Well, it had to happen. I am the easy one. The Pushover. N has already set the boundaries for K and I have been just riding along on her coat tails hoping K isn't going to notice the difference. I am kinda clueless sometimes but I saw her challenging me right away tonight. She doesn't do that as blatantly with N because they already have the rules set. K wouldn't listen to me tonight so I gave her a chance by offering to take away the reward that we give her for being a good listener. I guess she didn't believe me so I took it away. then she immediately tried negotiating to get it back. I held my ground and brought her back to the teeth brushing I had originally wanted her to do. She still refused, now with nothing to lose. I then offered to allow her to keep her books for the evening. I guess she didn't believe me. We always read two books before bed and she loves it. I took one away. Still no compliance. I took the other away. No compliance. Now defiance. Really nothing to lose. What now? I took charge and brushed her teeth against her will. She has a pretty strong will. Then she wants her books back. Here is where I always fail. I always try to find her a way to earn them back. Not tonight. I held my ground, and I think she respected me for it. We made up and cuddled before bed. I explained that we could try again tomorrow, but no books tonight because she wasn't a good listener. She didn't even ask to be read to when I put her down. wahoo.
hopefully, that will help a bit. Probably not, but I have to measure in small increments sometimes.
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4 comments:
Good job Dan! We are total pushovers so it helps to know that others are put in this position and that if hold tough it is NOT that tough. As you said there will be respect gained if you stick to your word. I MUST BE STRONGER!
Great job honey! It's so hard, but she will never seriously question how much we love her. Even when we do things she doesn't like. She is loved every day, even when she goes #2 on the floor ON PURPOSE TWICE. (Wait, is this for you or for me? Oh yeah, back to you...)
Good for you! She'll always love her Daddy, no matter how many battles you have over bedtime! ;)
Good job! It's so hard but it really is the best thing to lay down the law sometimes.
On vacation I had to throw away Lily's favorite snack (Cheez-its) because she wouldn't eat her lunch and just kept asking for "cheese crackers". Finally I told her that if she didn't eat her lunch and stop asking for them I was throwing them away. She didn't stop so I chucked them in the trash. The look on her face was AWFUL and she really cried for awhile but she's obviously fine now. The nice thing is that I know she learned something because she talked about it several times later. She asked why we didn't have cheese crackers any more and when I asked her why she said it was because she wasn't listening or eating. Success!
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