“Give them a choice” and everything will go hunky-dory! They will feel empowered and be compliant little angels!
You know how that ACTUALLY goes down? Like this:
“Do you want the Hello Kitty shirt or the ruffly purple shirt?”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO”
“If you want to go out you have to pick a shirt.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO”
“Would you rather wear a shirt or stay home today?”
“NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”
Another lie: “give them a warning before changing activities.” They will adjust their thinking and happily move on to the next thing.
You know how THAT actually goes down?
“One more lap around the garden, then we go in for lunch!”
(toddler stops running and finds flower to pick)
If you wait until they are ready, potty training will be easy (my daughter would still be in diapers if I waited until she was ready - she is thirteen)
All I can say is ‘AMEN!!’. I say this not even ever having had a full-time one of my own, lol! Otherwise I’m sure I’d have plenty more examples to share.
“Do you want the Hello Kitty shirt or the ruffly purple shirt?”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO”
“Ok, you get the Hello Kitty shirt.”
And the point is to offer a choice before they get into a “I’m going to say no to everything” mood. If you wait till they do that and then react, it’s never going to work. Head them off at the pass.
And instead of “One more lap around the garden”, try counting down: “5 more minutes”, “4 more minutes” etc.
Heh, we’ve just been ‘enjoying’ the same thing. As far as I can work out Brooke uses ‘Noooo’ not as a negative statement but something along the lines of “I have heard your request/statement/command and am considering my reponse to it.”
So we have conversations like this:
“Brooke would you like some breakfast?”
“Noooooo”
Some time passes.
“Breakfast! Breakfast!”
Too many choices. “NOOOOOOO” means no. No more choices. Mom chooses. Will meltdown still happen? You betcha.
“Do you want the Hello Kitty shirt of the ruffly purple shirt?”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”
“OK, I’ll pick then. Hello Kitty!”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO”
“Sounds like you’re pretty mad this morning.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”
“Ok, you can yell in your room for a while. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready to speak nicely.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
Yup–that’s my experience with my three-year-old. Sometimes when I come back, she’s even ready to make a rational choice. Yesterday she had to get dressed for a wedding, and didn’t like any of the choices, because she was tired and cranky. I put her in time out and came back three minutes later to find her snuggling our cat, and she was able to go back to one of the choices and explain why it would be acceptable.
It goes something like this:
Choice offered almost always.
If she’s in meltdown mode, put her in time-out.
Come back later, once she’s calmed down, and she’s usually able to make a choice.
Of course it doesn’t always work, but it works often enough to be worthwhile.
Of course, sometimes it backfires. She was trying to modify our actions one time, and I said, “No, honey, this is not negotiable.”
“Yes it is!” she shouted. “EVERYTHING’s negotiable!”
I’m looking forward to having an older and more tractable toddler who can be put in time-out. Right now she’s 19 months, an age when she’s old enough to have these issues but too young to have any self-control or comprehension. I did get a bib onto her by giving her a choice of two, though, so yay.
Another lie: if they won’t eat what you give them, they’re choosing not to eat. Giving them something else will make them picky eaters.
Okay, not entirely a lie (we haven’t gotten far enough for me to find out). But then they do wake up starving at 4am and guess how the rest of the day goes?
If you want to give kids options, you have to be willing to make them live with the consequences, or else it’ll just turn into another way for them to jerk you around. You refuse to eat your peanut butter sandwich unless I put ketchup on it? Fine, but you’re going to sit there at the table until you’ve eaten every last bite of it.
It’s difficult for young children to make decisions. Forcing it on them is an exercise in frustration for both the child and parent. Ever try to get a menu decision out of a young kid?
What do you want?
I don’t know.
Do you want a hot dog?
I don’t know.
Do you want…a grilled cheese sandwich?
I…do…doo…don’t know!
How about…
I DON’T KNOWWWWWWWW!!! (crying begins)
Parents I see these days seem to be trying to prove something by trying to have their kids make adult decisions and to think rationally before they’re ready for it. Discussing the merits of a decision with a 3-year old is pointless and stupid.
My daughter was known to fall asleep during a tantrum…and pick it up again the next day when she woke up - it was HORRIFYING. Letting her calm down was not working if I ever wanted to go to work, get groceries, or have peace and quiet.
Bwahahahahahaa! I’m sorry. I think I love your kid.
People do it badly, is the problem. The idea is to give them a limited number of teeny tiny choices when they’re teeny tiny people. Over time, you give them more and more and eventually more important, but yeah, it’s entirely possible to overwhelm them with too many choices, too many important choices, too soon.
