Talking Toddlers

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.
─────────────────────────────
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

Everyone keeps telling you not to worry. "He'll talk when he's ready." 
You smile, you nod — but somewhere underneath, your gut isn't buying it.
Trust that. Because "ready" is the wrong word — and "wait and see" is not the gentle, neutral choice it pretends to be.
After almost forty years with toddlers and the families raising them, Erin Hyer, speech language pathologist, takes on the second big myth worried parents are handed: that talking just shows up on its own, once a child decides he's ready. 
It doesn't. Children don't talk when they're ready — they talk when they're built for it.
In this episode, Erin unpacks why waiting feels like the kind, patient thing to do — and what it quietly costs. She walks through the difference between "ready" and "built," the honest truth about which late talkers really catch up (and why no test can tell you which group your child is in), the third option between panic and waiting, and how to find where your child is on the path right now.
You'll walk away understanding: → Why "he'll talk when he's ready" sounds kind — but isn't neutral → "Ready" vs. "built": what actually comes first → The third option between panic and doing nothing → The real story on "catching up" — and why it can't be predicted → What to watch for, and where your child is right now → The one thing waiting spends that you can never get back
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.
─────────────────────────────
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

You talk to your toddler all day long. You narrate everything. 
And still — he's not talking, or not very much. 
So you do what everyone tells you: talk to him even more.
After almost forty years with toddlers and the families raising them, here's what Erin Hyer, speech-language pathologist, can tell you: talking more isn't the fix.
Language isn't built by the number of words you pour in during the day — it's built by the back-and-forth between you and your child.
In this episode, Erin unpacks why "just talk more" is the advice every worried parent hears, where it came from, and why it quietly misses what actually matters.
She breaks down the famous "thirty-million-word gap" and what the research that followed really found, why screens can't build language no matter how "educational" they look, and the one small shift you can start today.
You'll walk away understanding: 
→ Why talking AT your child isn't the same as talking WITH him 
→ The "thirty-million-word gap" — and what came after it 
→ Why screens and apps don't build talking 
→ What "serve and return" is — and how to start it at breakfast, bath, and bedtime stories 
→ The one shift that does more than a thousand more words
Share this with every mom wondering why her little one isn't talking yet.
 📘 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.
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

If you've ever said "no" to your toddler and watched them do it anyway — you're not failing. You're just missing one piece of information that changes everything.
The developing brain under three cannot reliably process negation. "Don't throw" registers as "throw." "No hitting" registers as "hit." 
And the more you escalate, the more you reinforce the exact behavior you're trying to stop.
In this episode, Erin breaks down why throwing, hitting, and grabbing are not three separate problems — they're one neurological reality — and gives you the specific language and strategies your toddler's brain can actually receive and learn from.
You'll walk away understanding:
→ Why "No" fails — and the developmental timeline behind it
→ What's really happening when you lose your patience (it's more honest than you'd expect)
→ Why your toddler laughs when they hit — and what that laugh actually means
→ How to respond to throwing, hitting, and grabbing in the moment
→ The four things that work every time, across every situation
This is the episode to share with every mom in the thick of the toddler years.
─────────────────────────────
📞 One question about your child you can't get a clear answer to? Book a Clarity Call with Erin — CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE NOW
📩 Join the INSIDERS list — weekly insights, tips, and more: The Top 10 Essential Skills Every Baby Needs Before Talking
─────────────────────────────
Talking Toddlers | Erin Hyer, M.S. CCC-SLP
Early intervention. Prevention over remediation. Real information for the first three years.
========
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