“Can’t Expect a Kid to Read a Room” — Parents Give 2-Year-Old Pep Talk Before Wedding

A pair of parents found a "hack" to make sure your toddler is on their best behavior during a wedding — by talking to them.

That's what Kelly Field (@kellyfieldd) showed in a viral TikTok where her daughter received a breakdown as to what is expected of guests during a wedding ceremony.

In the video, her kid is offered the choice to view the event, as long as certain ground rules are adhered to.

"Our 2-year-old behaved so well at a wedding ceremony," a text overlay in Kelly's video reads. It appears that the social media user attributes her daughter's great behavior to a short conversation she and her partner had with the child before the event.

"Here is her pep talk," the TikToker penned in the second part of the overlay. "You know what's about to happen?" a man's voice can be heard off camera, presumably the baby's parents.

"Two people are about to get married. You know what that means?" the man asks the child.

She stands there in front of the man in a white dress dotted with red flowers. "The big day is for the bride and her fiancé and they're going to get married in front of all their family and friends, right?" he says to the child, who appears to be listening intently.

He says, "And that's called a ceremony. Everybody's sitting, do you want to go watch it?" He asks the child, who nods her head. "From there we gave her the choice to join back in on the fun while setting boundaries," they added in an additional portion of the overlay.

"But if we do, we have to be quiet. And we have to just be ... patient. You know? But if not, we have to stay over here, but if you want we can go sit there and watch it," he explained to the kid. Again, he reiterated that she has to be quiet during the proceedings, as this is what guests are ultimately signing up for when they do that.

"But if we do we can't be yelling. Saying we want things. We have to be quiet. What do you want to do?" he asks the young girl, who gesticulates back and forth in front of her father.

She then makes a noise, and it seems like she is signaling that she wants to go and watch the ceremony with her folks.

"You wanna go watch?" he asks the child.

"Go watch," she says, smiling.

In another on-screen caption, Kelly further delineates this approach to laying the ground rules for their kid repeatedly and in a clear manner.

"We have found that taking the time to fully explain and communicate our environment had made a huge difference in her behavior," the TikToker penned.

A smile in her dad's voice can be heard as he says, "Yeah?" to her request to go and watch the marriage ceremony.

"Yeah," the toddler says.

"OK, let's go," her father tells her as he stands up. "This way, come on."

He holds the child's hand as he approaches the area where the couple is to exchange vows as the video comes to a close.

Kelly added in another caption appended to her video driving home the point that kids shouldn't be expected to simply understand social protocols without being informed of what they are in a way that they can mentally process.

"Your child isnt misbehaving, you might just be communicating wrong," she writes.

The idea that toddlers can comprehend more than we think has been espoused by other analysts as well. CBC News produced a piece covering this same exact topic, stating that toddlers are capable of understanding concepts we may think are too complex for them to digest.

Johns Hopkins University also published a piece stating that toddlers "understand [the] concept of possibility," i.e., they can surmise that certain outcomes may or may not come to fruition if certain environmental and situational factors are present.

Researchers also wrote that as part of the study, toddlers tend to learn more when they encounter highly improbable situations, as they will express curiosity as to how these events transpired and will more often than not seek to deduce what caused such events to transpire in the first place.

Giving toddlers more credit when it comes to mental acuity was also reverberated in the comments section of Kelly's post. One parent penned: "I talk to my 2-year-old like this amd people be like, 'Awww you think he understands.' … like HE DOES?? I LIVE WITH HIM???"

Another thought it was sweet of the parents to take the time to break things down for the child in such a clear way: "This is very important. This is her first time here. How could she know without being told?"