The short answer

Telling your toddler to "be nice" rarely teaches kindness — it just adds shame on top of a developmental stage they can't skip. Toddlers are wired to be self-centred between roughly 18 months and 3 years, and pushing them to perform social niceties before they're ready tends to backfire, creating more disconnection and resistance, not less. Lowering your expectations, putting their needs first, and teaching rather than correcting is what actually helps genuine kindness develop later, on its own.

Your toddler ignores a friend who says hello to them. They refuse to give Grandma a hug. They loudly announce they don't like someone's food, or their haircut, or their shoes. And there you are, mortified, rushing in with: "Don't be rude! Say hello nicely! Be nice!"

It feels like the obvious thing to do. But I want to make a case for why constantly telling your toddler to be nice is not just ineffective — it is actually working against both of you.

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Your Toddler Is Supposed to Be Self-Centred

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Here is the thing most parenting advice glosses over: toddlers are meant to be self-centred. It is not a flaw. It is not bad parenting. It is developmental biology doing exactly what it should.

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Between roughly 18 months and 3 years, toddlers are in the thick of what developmental psychologist Erik Erikson described as the stage of autonomy vs shame and self doubt. Their entire job right now is to figure out who they are and they do this by making sure that every single one of their needs are able to be met - through possessiveness and egocentrism. This takes enormous effort and focus, and it leaves very little room for thinking about anyone else.

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Toddlers are egocentric by nature, meaning the world genuinely revolves around them in their mind. They are not capable of true empathy or seeing the world through another person's eyes yet. Their brain is simply not wired for it at this age.

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Expecting them to consistently think about how someone else feels, or to perform kindness on demand, is like expecting them to solve a maths equation. The cognitive and emotional architecture for it has not been built yet.

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This is not a phase to fix. It is a phase to understand.

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What Happens When We Push Too Hard for 'Nice'

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When we constantly pressure toddlers to be nice, considerate, warm, or socially appropriate, a few things go wrong.

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The first is shame. When a toddler is repeatedly told that their natural instincts are wrong or rude, they do not learn to be nicer. They learn to feel bad about themselves.

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And shame is one of the least effective drivers of behaviour change in young children. A toddler who is flooded with shame tends to become more dysregulated, more reactive, and more likely to act out, not less. Toddlers are very sensitive to feeling shame, even for things they had nothing to do with.

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The second problem is that it does not actually teach them anything. "Be nice" is a meaningless instruction to a child who does not yet understand what that means in practice or why it matters. It is a grown-up concept wrapped in a grown-up word, delivered to someone who is operating in an entirely different emotional and social reality.

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The third issue is what it does to the parent-child relationship. When a child feels that they are constantly falling short of what you expect from them socially, they feel misunderstood and disconnected. And a disconnected toddler is a harder toddler to parent.

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Many of us were raised with 'being nice and kind' to everyone was very important. This lead to a lot of our generation being 'people pleasers' and putting others' needs before our own.

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While kindness and generosity are obviously worthy values to strive for, toddlers will do far better being encouraged to fill their own cup, and know that they are entitled to look out for themselves at this sensitive time in their development. When you watch a preschooler be genuinely kind to another child with no ulterior motive or someone instructing them, you see why it's so worthwhile to let them come to these skills later on once they're ready.

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The Embarrassment Factor

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Let us be honest about something. A lot of the pressure we put on toddlers to "be nice" has less to do with them and more to do with us. We are embarrassed. We worry about what other parents, grandparents, or strangers think of us when our child is blunt, rude, or antisocial.

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This is completely understandable. But your toddler's behaviour in a social situation is not a reflection of your parenting. It is a reflection of their developmental stage. Toddlers don't have the same social awareness we do, and they make observations and choices without the filter of social judgement that adults carry.

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When your toddler announces that someone has a "really big tummy" or refuses to say hello to your best friend, they are not being intentionally cruel. They are being a toddler. They don't understand or care for social norms - it is completely beyond their level of comprehension.

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The more we try to override this by forcing social performance, the more pressure we pile on a child who is already working incredibly hard just to get through the day.

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This means no forcing your child to share their snack at the playground, encouraging them to hug their friend when they get hurt, or moving out of the way as soon as another child gets their eyes on the slide. Allowing for self centered behaviour now will pay off in spades as your toddler grows older.... you just have to trust the process and trust development to run it's course.

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What to Do Instead

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So if we are not telling them to be nice, what are we doing?

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Lower your expectations for now. Accept that your toddler is going to be socially imperfect for the next little while, and that this is okay. You do not need to intervene every time they say something blunt or decline to perform affection. Give yourself permission to let some things go.

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Put their needs first. When your toddler does not want to hug Grandma, do not force it. When they don't want to say hello to someone, don't make it a battle. Their right to decide how they engage with their own body and their own social interactions matters, even at this age. You can always step in and respond on their behalf: "She's still getting comfortable — she'll warm up when she's ready!" and move on.

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Focus on teaching, not correcting. Rather than reprimanding what your toddler did wrong, show them what to do instead. If they are struggling in a social situation, give them the words or the actions they need.

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If they said something blunt, you can gently introduce the idea later - not in the hot moment - that some observations are better kept private. Think of it as slowly building a vocabulary for the social world, rather than demanding they already speak it fluently.

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Do not shame them for being themselves. When a toddler misbehaves or acts in a way that seems selfish or unkind, there is almost always an emotional reason underneath. Meeting the emotional need is almost always more effective than doubling down on the social expectation.

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Also remember that toddlers learn best from observing their trusted people going about their life. When your toddler sees you be kind to someone at the shops, or check on someone who got hurt, or when you respond kindly to them in daily life - your toddler is always watching and this is how they learn how to be a good person.

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Trust the process. These are the years when toddlers build their sense of self, their confidence, and their understanding of who they are in the world. Once that foundation is solid, genuine kindness, empathy and social awareness grow naturally from it.

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Children who are allowed to develop at their own pace, without being shamed for where they are right now, tend to grow into far more socially connected kids than those who were pressured to perform niceness before they were ready.

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Being Nice Will Come. Just Not Yet.

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There is something deeply reassuring about understanding toddler egocentrism as a feature, not a bug. Your child is not going to be self-centred forever. The capacity for empathy, generosity and genuine kindness is coming, and it will be all the more real for not having been forced.

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In the meantime, your job is not to make them be nice. It is to help them feel safe, understood and secure enough that one day, they will want to be.

For more help, browse my discipline guides, or book a 1:1 consult.