I would have been totally surprised if you were.
Wow…you must have just missed out on another Fox’s attempt at parenting. A must read, especially for those who are curious about raising children…the right way and the wrong way.
Ok…but wait for it…
Well, then…here’s a couple of Gen-Nexters who got whatever they wanted/needed and who defied common sense. They hardly knew that there kids existed only 5 feet from them as well.
Wow… good piece. Kind of makes you wonder, though, how they ever had time to make the kids. Power failures, perhaps?
gah…“their”…not “there”.
IMHO many, if not most 18-month olds are simply not capable of sitting still for the length of time it takes to eat a restaurant meal. Trying to pretend they are is an exercise in futility and frustration for all concerned. My first daughter would sit still forever if you gave her crackers. The second wouldn’t sit still for 2 minutes. She wasn’t “bad,” she just was not able to sit still and be quiet. So after a couple of attempts at the tag-team thing, we just stopped taking her. If we really wanted a restaurant meal, we hired a baby sitter. By the time she was about 3 or so years old, she was better able to understand that restaurants are for people who can sit still & be quiet. If you can’t, then you can’t be in the restaurant. We were definitely tested on this, and once she learned that the rule would be enforced, it was fine. Incidentally, she now works in the food service industry and one of her major annoyances is parents who will not control their children!
Regarding the checkout line and other "gimmee"s: My rule was that if you ask nicely you *might * get what you want now and you might not. Even if you don’t get what you want now, you still might get it later, or tomorrow. But if you whine, or scream, or have any kind of temper tantrum, you definitely will not get it now, and not later and not tomorrow and not the next time. Like everybody else, I’ve had my share of mistakes as a parent, but being consistent on issues like this was one of the things I did right.
When I was two, my parents took me out to a little sandwich place. I threw a fit because they wouldn’t let me pour my own milk (it came in one of those little cardboard cartons). I flung myself all over the place and capped it off by running back into the kitchen. My father took me out of there and vowed to not take me to another restaurant until I was 16. I eventually learned to be a little better behaved and my parents relented on the restaurant ban, but we never went back to that particular restaurant…until my 16th birthday.
I was recently relating the antics of my totally maniacal toddler to my mom and comparing him to my relatively easy older kid. She said, “To tell you the truth, [toddler] is just like you were as a kid. I think [older son] must get his sweetness from your husband. I bet he was like that, because you weren’t.” As I’m typing this, the toddler is literally climbing up my back.
No, he’s not - at least not as far as I know. And he wasn’t drunk, either.
See, I asked him what kind of badge he has for a reason; I know he’s never had one, and I didn’t appreciate him coming here and lying about it.
Everything else he’s said is the kind of stuff I have to listen to for eight hours a night.
FF works with me in a data center. He looked over my shoulder, saw me reading the SDMB, and joined up himself.
I kind of had a feeling something like this might happen…
Oh No! 
:smack: :eek: (I missed the badge post) (actually I couldn’t stand reading hi)
So, what, you’re saying he talks to customers that way? Or can’t work w/out talking? How do your supervisors put up with constant chatter? Put him in “time out”? Bwahahaha.
:eek:
Bless yore pea-pickin lil heart, neutron star!
We don’t have to deal with any customers. It’s not tech support.
Really, he can’t work without talking, it seems. Our supervisors don’t come in during third shift, so technically I’m in charge of him.
Pity me. 
Maybe if you buy him a pack of gum he’ll shut up.
(Actually, I kid. I don’t think he’s guilty of anything other than young childless arrogance, and which of us didn’t have a bad case of that once upon a time?)
Aren’t you basically admiting here that you have no common sense?
My second daughter was quite a handful too – from the age of 1 until about 3-1/2 she would take the slightest “provocation” (including simply telling her to “stop running” or “put down that fork”) to enter a fit of rage. Not a tantrum-throwing rage either: she would stand stock still, fists clenched at her sides, narrow her eyes, scowl fiercely, and literally tremble with anger.
Of course, laughing at this made it much worse.
My mother in law was positively ear-to-ear grinning and brimming with glee every time my wife related another “can you believe how stubborn/temperamental this little girl is” story. “Heh heh heh… Just like you were… REVENGE AND JUSTICE AT LAST!!11!” OK she refrained from that last part, but only barely.
Many posters, in this and other threads, have emphasized the importance of meaning what you say. And that’s certainly true, but, and I’m not applying it to any Dopers, but it helps if you start by saying what you mean.
