Toddlerhood is a precious time. We do our kids and ourselves a great injustice by assigning negative intent to their developmentally normal behaviors. Instead of going to war, let’s spend these quickly-passing years seeking to understand our little ones and rewrite the narrative on common myths.

When we learn to suppress unpleasant emotions as a child, we become adults whose conditioned self masquerades as our authentic self. This dampens our human experience (and affects our mental health and parenting). Here's how to break the cycle. 

Rather than storing unnoticed toys in the closet this year, give the children on your list meaningful memories instead. Here are six connection-based gift ideas for ages two and up that we love for the holidays and all year long.