Ask Dr. Mona

It can be really hard when your child starts bringing home behaviors that feel so unlike them. Young children pick up a lot from what they see and hear around them. They may copy those behaviors out of curiosity, because they are still making sense of what happened, or simply because it stood out to them. Kids who are especially observant or more affected by what is going on around them may be more likely to bring that home.

Seeing her copy it does not mean those behaviors are becoming part of who she is, and it does not mean she agrees with them. It’s more likely that she is still figuring out what to do with an experience that felt big, confusing, or hard to process. She needs help separating, “I saw that,” from, “That is okay for me to do,” and learning what is okay in your home and what is not.

A few things can help:

• Keep your response calm and brief in the moment. If she hits, bites, or uses a word you do not allow, stick with short phrases like, “I won’t let you hit,” “Biting hurts,” or “That word is not okay.” Long explanations usually do not help much when a child is already dysregulated or testing a behavior.

• Show her what to do instead. This is often the missing piece. If she is upset, give her the language or action you want her to use: “You can say, ‘I’m mad,’” “Say, ‘move please,’” or “Tap my arm if you need me.” Replacing the behavior is often more effective than only correcting it.

• Talk about it later when things are calm. That is a better time to help her process what she is seeing at school. You might say, “I noticed you used that word. Did you hear it at school?” or “Sometimes kids do things that are not safe or kind. We still make different choices.” You are helping her sort through what she is exposed to without making her feel bad for bringing it home.

• Try not to give swearing or shock-value behavior too much energy. A big reaction can make a behavior more interesting. A calm boundary and moving on often works better.

• Check in with the school if it keeps happening. You do not need to come in with blame. It can simply be a conversation to better understand what she is hearing or seeing, whether there are certain patterns, and how the teachers are responding. That kind of teamwork can be really helpful.

Kids often bring this stuff home because home feels safe. So while it is frustrating, it can also be part of her working through what she saw or heard. Your consistency is what helps her learn what is okay and what is not.

If you’d like a deeper breakdown of how to handle hitting, biting, kicking, and other physical behavior, this PedsDocTalk YouTube video walks through why it happens at different ages and how to respond calmly.

Around age 3, picky eating can really ramp up, and vegetables are often one of the first foods kids start pushing back on. So yes, a lot of this really is continuing to offer them and letting her decide. That can feel repetitive, but repeated exposure without pressure is still one of the most helpful approaches here. Some kids need a lot of exposure before a food feels familiar enough to try. Here are a few things you can try:

Keep offering, but keep it low pressure. Put a small amount on her plate or serve it family-style and let it be there without turning it into the focus of the meal. No pressure, no bargaining, no “just one bite.”

Work on flavor and make it feel more fun. Bland vegetables are a hard sell for a toddler. Roasting, seasoning, adding a dip, or trying different textures can help. A little playfulness can go a long way too, as long as it stays light. You might pretend to be a bunny eating carrots and say, “Crunch crunch!” or make a silly comment about how your broccoli looks like tiny trees. The goal is not to get her to perform or take a bite. It is just to keep vegetables feeling familiar and approachable.

Let her see you enjoy them and involve her when you can. Modeling is so important. Eat the vegetables yourself, talk about them casually, and leave it open: “These carrots are so good,” or “I’m having broccoli with dinner if you want to try some.” It can also help to let her pick a vegetable at the store, rinse it, or help add ingredients when you are cooking.

Skip hiding vegetables. Smoothies are fine, but I would not sneak veggies in, especially since she already noticed. Being open about what is in it and letting her help make it is a better approach than trying to disguise it.

The bigger picture is keeping food neutral. Your job is to keep offering, and her job is to decide whether to eat. Nutrition is about patterns over time, not whether she ate a green vegetable this week. If picky eating is making meals stressful, the PedsDocTalk Picky Eating Playbook has more step-by-step strategies for vegetable refusal and toddler feeding struggles.

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Dr. Mona will answer these questions in a future Sunday Morning Q&A email. Chances are if you have a parenting concern or question, another parent can relate. So let's figure this out together!