A nurse is preparing to administer fluoxetine 40 mg PO daily.
The available medication is fluoxetine 20 mg/mL. How many mL should the nurse administer?

Choice A rationale

Toddlers have high energy needs, so they need a diet that provides enough calories. Parents should be educated on providing a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods to meet their toddler’s nutritional needs.

Choice B rationale

Establishing trust is more relevant to infancy, when babies learn to trust their caregivers to meet their needs. While it’s still important as children grow, it’s not a key point of health promotion education for parents of toddlers.

Choice C rationale

Toddlers often express their independence and frustration through tantrums. Parents should be educated on how to handle tantrums in a calm, consistent manner, and how to teach their child appropriate ways to express their feelings.

Choice D rationale

Cooperative play is a part of social development in toddlers. Parents should be educated on how to encourage this type of play, such as arranging playdates with children of a similar age.

Choice E rationale

Dental care is important for toddlers. Parents should be educated on how to care for their toddler’s teeth and gums, including brushing their teeth twice a day and scheduling regular dental check-ups.

The correct answer is Choice D

Choice A rationale: Moral reasoning, including distinguishing right from wrong, requires abstract cognitive processing and internalization of social norms, typically emerging during the concrete operational stage around age 7. Toddlers are in Piaget’s sensorimotor to early preoperational phase, where egocentrism dominates and behavior is guided by immediate consequences rather than ethical principles. They lack the neurological maturity and social-cognitive integration required for moral discourse, making this milestone developmentally inappropriate for the toddler age group.

Choice B rationale: Performing simple chores involves task comprehension, motor coordination, and social cooperation, which are more consistently observed in preschool-aged children (4–5 years). Toddlers may imitate adult actions but lack sustained attention, impulse control, and fine motor precision needed for chore completion. Their psychosocial development is centered on autonomy and exploration, not structured responsibility. Expecting chore cooperation at this stage exceeds normative developmental expectations and may lead to frustration or behavioral resistance.

Choice C rationale: Printing letters and numbers requires advanced fine motor control, visual-motor integration, and symbolic cognition, typically achieved between ages 5 and 6. Toddlers are still developing basic hand-eye coordination and may engage in scribbling, but they lack the neuromuscular refinement and cognitive mapping needed for structured writing. Neurodevelopmental milestones do not support this skill in the toddler phase, making it scientifically inaccurate to expect printing behavior before preschool age.

Choice D rationale: By age 3, toddlers begin to tolerate brief separations from primary caregivers due to improved object permanence, emotional regulation, and social awareness. This aligns with Erikson’s autonomy vs. shame and doubt stage, where toddlers explore independence while maintaining secure attachment. Separation anxiety peaks around 9–18 months and typically declines by age 3. The ability to separate easily for short periods reflects healthy psychosocial development and is a scientifically appropriate expectation for toddlers.