I used to start singing “You Can’t Always Get What you Want” by the Stones. Used to piss off the little bugger to no end. 
(He’s all grown up now.)
Shrug While amusing as a sort-of-snarky internet reply, I honestly do not think this will work well on a cranky 3 year old, or at least, on my cranky 3 year old.
Experience may differ of course. I’ve long ago given up the illusion that one approach to discipline and interaction with children fits all.
I’d forgotten how well it worked, and I thought for sure my miss know it all sassy queen wouldn’t take it as well as my eager to please sensitive son. Man, let me tell you, she SQUEAKED, her eyes got really big, and she didn’t say another word for nearly 10 minutes. Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.
I’ll try it on mine, and see what he does.
To my mind, words not backed up at some point with some sort of actions do not really work on the very young, when they are in petulant mode - again, experience may differ.
Well, I think the “action” in this case is losing your attention. Just make it too boring too talk about. Soon they’ll give up (in my kid’s case, 2 reps were all it took) when they see you *really *aren’t going to talk about it. They value your attention over almost everything else at this age. Much more fun to change the subject and ask why dogs don’t come in green, if Dad will talk about that instead.
It also might take a couple of times before they get the hint it really isn’t open to discussion anymore. Just be sure that if you do say it isn’t open to discussion, it really isn’t open to discussion.
Agreed. Never offer a choice that you don’t intend to carry out fully. You never intended to drive all the way home.
I do not have kids, but I remember being one and I strongly disagree with your statement. I am sure that as a parent, it becomes necessary to put your foot down every once in awhile and say, “No, this is how we’re doing it because Mommy says so.” But I really believe this is the wrong way to go about raising children on a regular basis. Children need to learn that they have power, too, not just the adults. They need to learn that their opinions will be heard by someone, that their choices are important, and that their decisions have consequences. It all comes down to a power play and I think it can be very tempting as a parent to grab all the power for yourself, but children need to learn to claim and use power for themselves. After all, eventually children grow up and receive power whether they want it or not, and they need to already have practice in using it, even if that practice consists of something as mundane as choosing what to eat for dinner or choosing where to sleep.
As I said, I don’t have kids, this is just coming from my experience with an extremely controlling mother who dressed me long after I wanted to be dressed, and even gave me showers until the sixth grade because she didn’t trust me to do it myself. I think the phrase “learned helplessness” would apply to my experiences as a child - I had no power, and I grew to accept and expect that. I know that my opinion may be a little biased because of my experiences, but that is why I think empowering kids is important, even if “empowering” is just the “buzzword” of the day.
This. Or, as I always reminded myself when my son was younger, “never ask your child a question if you are not prepared to deal with the answer.”
Not quite the same thing, but also good guidance: “don’t rely on punishments that punish YOU more than they punish your kid.”
I do that, with my kids who are now 9 and 6. I also sometimes say “And I want a new car/a pony/a one eyed, one horned, flyin’ purple people eater, so if you get me that, I’ll make teryaki chicken”. (And I would, too!)
Youngest came back immediately with how he would gladly pay me Tuesday, but I wasn’t falling for that. Quid pro quo or nothing, bub.
Sometimes I get all sympathetic and start talking about how upsetting it is not to get what you want, with illustrative examples. As with any time mom wants them to to talk about feelings, this causes my sons to vacate the kitchen fairly quickly.
I have even been known to say, “And you can certainly have teriyaki chicken every night as soon as you are making dinner every night”.
A parent should NEVER negotiate or do deals with their children to get them to do as they’re told.
They are not your equals in maturity,knowledge or experience.
They do not feed,clothe and house you.
I totally believe that you should clearly explain in terms that they can understand why you have told them to do something and why it is for their own benefit either long or short term as in “You have to brush your teeth because…etc”
NOT “Brush your teeth and I’ll take you to the zoo”
Apart from the fact that if you do a deal with a kid once you will be doing deals with it for ever more,as even young children soon realise that by being recalcritrant they can get goodies in return for obedience, plus the added bonus’s of playing an enjoyable game that gets them attention from Mum/Dad.
It also sends the signals that even though you are adults the kids are in effect your equals which wont have a very good impact on their respect for you or your judgement.
The world is full of kids who love their parents but have absoloutley no respect for them.
They also get the impression that by doing as you say that they are doing you a favour instead of doing what is in their own best interests.
The O.P. was lucky in that they went a bluff too far and their child in the end didn’t call their bluff.
You will tell us when & where, right?
d&r really really fast & really really far
Btw, seeing the thread title, I was going to say my money was on the 4yo & God have mercy on your soul. Bravo.
Lust4Life- how old are your kids?
I think I agree although it seems we are using negotiate in a different way. For example, if I were to tell my kids that I’m not making them stir fry chicken because I’m just too tired, they might respond with:
- Can we have stir fry instead of the pasta?
- What if I make the stir fry myself?
- There is leftover stir fry in the fridge. Can I just heat that up?
All said without whining. Some solutions work, others don’t. If none works, I make pasta and life goes on. But if they do come up with something I hadn’t considered, it might just make things easier all the way around.
Some things, like brushing teeth, aren’t open to negotiation. But exactly when it has to happen might be.
Me: “Have you brushed your teeth yet?”
Kid: “No. Can I do it after I’m done reading this chapter?”.
Me: “Sure. Just be sure to get it done before 7:30.”
Or:
Me: “Go take a shower, please.”
Kid: “Can I do it after this show?”
