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Ted Lasso’s Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard) has a two-year-old son, Sean, and another baby on the way with his fiancée Shannon Nelson. He was recently interview by Yahoo Life for their parenting series on the joys and challenges of child-rearing, called, “So Mini Ways.” In the interview, Hunt talks about what it’s like parenting a toddler in the throws of the Terrible Twos, as they’re figuring out their own likes and dislikes and how to be a little person in general. Hunt gave some insight in general on screen time, trying new foods, and having a lot of patience as both parent and child navigate these things together.

Everyone gets their lazy screen time: “We’re among those [parents] who feel like until he’s 3 years old or maybe even 4, when you can actually have conversations with him that employ reciprocated logic from both parties, stressing too much about screen time is kind of a losing battle,” he explains. “If my weekend morning is about watching the game, he can have his weekend morning be about watching Dinosaur Train. “Basically surrendering to what he wants for his lazy time is just fine, within reason … there’s no need [to be] fighting it just yet.”

Toddlers and their changing tastes: Time spent relaxing and enjoying delicious meals on the weekend also presents a chance for Hunt to watch his toddler’s tastes evolve. “[My son] is just fun to watch eat in general,” he shares. “We’re still very much in the stage of like, ‘What does he like? What does he not like? What does he now not like that he used to like?’ His tastes are changing and everything. We watch him with great fascination. We’re like Attenboroughs, and he’s just a tiny dinosaur coming out from the DNA.”

Kids say the darndest things: In fact, toddlerhood is truly entertaining to Hunt. “[Sean] is just funny,” he says. “He has such enthusiasm for things and uses really positive language lately. Even the other day, he was sitting in his mom’s lap, and for no specific reason, he just turned around and said, ‘Mommy, you are beautiful.’ Like what? Oh my gosh. Doesn’t ever say that to me, and that’s fine. We got him some ice cream the other day in our local ice cream shop. And I said, ‘Buddy, is it good?’ [He replied,] ‘It’s perfect.’ Like we didn’t know he knew the word ‘perfect!’”

The struggle to end screen time is real: Of course, Hunt’s son has his “terrible twos” moments, just like any toddler. “The flip side of the screen time thing is we try to give him warnings, like, ‘This is your last episode of Santiago,’ and he’ll nod, and then we’re like, ‘OK, here we go, taking away the iPad,’ and he goes full telenovela: ‘Nooooooo!’” he shares. “It is an unbelievable campaign of screaming that will ensue no matter how hard we try to prepare him for it. The flipside is luckily he’s still at the age where eventually you can just distract him like ‘Hey, look over here.’”

Oh, that virtue patience: Ultimately, the soon-to-be dad of two is proud to be learning to be more patient these days. “Patience is the most important thing,” he says. “Because he’s 2 years old and basically insane, you’re not going to be able to talk him through stuff just yet. So [it helps] just knowing that some day, these things will make more sense to him. You just have to be patient and wise and wait him out.”

[From Yahoo]

Oh man, I have to be honest and admit that I did love that two-year-old stage. They’re able to talk and communicate even more and are little sponges that are into learning everything. Sure, they can be stubborn and “basically insane,” but at least they don’t talk back to you, lol. My nine-year-old has started to refute everything I say or ask of him because he wants his autonomy. I had no idea this pre-teenager stage starts so early! For my kids, TV and screen time is a dopamine thing, so we also have a lot of resistance when it’s time to turn it off. Our solution was to just eliminate screens during the school week with the exception of MLB games and Survivor and it’s been working out pretty well so far.