Just turned 3 toddler has been saying factually untrue things and trying to get me to agree/repeat these things. They won’t let me just ignore their statements and push for an affirmation. Not affirming leads to tears and a tantrum. I’ve been just saying ‘ok’ or ‘I think you’re wrong but ok’ but mostly letting things go if they seem trivial like: ‘Ice cream is not cold!’, ‘It’s not dark yet!’, ‘Snow isn’t white’, etc… I’ve been mostly targetting statements they make about other people and their feelings or desires like ‘You’re not tired!’, ‘She doesn’t want to sing.’, ‘He’s not hungry.’, etc… and letting the meltdowns happen in those situations but my spouse is concerned that I’m making toddler believe they can have their own facts outside of reality and that I should push back every time something factually inaccurate comes up. I feel like this behavior is probably developmentally normal and like everything else, we need to target specific things to work on one at a time. Thoughts?
my kid used to deny my own personal opinions, it almost always pissed me off at first. I felt like I was giving so much and I didn’t want to give up my opinions too, simple things like me saying that I like something could provoke him to argue that I don’t. My spouse helped a lot, we made it into a family joke like he’s a little dictator, maybe he picked up on the laughing and learned that it was inappropriate behavior.
Not a parent, but personally I would also err on the side of correcting them, as they’re still heavily exploring the world. Partially, they’re figuring out the world by making statements they believe to be wrong and do actually want you to confirm that they’re wrong.
But yeah, if they’re throwing a tantrum, they may rather be looking for more input than that. More attention or a playfight of wits even, so to speak.
Asking them “why?” as many others suggested, seems like a good start here.
Personally, I would also try just feeding them tons of information, like if they say that snow isn’t white, tell them that it is, because it reflects all the wavelengths of light. Obviously, they won’t understand what that actually means, but it gives them something to think about and in the sense of the playfight, they’ll be satisfied, too (i.e. defeated and learned something).