Two scenarios. Both settings Uncle P and Aunt J’s house. I was early-grade-school-age in both. Outside, hanging with the neighbor’s kids on their lawn, within shouting distance of P&J’s house.
Scenario 1: Mom appears at the side door.
Her: Rilchiiiiiiiiiiieeeeee…What are you doiiiiiiingggggg?
Me: [thinking] Uh…Am I supposed to be inside? Am I not supposed to be with these kids – are they bad kids or something? Am I not supposed to be off P&J’s property? Am I not supposed to have my shoes off? [speaking] What do you mean?
Her: Whaddya mean whaddoI mean? What are you doing out there?
Me: What do you want?
Her: Don’t talk to me that way! COME HERE!
Me: [thinking] Oh jeez, she’s making a scene. [speaking] Okay, okay… [trudges towards house]
Scenario 2: Same setup. Uncle P appears at side door, whistles and jerks thumb over his shoulder.
Me: [to kids] Gotta go, bye! [trots back to house]
My mom thought that was just so hilarious. (And she also thought it was embarrassing for me, which is probably why she thought it was funny.) Except, Uncle P got me to cooperate by the simple expedient of making it clear what he wanted. And hell, she knew him longer than I did; she knew that was how he was with all his kids. Wonder why she never tried that herself, instead of whining* at me and expecting me to know what she was getting at.
Anyway, I know some people think it’s all New Agey and ineffective to say “Kaitlin, put the remote down,” instead of “Kaitlin, stop that,” but when you think of how fragmented a child’s concentration can be, it certainly can’t hurt to be precise about what you mean.
*I know it sounds like Bizarro World when I talk about my mom, but she really did whine. Other people noticed it too; it wasn’t just my perception.
You know what Rilchiam, I found the direct, positive approach to be the most effective with my kids. “Chew with your mouth closed” is active. It gives a clear instruction. And IME it works much better than “Don’t chew with your mouth open!”.
To digress further, I often categorized my rules/admonishions/etc. as things like “safety issues” “health issues” “economy issues”. My kids grasped notions like “wash your scraped knee off so the germs will not hurt you” when I portrayed it as a health issue rather than some zany whim I had.
It even helps in the workplace. I wish more people were direct in their requests.
I have absolutely seen parents do that!
One in particular – a couple of winters ago I took the twins to a play-by-the-hour spot with all kinds of cool imaginary toys (Chicagoland has everything, I swear). There was one other family present: Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma and two kids, a baby and a 3-yr-old. All the adults were sitting on their butts (with Mom scrambling around after the baby).
“Caitlin, it’s time to go” says Dad from his chair. He doesn’t budge. Nobody gets up or makes any effort to leave. So the kid keeps playing. “CAITLIN, it’s TIME to GO!” Still the adults remain seated. And the kid keeps playing. "CAITLIN!!!
It’s like, what, are you waiting for her to get your coats for you?
Phrasing also helps – When we’re outside playing and I tell my kids not to go too far, it’s “Stay where you can see me”, rather than “Stay where I can see you”.
You have a conventional job and spend your free time in front of a computer. Actually, buddy, it sounds like you’re very well controlled.
Heh. I hang out with a group of parents/kids who meet down by the creek every so often. They’re nice people, but mostly more new-agey than I am. And their directives to their kids tend to be things like:
(in a soft voice:) “I need you to stop throwing rocks, Elroy, okay?” (Elroy is standing 20 feet away, in the middle of a creek full of shrieking kids. How is he supposed to hear you? His rock-throwing is not malicious or towards anyone, so it isn’t an emergency, but he can’t hear you!)
They do this all the time. It drives me a little nuts.
Grr.
Or how about asking a question instead of giving instructions? “Honey snookums, do you want to take a nap now?” Duh, of course not! “Sweetie? Do you want to put on your coat now?” Um…no? “Put on your coat, we’re leaving in 2 minutes” is just so much easier all 'round!
Ah, yes…one of the things that drove me nuts when I was a kid. We would be at a relative’s house and my parents would call to us that it was time to go. So all the kids would stop playing and (if necessary) put on our coats…and then have to stand around for a half hour while the adults chatted. But Og forbid us kids should start fidgeting or (in my case) pick up something to read. “I said we were leaving, put that book down.” So I would sigh, put down the book, and wait. And wait, and wait, while they resumed talking.
Exactly. Tell them what you want them to do, instead of the ten million things you don’t want them to do.
On preview: LurkMeister, argh! That’s one thing my mom did get right: telling me, or us, whichever applied, “Start wrapping things up; we’re leaving soon.”