Research shows that people are happiest not with unlimited power, but with growing power. We don’t want to be our own bosses the first day we’re hired in a new industry, but we want to believe that we’ll have room for growth - more choices next year than we have this year. The same is true of children. It’s not effective to give a 19 month old the choice of shirt and shorts and socks and breakfast and activity of the day and and and and. That’s overwhelming. Pick one item of clothing for them to choose. Pick one part of breakfast for them to choose. Pick one activity of every four or five for them to choose. And if they hesitate, if they protest, if they “I don’t know” or “noooooo” then you make the choice - not as punishment, not with anger, but because it’s just not necessary to be in charge when you’re 19 months old. It’s not GOOD to be in charge when you’re 19 months old. They need to know that when it gets to be too much, Mom and Dad are there to take the pressure off and show the way.
It is good to learn how to make choices and live with them, or change them, or make different choices next time. But it’s not got to be finished by Thursday.
“Choices” is just one *part *of the authoritative parenting philosophy. It doesn’t work in a vacuum. It doesn’t prevent all meltdowns - some days it *causes *meltdowns. (Which, yes, is something we owe it to newer parents to be more honest and forthcoming about than we generally are.) What it does do, if done right, is teach kids how to make better choices when they’re 15 than kids who’ve never practiced making choices.
Make it a choice between two things. Always. Do you want the hot dog or the sandwich? And give them one chance to answer; if they won’t, you choose for them. They might not like it, but after a few rounds of that they’ll understand how it works.
Anecdotally, every person I know who has a severe aversion to a particular food says that it was the result of this sort of discipline as a child. (Mine is cheese-filled hot dogs, which luckily are very easy to avoid. I sat at that goddamned table for four hours staring at those cheese-infested hot dogs sitting in a puddle of congealed fat. I was prepared to sit there all night. I was prepared to sleep at that table before I ate those fucking awful horrible things. Eventually my mom gave up and sent me to bed. I assure you that nothing short of having them physically forced down my throat would have got me to eat them.)
Ahem. Anyway, having learned from my experiences with my older two kids, things generally go pretty smoothly with my youngest, age 5. I don’t ask him what he wants to wear in the morning. I just tell him to go get dressed, and I make sure that the only clothing in his drawers is seasonally appropriate. If I ask him what he wants for lunch, the choice is between two things. (If he asks for a third thing and it’s something that is a normal lunch menu item in our house and I have it available, I will make that. I am easygoing.) If he starts throwing a temper tantrum, I decide whether it is an “I am really upset about something that just happened” tantrum and therefore give him a hug and lots of kisses, which usually soothes him; or an “I would like all of the attention right now” tantrum, in which case I say, “I’ll talk to you when you’re calm” and turn my back on him and walk away.
I had exactly zero of these skills when I was a new mom with my first child. Sometimes I think that having an only child would be a lot easier, but then I think it would suck because I wouldn’t have any younger kids to show off my l33t parenting skillz that I learned by practicing on the oldest. (Who will probably need therapy before any of them, I am sure.)
One book I read said the terrible twos start at 18 months and goes for about a year. Baaaa. My daughter’s starter earlier and my son’s was a little late. He’s just turning two and is time-outs don’t do anything for him except to make him scream louder. It’s amazing how these siblings, both genetically and environmentally are so different. What worked for older sister needed to be chucked out the window for the son.
I found that some parenting books are OK, but each kid is so completely different that any advice is not going to be the solve-all.
It always amazes me when people will tell you “XYZ is what’s happening with your kid.” No it’s not. Sometimes, the advice will work, but not always. For me, it’s worked out to have a lot of tricks in my bag. Distraction. Hey! Is that a plane! The occasional time out. 1-2-3 and daddy will do it.
One thing we do is the “Good cop, bad cop” routine. Mommy and I do it and one will be Kiddo’s defense attorney.
D: “No Mommy! Didi doesn’t want a shirt!”
M: "No shirt?
D: “No shirt!”
M: “But it’s time for daycare!”
D: “No Mommy! Didi doesn’t want a shirt!”
Daddy puts on a shirt while Didi watches in confusion.
Never ask a toddler any question that can be answered “No” when you are trying to have him make a choice. I’ve had decent luck with the under three set with this parenting rule.
Do you want a cheese sandwich or chicken strips?
No!!!
Which do you want, a cheese sandwich or chicken strips?
Chicken strips.