Dear Quick Witted Parents of Toddlers,
I need some advice. This morning I asked Oddler to pick up her shoes and put them in the shoe rack. This is what happened:
Me: “Pick up your shoes and put them in the rack, please Oddler”
Oddler: “NO”
Me: “I’m going to count to five and if you don’t put them in the shoe rack then I will put them in the bin.”
Oddler: “NO, MY PUTEM IN DA BIN, MY DO IT, MY DO IT” (Cue tantrum as she wanted to put her shoes in bin, not me)
Me: “Arsebiscuits” Outwitted by the toddler again.
To those parents cleverer than me, how do you stop yourself parenting into a corner?
Lots of Love
LadyDidn’tSeeThatOneComingCurd
I have no ideas, if I try the ‘counting to five’ thing, DD simply joins in and showcases her counting skills.
Smart cookie that one! Sometimes a line of “if you’re a good girl and listen to mommy, you can play XYZ game with daddy when he comes home” (cop out on my behalf I know, but I hate building Mr Potato Head!) is very effective. On a good day (for me) I can stare her out when she ignores me and that works, on a bad day I resort to “do XYZ and then you can have some chocolate buttons”. Otherwise I put my head in my hands and walk away feeling sorry for myself… x
haha the head in the hands approach is one I adopt often.
I always struggle with the rewards thing as sometimes in life you have to do stuff you don’t want to do without a reward at the end but then again I reward myself with an hour on twitter after loading the dishwasher so who am I trying to kid!
These days the denial of “Star Wars Time ” (4yo) or “Alice in Wonderland Time” (3yo) proves quite effective (although they try to get around it by approaching the parent who didn’t put in the ban in place before said parent is aware of the ban. Sometimes they are successful, but then I like to think this is teaching them sneaky life skills).
haha Oddler totally does this too. Cheeky kids.
I’m all for calling their bluff. Let her put them on the bin, take them out when she isn’t looking and when she wants them on tell her they are gone and they are in the bin. I’ve done something similar with Charlie with his crayons. He seemed to work. X
hehe love it – but when re-introduced they know you were lying?
call their bluff (a la Rebecca above) or go down the punishment route (we give warnings to lose tv/toys/bedtime stories etc) which sometimes work. Failing that – the “Simmer down chair” (thanks Charlie and Lola!) which MissM absolutely hates….
ooh havent seen the simmer down chair- we have the naughty step- but she takes herself off their to “bank naughty”! Argh!
Sadly this is very familiar in our house too. We have stopped threatening him with “go back to bed” since he quite gleefully traipses back upstairs into his bedroom.
Turning the TV off and confiscating DVDs seems to be the only thing which he is actually bothered about but not sure what that says about us as parents
We tried taking toys from him for a certain period of time and he said “Don’t want to play with them anyway!”
I.n.f.u.r.i.a.t.i.n.g!
haha they are too clever for us! Oddler likes to say “I want to go on the naughty step” takes herself off there to “bank naughty” then she comes back to try and be naughty, it being ok because she has already paid for the crime. Um no!
Ha ha, I love that ‘bank naughty’ They are just too clever for us!