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Everyday conversation between parents and toddlers provides a rich context for the child's acquisition of conceptual skills and communication abilities. While earlier studies generally have analyzed the utterances of either parent or child, this analysis of conversations of one mother and 22‐month old child focuses on the interaction of the two. The paper describes the sequences the pair uses in clarifying one another's focus of attention and in instructing and learning about concepts and motor skills. Mother and child adapt clarification and instruction patterns to the constraints of three play situations: free play, reading aloud, and parallel activity. The child adopts a “clarification” and the mother an “interpreter” role during free play, where the mother supports the child's focus. They reverse roles and communication strategies in the parallel context, where the child attempts to draw the mother into collaborative play. Further studies of mother‐toddler discourse should focus on variations across m...