I'm sure in every family's lore there is a "stubborn first child" tale. In my family it was "the dog food incident." When I was about 3 or 4, I guess, I dumped out our dog's food bowl and refused to help clean it up. I sat there for 2 hours and still refused. So finally my mom or dad wrapped my tiny fingers around a nugget of food and transferred it to the bowl, just so that we could all go on with our lives.
Well, we have had several dog food incidents with No. 1 son and will probably have many, many more [sigh]. This morning it was over unloading the dishwasher, which is one his chores. Not too hard, he mostly has to move 10-15 dishes about 2 feet to the kitchen cabinet. Sometimes he does it cheerfully, sometimes he resists. This morning, it was resist. So I took his hand and molded it around a dish and moved it over to the cabinet. Each time he hollered "Stop!" I asked if he was ready to cooperate. He finally was after about 4 dishes. Then he did the rest in his cheerful manner.
Every time we re-enact the dog food incident, I am reminded of hearing that story from my own parents. And I feel the exasperation every parent feels when Junior takes 10 minutes to complain about something that would take 1 minute to complete. (Mostly dishes and getting dressed in our house.) I'm sure there's a better way to encourage compliance, but when we are 10 minutes from departing for summer school and have asked him to do it 3 times already, and put his promised donut reward on the line, and he still doesn't do it, this is the method that works... I just need to remind myself to remember that for every one dog food incident there have been 5 or so cheerful cooperation incidents... And that if he can learn the lesson, which for him is "do your work quickly so that you have more time for fun," he will be happier when he is grown and has "real" work to do... I have no idea what the lesson for me is. Probably "don't ask a four-year-old boy to do any chores 10 minutes before walking out the door."
Busy Day: Doin' What They Love
6 hours ago
7 comments:
That you can blog about it and acknowledge all the good cheerful incidents shows what a great mom you are, Juliet! Hang in there! John's a great kid! I guess he's testing you. And you have met him with calm. That's fantastic!
I feel your pain! It must be a 4 yr old thing.
You inspire me so much b/c i tend to choose the less-than-optimal solution of just not asking Naomi to do things especially when i know it is going to be met with resistance.
You are doing such a great age-appropriate job preparing and equipping John to handle future challenges!
I will say, I have learned that distraction does still work (which i prefer over reward/punishment incentives sometimes) such as turning things into a game:
--can you do X before I do it?
--can one of your stuffed animals help you do X?
--oh no! someone needs help! we better put our shoes on so we can rescue them!
I just don't always have the patience/energy/time/creativity to take this route!
Yes, the other evening, Tony did a GREAT job of using distraction to get the table set. I often say "we can do it the easy way or the hard way." Tony says we can do it the "regular way or the fun way." He had John do it in s.l.o.w. m.o.t.i.o.n. using a funny slow voice also. John turned it around quick. But the real payoff was the next night, when John said let's do it the fun way in slow motion. And then Tony told him he was in a little hurry and he wasn't going to do slow motion. Then John said, "If you're not going to do slow motion, I'm not either." Then he proceeded to set the table cheerfully at normal speed!!! It was AWESOME. And an excellent reminder that distraction does work and can turn around a situation much faster and more easily than a time out. I'm a good mom because I'm married to a good dad!
Having some animated furry animals, a la Mary Poppins would probably help, too. And Dick van Dyke.
I hadn't even thought of that!! Of course, then we'd just have to set more places at the table, and it would be drawn out even longer...
Maybe if we hadn't ever told you about the dog food incident... ??
Nah!
No, no, I'm glad I know about it. Hopefully I can learn from it...
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