"Say what you mean and mean what you say."
My little guy is truly embracing the terrible twos. How is it by almost 28 months now he has fully mastered the art of negotiation and manipulation? How quickly they learn. Let's see........
Things were fine until we got home and started making dinner. He wanted juice, he wanted milk. He spilled his juice and FREAKED OUT. The juice had to go into the kitchen. The lid had to come off; the lid had to go on. The scene goes on like this for about 10 minutes. Typical toddler stuff; fine I can handle that.
Dinner's over, Nora's melted down and gone to bed. Now it's shower time for Oliver. He's not READY for shower. So the nightly battle begins........only tonight I'm not having much patience and the usual games and negotiations aren't working. I finally wrestle his shirt off after negotiations are failing and the meltdown begins. So he gets two choices: get in the shower, or go straight to bed. He wants daddy (perhaps he feels his mind games will work better on him): no dice little buddy that's not one of your choices. He won't get in the shower, so for the first time in my parenting career we sent him to bed early with no shower and no baba. No reading even (he had the choice on that too). Not easy listening to him scream his head off trying to continue "negotiations" from his darkened bedroom for 40 minutes before he finally fell asleep.
Only tomorrow night will tell if it worked...........I always knew I would be "the mean parent." I just didn't know it would be so difficult emotionally to do so.
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"misery loves company" is not the nicest motto or thing to say to encourage one of your closest friends...BUT it's nice to hear we battle the same things! It's tantrum city over here. And yes, it's heart breaking to do the enforcing...consistency is so hard. If we don't do it now though, think how awful it'll be when they are 6 and their negotiations & weight have picked it up a notch.
You are doing such a good job Kel.
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