Toddler years, 1 to 3

What is actually happening underneath toddler behavior, from the flood of new words to “no” to the tantrum in the cereal aisle, and calmer ways to respond that you can use this week. Every lesson is built from named studies, told in plain language.

Format
4 modules, 13 lessons
Length
About 2.5 hours, self-paced
Includes
Ask the research, the AI tool, with a fair-use limit of 50 questions a day
Price
$49 once, lifetime access
Enroll, $49 Read part of a lesson

Checkout is here, with Stripe, and the lessons live under My classes.

Figure 1. Why words don’t land mid-meltdown. A schematic line chart of a toddler’s arousal over the course of a hard moment. A shaded band in the middle marks the window where words and reasoning land. Both lines start inside the window, rise steeply after a trigger to a peak well above it, and come back down. The line for a toddler on their own is still at the top edge of the window at the end of the chart; the line for a toddler with a calm adult nearby is back inside the window about halfway along. Words land here Too high for words Trigger Time Arousal
  • On their own
  • With a calm adult nearby
Fig. 1 · Why words don’t land mid-meltdown. Above the window, a toddler loses access to language and reasoning, so explaining waits. A steady adult nearby helps them come back into it sooner. A teaching schematic after Siegel’s window of tolerance (1999), not measured data. Module 4 follows a tantrum from start to finish and shows what a calm adult changes.

Read part of a lesson.

From Module 4, Lesson 1, “Inside a Tantrum.” Fig. 1 above is the idea this lesson builds on.

Module 1 gave us a fast alarm and slow brakes. A tantrum is what it looks like when the alarm is at full volume and the brakes have let go altogether. Researchers describe a tantrum as a sudden, intense burst of negative feeling out of proportion to what set it off. The word matters less than the picture, in which a wish is blocked, the body floods, and for a few minutes the toddler is not choosing anything.

How long is a tantrum? The answer is shorter than it feels. In the largest study of its kind, parents of three hundred and thirty-five children from eighteen months to five wrote accounts of tantrums as they happened. The most common length was between half a minute and one minute. Three quarters of all tantrums were over within five minutes.

Those detailed accounts also revealed a shape. Researchers coded what the children did in each half minute, and found two separate processes running at once, which they called anger and distress. Anger rises fast, peaks at or near the start, and then falls away. Distress rises slowly through the tantrum, and whining, crying, and reaching for comfort belong to that. A tantrum is anger with sadness underneath it, and the sadness outlasts the anger.

From the lesson transcript, lightly trimmed. The lesson goes on to what is typical at this age and which signs are worth a conversation with your child’s doctor; the next three lessons cover heading tantrums off, staying calm in the moment, and repair afterward.

By the end of the class

You’ll have a clearer picture of what your toddler is doing, and why.

  • A working picture of the toddler brain: a fast alarm, slow brakes, and a memory that is learning by watching you.
  • What the word spurt looks like, how wide normal is, the talk that grows language, and when a late talker is worth a check.
  • Why “mine,” “no,” and “I do it” are the new self arriving, and how choices and warm limits turn them into help.
  • The real shape and length of a tantrum, how to head one off at transitions, and why your calm is what settles theirs.
  • What repair looks like after the storm, and why reconnecting matters more than getting every moment right.

Four modules

For the moments that make toddlerhood feel hard.

  1. Module 1

    The Toddler Brain, Briefly

    3 lessons

    What changes between one and three, why a toddler’s alarm fires fast while the brakes are years from finished, and how toddlers learn by watching, repeating, and remembering.

    1. 1What Changes Between One and Three
    2. 2The Alarm and the Brakes
    3. 3Learning by Watching, Repeating, and Remembering

  2. Module 2

    Language, the Everyday Version

    3 lessons

    The word spurt and how wide normal is, the back-and-forth talk that grows language without turning home into a lesson plan, and what a late talker is, with when to check.

    1. 1The Word Spurt, and How Wide Normal Is
    2. 2Talk That Grows Language
    3. 3Late Talkers and When to Check

  3. Module 3

    Autonomy and No

    3 lessons

    Why “mine” and “no” mark the new self, how choices and warm limits reduce power struggles without giving up your role as the adult, and how to turn “I do it” into help.

    1. 1Mine, No, and the New Self
    2. 2Choices and Warm Limits
    3. 3I Do It: Turning Independence Into Help

  4. Module 4

    Big Feelings, Transitions, and Repair

    4 lessons

    What a tantrum is and the shape it takes from start to finish, how routines and transitions head tantrums off, how your calm becomes their calm in the moment, and what repair looks like after the storm.

    1. 1Inside a Tantrum
    2. 2Heading It Off: Routines and Transitions
    3. 3In the Moment: Your Calm Is Their Calm
    4. 4After the Storm: Repair

What this class draws on.

Clear about what’s known. Honest about what’s not. Each lesson names its studies as it goes, with the sample and the finding in plain words. A few of them:

  1. A scan study following children from birth to age two, and the brain’s slower, steady growth after the first year. Module 1, lesson 1
  2. The classic deferred-imitation experiments: fourteen-month-olds copying what they watched an adult do, long after seeing it. Module 1, lesson 3
  3. Serve and return, carried from the Infant class: a study following forty children from nine months, and what parents’ responses to early words predicted. Module 2, lesson 2
  4. The parent-report vocabulary checklist used to identify late talkers, and the research on which late talkers catch up. Module 2, lesson 3
  5. The mirror test of self-recognition, and Deci and Ryan’s work on autonomy support versus control. Module 3, lessons 1 and 2
  6. The largest tantrum study of its kind: parents of 335 children, eighteen months to five, recording tantrums as they happened, and the anger-and-distress shape it revealed. Module 4, lesson 1
  7. Co-regulation research on how a calm adult brings a toddler back, and the still-face and repair studies behind Module 4’s close. Module 4, lessons 3 and 4

Who teaches it.

Matthew McArthur

Created and taught by Matthew McArthur, who holds an M.A. in Developmental Psychology from San Diego State University, where he studied how parent stress, changes at home, screen time, and back-and-forth interaction shape language and thinking from 6 months to 5 years, after working with developmental researchers at UCLA, and he wrote “Why Early Chatter Matters” for Frontiers for Young Minds.

He then spent two years in state-funded early intervention, coaching families with children under 3 who were experiencing delays.

Matthew writes and reviews every lesson. The narration is an AI model of his own voice, reading his script word for word.

Free reading for the toddler years.

A few things parents usually ask first.

How do I start, and how do I get back in?

When you enroll, you create a free account, pay securely with Stripe, and the class opens right away. After that it lives in My classes, which remembers where you left off in every lesson.

Can I get a refund?

Yes. Within 14 days of buying, and as long as you’ve watched 4 lessons or fewer, you get a full refund: email Matthew with the address you bought with. A refund ends your access to the class. Want a feel for the teaching first? Read part of a lesson above.

Is this medical or psychological advice?

No. The class is educational. For concerns about your own child, your pediatrician and your child’s clinicians are the right people to ask, and the class will help you ask better questions.