Talking Toddlers

What is stealing your toddler’s attention?
If your child seems constantly distracted, overly active, emotionally reactive, or unable to stay with one activity for very long, the answer may be more complicated than simply “they need to learn to focus.”
In this episode of Talking Toddlers, Erin looks at four powerful influences shaping a young child’s developing attention: predictable daily rhythms, restorative sleep, screens and overstimulation, and meaningful play and participation.
You’ll learn why attention is not something we can demand from a toddler, why being still in front of a screen is not the same as developing healthy attention, and how sleep, family rhythms, real-life responsibilities, and open-ended play all influence a child’s ability to regulate, learn, communicate, and stay engaged.
Erin also shares why she believes we need to look much more carefully at the environment surrounding a child before quickly labeling problems with attention or behavior. A developing brain has a history—and patterns of sleep, stimulation, movement, connection, and participation begin long before a child reaches school age.
Most importantly, this is not about blaming parents or creating another list of things to worry about. It is about helping you recognize how much influence you already have through the ordinary rhythms of home life.
Because attention is not built by repeatedly telling a toddler to “pay attention.”
It grows through thousands of everyday experiences where a child is rested enough, regulated enough, interested enough, and involved enough to remain present.
And when attention grows, so do learning, connection, participation, and language.
Helpful links:
▶ Watch Talking Toddlers on YouTube:  Click HERE

📘 Download Erin’s free guide: 10 Essential Skills Before Talking

📞 Book a Clarity Call with Erin — Click here and let's talk. 
🌿 Visit Hyer Learning:
www.HyerLearning.com
Educational and coaching information only. This episode is not a substitute for an individual speech-language, developmental, behavioral, or medical evaluation.

Your toddler snatches a toy. The daycare flags it. 
Another mom clocks it at a playdate. And somewhere in the back of your mind, a question starts to form: is something wrong with him?
Nothing is. He's just being asked to do something he isn't built for - yet.
In this episode, I break down the real difference between turn-taking and sharing — two skills that get talked about like they're the same thing, but develop on completely different timelines.
You'll learn:
Why turn-taking can start as early as 12 months — long before real sharing is even possible
The honest age-by-age timeline for when turn-taking, and eventually sharing, actually shows up (it's later than most people think)
Why genuine sharing doesn't reliably emerge until somewhere after your child's third birthday
How to use the Three P's from episode 161 to build this skill at home
Why what gets called "bad behavior" is often just a brain still under construction
This one also gets personal. Almost forty years into this work, I share what the last three decades have actually taught me about the systems built to manage a room of toddlers — not to understand your individual child.
New here? I'm Erin Hyer, a speech-language pathologist, with almost forty years working with toddlers and the families raising them. 
This episode builds on episode 161 (The Three P's) and episode 162 (Joint Attention) — you don't need to have heard those first, but they'll fill in the fuller picture.
Grab the FREE one-page Turn-Taking & Sharing Timeline
Next week - episode 164 - we’ll sort through why some toddlers can settle in and focus - while others can't get there at all — and it has a lot less to do with willpower or personality than you'd think.
Helpful links:
▶ Watch Talking Toddlers on YouTube:  Click HERE

📘 Download Erin’s free guide: 10 Essential Skills Before Talking

💬 Learn about parent coaching or schedule a Clarity Call:
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT
🌿 Visit Hyer Learning:
www.HyerLearning.com
Educational and coaching information only. This episode is not a substitute for an individual speech-language, developmental, behavioral, or medical evaluation.

You've been narrating everything. Labeling. Reading. Filling the room with language. 
And nothing seems to be sticking.
That's because your words only land when your child's attention and yours are on the same thing, in the same moment. 
It's called shared attention — and you're already doing it without knowing how much it matters.
In this episode I unpack what shared attention actually looks like between 12 and 24 months, the difference between a request and a shared moment, the connection to autism screening, and the one shift that makes your words actually land. Plus the discipline of the wait — counting to five so your child's brain has room to respond.
One skill. One shift. Two minutes a day.
Helpful links:
▶ Watch Talking Toddlers on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@HyerLearning
📘 Download Erin’s free guide:
https://hyerlearning.myflodesk.com/skillsfortalking
💬 Learn about parent coaching or schedule a Clarity Call:
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT
🌿 Visit Hyer Learning:
www.HyerLearning.com
Educational and coaching information only. This episode is not a substitute for an individual speech-language, developmental, behavioral, or medical evaluation.

Why does your toddler hit, bite, or throw things—even when you are trying to parent calmly and consistently? Toddler hitting and biting may look like a discipline problem, but for many young children, it begins as a communication gap.
Your toddler is not necessarily choosing to be “bad.” He may be using his body because the language, regulation, and impulse-control skills that should replace the hitting have not developed yet.
In this episode of Talking Toddlers, Erin Hyer, licensed speech-language pathologist with nearly four decades of clinical and real-life experience, explains why consequences alone cannot teach a skill that has not yet been built.
You’ll learn:
 why hitting can function as communication 
 what may be happening before the moment of impact 
 why repeated correction often fails 
 how presence and prevention help build the missing skill 
 what parents can begin doing instead of simply saying, “Don’t hit” 
The goal is not to excuse the behavior. The goal is to understand it well enough to teach your toddler a safer, more effective way to communicate.
Because you cannot correct your way to a skill that has not been installed.
Helpful links:
▶ Watch Talking Toddlers on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@HyerLearning
📘 Download Erin’s free guide:
https://hyerlearning.myflodesk.com/skillsfortalking
💬 Learn about parent coaching or schedule a Clarity Call:
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT
🌿 Visit Hyer Learning:
www.HyerLearning.com
Educational and coaching information only. This episode is not a substitute for an individual speech-language, developmental, behavioral, or medical evaluation.

Your toddler isn't talking yet — or at least not as much as you think he should be. And every piece of advice you've found tells you to do more or wait it out. 
Neither one is the answer.
There's a sequence to how talking develops. It doesn't start with words — it ends with them. And if nobody's handed you that sequence, you're either frozen or doing everything at once with no idea what's actually moving the needle.
In this episode, Erin walks you through the staircase that leads to talking — from connection at the bottom to words at the top — and gives you a clear, honest way to figure out exactly where your child is standing today.
This is the third episode in the Cluster 1 series. Episode 158 covered serve and return. Episode 159 covered why waiting doesn't work. This one is the payoff: what to actually build, and where to start.
👉🏻 Link to Episode 158 Click Here
🧡 Link to Episode 159 Click Here
Share this with the mom who's been told to relax — and can't shake the feeling that now is the time to pay attention.
📘 FREE GUIDE — The 10 Things That Come Before Talking: CLICK HERE 
📞 Book a Clarity Call with Erin — Click here and let's talk. 
📩 Join the INSIDERS list — Screen-Free Summer Activities 
Talking Toddlers | Erin Hyer, M.S. CCC-SLP Early intervention. 
Prevention over remediation. Real information for the first three years.
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DISCLAIMER:
This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your pediatrician or a qualified health provider with questions about your child’s development or health. The views shared are based on Erin Hyer’s professional experience and are intended to support informed parenting, not to replace individual consultation or care. Every child and family is unique — please use your discretion and consult trusted professionals when making decisions for your child.
📩 Questions: contact@HyerLearning.com
 🌐 www.HyerLearning.com