Me: “No. Last time you asked to do that you forgot and ended up having to stay up late taking a shower. Sorry.”
A technique I have found to work really well is to give the kid fair warning of some outcome. For example, say it is bedtime - rather than saying “you must go to bed now”, I’ll say “you have to go to bed in ten minutes” - ten minutes before his bedtime.
That way, he feels like he got a bit of “extra” time.
I have nothing against negotiation & compromise, as long as all of the outcomes are acceptable. Allowing the kid to choose whether he gets eggs or healthy cereal for breakfast is okay, eating candy for breakfast is not okay; the afore-mentioned timing of teeth-brushing is okay, not brushing teeth is not okay.
I disagree that the best way of getting kids to do stuff is through logically explaining the consequences for their own benefit of why you want it done. Most three year olds are not capable of really understanding long-term consequences - try explaining to a tired three year old that if he doesn’t brush his teeth, his teeth will rot. Kids, or at least very young kids, often don’t have the ability to think in the long term.
That’s exactly what I did my with my 4-year old Thanksgiving weekend. Only he was pestering his older brother who was trying to sleep. I told him I would throw some blankets down and he could sleep on the floor and he stopped fooling around and went to sleep.
Now we’re fighting other battles. 
No. Just no. Kids do not need to be empowered. They are the kid in the relationship, the parent is the adult. Empowering a preschooler just smacks of the whole Cult of the Child thinking that exists today.
I teach preschool (four-year-olds, JFTR), and this is something I’ve see in the last few years, letting kids make all the decisions and ‘empowering’ them. It creates spoiled rotten kids who think they’re gods and princesses who can do no wrong.
I have a student this year who is late every day. Her mother apologizes for it, saying they’re doing something called “Child-led sleep scheduling.” They ask her if she’s ready for bed, of course the kid says no, she’d rather watch TV. She ends up falling asleep in front of the TV around midnight every night, and her parents have to carry her up to bed. Mom has commented that she gets tired and cranky around 8;00 each night, but when they ask if she’s ready to go to bed, of course the kid says no. Who wants to go to bed when there’s the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network to watch until the wee hours of the morning?
I just stand there, completely boggled. Who asks a 4-year-old if they want to go to bed? No, you have a set bedtime, and you’re going to bed at that time. Special occassions, excepted, of course.
Going back to the teriyaki chicken - I’ve known parents who make their kids anything they want to eat for meals, so much so that the parent ends up being a short-order cook. Three kids, and they all want something different? No problem, mom or dad will just whip up chicken teriyaki for one, homemade mac and cheese for another, and burgers for the third.
This affects me at snacktime, when we serve something one kid doesn’t like, and he demands something else. Sorry, today we’re having graham crackers. You don’t like it, throw it away, and finish your milk. I have one parent this year who wanted to send in a special snack each day just for her son, so he would have something he liked every day. After all, preschool is a whole two-and-a-half hours long. Poor lil’ snookums might wither away and die if he doesn’t get something to eat in all that time. Her idea of a special snack, just for her kid, every day? Cupcakes. Yeah, right.
I had a student last year who threw any snack that was fresh fruit on the floor. We talked to her mother about it, and she just laughed and said, “Oh, she doesn’t like fruit. When she has something on her plate that she doesn’t like, she throws it on the floor. I feel discipling her for something like that is wrong. She’s learning to express herself.”
WTF? We ended up not even giving her snack on the days we had fruit, and she’d sit there and pout.
And the white lie about the road being closed? Ingenious, as far as I’m concerned. If the OP writes about this in her baby book, and Lil miss muldoonthief reads it when she’s older, I really doubt she look at that one point and think what a terrible person Dad was for lying to her. She’ll probably laugh about it.
I could go on and on, but it’s been a long day, and I’m tired.
Yes, kids need to learn that their opinion counts, and that they can make some decisions, but ‘empowering’ little kids? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
You offer them two choices.
You want to sleep in the bed with your sister, or sleep on the floor? Those are your options.
You want to wear the red shirt or the blue shirt? Pick one and get dressed.
Sheesh, what started out a a cute kid story has devolved in a way I never expected.
You know when “child-led sleep scheduling” works? When you’re camping. When they’re out in the fresh air getting exercise all day without electronic stimulation. When the only thing to do after dark is sit around the campfire with the boring old grownups talking and talking and talking. Our child has led us to sleep as early as 7:00 when we’re camping! Of course, she’s up with the sun, but that’s not so bad when camping, somehow. Even my sleep clock gets reset to Sun Time awfully quick.
But at home? Hells, no. I may not be able to make you sleep, but I can set a bedtime, provide a quiet, non-stimulating environment and then you decide whether you sleep or stare at the ceiling quietly singing songs to yourself.
Really, I suspect if your student’s mom just made everything after dinner terribly dull, the kid would want to go to bed at a reasonable time. Sleeping according to your natural needs isn’t a terrible idea, but she’s trying to do it in a non-natural, stimulating environment. That’s just not thought out all the way.
Hey, this was my advice! 
Hey, thanks again! It’s still working!
My husband coined the phrase, “Some people want ice water.” It was his kid-friendly version of his dad’s, “The people in hell want ice water.” It often worked, even though the kids thought it was pretty silly. It really just told them he was done talking about it.
(The girls are 21 and 19 now and we just found out this past year that they didn’t get the real phrase until they were in high school. One of the volleyball coaches used it the right way and the older one was just floored. I think she actually thought he might be making something up.)