolines and under what rules, such as nets, one jumper at a time, and supervision.

3 options · Experts disagree · Preschool

How you teach children to stay safe from harm by others: warnings about strangers, a trusted-adult plan, body-safety rules, or little explicit teaching.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Preschool

Whether your child attends preschool before kindergarten, and how many days and what kind.

5 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

Preschools follow different teaching philosophies.

7 options · Your call · Toddler

Whether young children are taught letters and numbers early or spend their time playing, with formal learning starting later.

4 options · Experts disagree · Preschool

Whether your child starts kindergarten as soon as they are old enough or a year later, which matters most for children with summer birthdays.

5 options · Experts disagree · Preschool

What kind of school you choose: neighborhood public, public school of choice, charter, or private.

4 options · Your call · Preschool

Which language your child is taught in, such as English with some French, French immersion, or a bilingual program.

5 options · Your call · Preschool

Whether your child goes to a regular school or learns at home.

5 options · Your call · Preschool

The teaching approach: a mainstream curriculum, project-based learning, Montessori (child-led, hands-on) or Waldorf (arts and imagination), classical education (a structured, language- and logic-based approach), or the International Baccalaureate, an international program.

5 options · Your call · Preschool

What you weigh most when choosing a school: nearby and community, results and rankings, teaching approach, the mix of students, or your child's happiness.

5 options · Evidence leans one way · Preschool

Whether you would move, use out-of-area options, or pay for private school to get a school you prefer.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

How much of your child's time is unstructured play versus scheduled activities and lessons, from mostly free play to a full calendar.

5 options · Your call · Preschool

How much time your child spends outdoors, from incidental to a daily habit in most weather to outdoor activity as a family identity.

4 options · Your call · Toddler

How you limit screens for preschoolers: a fixed time cap, a soft cap with quality rules, or no clock and judging by the AAP's five questions (Child, Content, Calm, Crowding Out, Communication).

4 options · Experts disagree · Toddler

What your child watches and whether you watch with them, including whether the TV is on in the background.

5 options · Your call · Toddler

Whether you use screens to get through hard moments, such as meals out, car trips or meltdowns.

4 options · Your call · Toddler

Whether your child has their own tablet and what they watch, from none to a shared locked-down tablet to their own device.

4 options · Your call · Toddler

When you talk with your child about sex: one big talk near puberty, answering when asked, many small talks from early childhood, or leaving it to school.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Preschool

How much you spend on your child and what that teaches, from a minimalist approach and experiences over things to matching what their peers have.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

How big birthday celebrations and gifts are: family only, a few friends, the whole class or a venue, and whether you ask for no gifts.

8 options · Your call · Toddler

Whether children do household jobs and why: childhood is for play and school, self-care only, unpaid contribution to the family, paid work, or working alongside adults from toddlerhood.

5 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

At what age chores begin and how firmly you hold to them: from age two or three to the teens, and with routines and reminders or by invitation only.

7 options · Your call · Toddler

When you expect your child to do things for themselves, like dressing, feeding and washing, and whether you push early independence or follow readiness.

3 options · Evidence leans one way · Preschool

How truthful you are with your child, including myths and small lies: never lying, only kind fictions, white lies, or lying to get compliance.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

Whether you tell your child that Santa and the Tooth Fairy are real, play along, call it a game, or skip the myths.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

How much politeness you expect and teach: modeling it, prompting ("what do you say?"), requiring it, or formal etiquette.

4 options · Your call · Toddler

How you teach thanks and kindness about gifts: modeling it, a daily gratitude habit, required thank-you notes, or honest kindness.

6 options · Your call · Preschool

Your family's rule on swear words, from none for anyone to adults only to rules by context.

4 options · Your call · Toddler

Whether and how you talk with your child about race, money and unequal opportunity: not raising it, answering when asked, or proactive age-appropriate conversations.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Preschool

How you talk with your child about death, illness and frightening news: shielding them, answering simply when asked, or explaining proactively.

3 options · Your call · Preschool

How you handle relatives whose beliefs or values differ from yours around your child: keeping topics off the table, letting the child hear both, explaining at home, or limiting exposure.

4 options · Your call · Preschool

How you respond when siblings fight: staying out, coaching and mediating, judging and imposing a solution, or separating them.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

Whether you treat siblings strictly equally, give each what they need, or set privileges by age and stage.

3 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

Whether you avoid comparing children and labels like "the smart one," use positive labels only, or give the eldest more responsibility.

4 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler

Whether siblings have their own rooms or share, and by what rule: age, gender, or choice.

4 options · Your call · Toddler