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Xantippe
Guest
Baby Girl LOVES helping.
In fact, I’ve had to fight her for my Swiffer, because Swiffering is a favorite activity.
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In fact, I’ve had to fight her for my Swiffer, because Swiffering is a favorite activity.
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stupidisasstupiddoes
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It doesn’t work like that. Once the child knows you are divided on the issue then they play them off against each other. If the child knew neither parent would give in then they wouldn’t hold out long. The child knows the mother will cave.
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midori
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Oh-- a couple of things re: age appropriateness.
One thing was, very young kids don’t have the ability to plan ahead. Like, “Hey, I’m warm now, because I’m inside, but when I go outside, I’m going to be cold, so let me put my jacket on.” So if you try to put their jacket on, they’ll fight you-- because they’re warm and don’t have the ability to perceive they’ll need it.
So, one thing I found useful was for the conversation to go: “Hey, put your jacket on.” “I don’t want to. I don’t need it.” “Okay. When you get cold, come inside, and put your jacket on.” “Okay.” And they go outside, realize in 10 seconds they’re getting cold, remember that I told them to come in and put their jacket on when they got cold, and they come inside for their jacket. So, getting into that mindset to walk them through steps A, B, C, and D, rather than jumping from A to D when an A-to-D jump wasn’t age-appropriate, really prevented a lot of battles.
One thing was, very young kids don’t have the ability to plan ahead. Like, “Hey, I’m warm now, because I’m inside, but when I go outside, I’m going to be cold, so let me put my jacket on.” So if you try to put their jacket on, they’ll fight you-- because they’re warm and don’t have the ability to perceive they’ll need it.
So, one thing I found useful was for the conversation to go: “Hey, put your jacket on.” “I don’t want to. I don’t need it.” “Okay. When you get cold, come inside, and put your jacket on.” “Okay.” And they go outside, realize in 10 seconds they’re getting cold, remember that I told them to come in and put their jacket on when they got cold, and they come inside for their jacket. So, getting into that mindset to walk them through steps A, B, C, and D, rather than jumping from A to D when an A-to-D jump wasn’t age-appropriate, really prevented a lot of battles.
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Xantippe
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That’s why mom is going to step out for a breather while dad does it.
(This works for bed time, too, when small children think that only MOOOOOOMMMY can put them to bed.)
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stupidisasstupiddoes
Guest
Crickey that’s good advice. I really need to read a book on child psychology before long. My friend has told me a few good examples of where his child made a disgusting mess, but before he lost his temper he asked why she did it. It turns out that the toilet door was locked and she felt a need to empty the potty… somewhere. There was logic there!!! Still don’t fancy cleaning it up though.
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jfz178
Guest
The Cry Room. please!
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stupidisasstupiddoes
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You’re missing the point. The child will hold out longer than mum can go for a walk. Your theory doesn’t work because the child is just out waiting the mum and not both of them.
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Xantippe
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Small children don’t have the same sort of time sense that adults have.
For them, 5 minutes is like a million years. (This applies to time outs, by the way–30 seconds of waiting is sheer torture for a small child.)
If it was possible for mom to feed the kid good stuff if she just waited the kid out, it’s even more possible for dad to do it, if he doesn’t have that reputation with the kid.
I REALLY don’t like backseat parenting from people who aren’t willing to do the stuff that they want the other parent to do.
The mom in your story has probably had the fight taken out of her by going through this literally hundreds of times and winding up picking up hundreds of peas or whatever. As pianistclare was mentioning, tired parents make poor choices. That’s why dad is such a great resource in your food story–he’s fresh reinforcements. He hasn’t had his will broken yet.
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midori
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Other things that come into play when they’re younger—
When they’re infants. Watch his(?) mouth. When you see the baby start licking his lips— I knew I had about 5 minutes before he started crying to tell me he was hungry. It’s common in a lot of babies— keep an eye open to see if it’s a signal yours gives, and will allow you to preemptively head off a crying spell.
Another thing-- baby sign language. I remember how frustrating it was when I was little and couldn’t find the right word to explain a thought. Part of that is vocabulary, but a big part of it is that the tongue muscles require very fine control in order to shape words. But babies are able to make gestures with their hands. I didn’t start with my first until he was about 5 or 6 months old, and he caught on in a couple of weeks. It took (four? six?) weeks for my newborn DS2 to connect a particular hand gesture (opening and closing your fist) with the concept of “milkies”. It took another two weeks for him to sign it back to me. So he could open and close his fist at me, and I knew he wanted to nurse-- he only had to cry if I was busy and couldn’t drop everything to react on his timeline.
So I picked four or five concepts that were important-- “sleep”, “play”, “potty”, and whatever else-- and worked those into our interactions. So even though it’s maybe 18-24 months before they can string together multiple words, we were still having great communication from age 2 months onwards. And it really cut down on his need to cry, because he had other ways to communicate his desire— and his crying became limited to those things he didn’t have a word for (gas bubble, don’t put me to bed, etc) or my not being able to react to his needs because I was in a store/driving/doing something that prevented me from being timely.
When they’re infants. Watch his(?) mouth. When you see the baby start licking his lips— I knew I had about 5 minutes before he started crying to tell me he was hungry. It’s common in a lot of babies— keep an eye open to see if it’s a signal yours gives, and will allow you to preemptively head off a crying spell.
Another thing-- baby sign language. I remember how frustrating it was when I was little and couldn’t find the right word to explain a thought. Part of that is vocabulary, but a big part of it is that the tongue muscles require very fine control in order to shape words. But babies are able to make gestures with their hands. I didn’t start with my first until he was about 5 or 6 months old, and he caught on in a couple of weeks. It took (four? six?) weeks for my newborn DS2 to connect a particular hand gesture (opening and closing your fist) with the concept of “milkies”. It took another two weeks for him to sign it back to me. So he could open and close his fist at me, and I knew he wanted to nurse-- he only had to cry if I was busy and couldn’t drop everything to react on his timeline.
So I picked four or five concepts that were important-- “sleep”, “play”, “potty”, and whatever else-- and worked those into our interactions. So even though it’s maybe 18-24 months before they can string together multiple words, we were still having great communication from age 2 months onwards. And it really cut down on his need to cry, because he had other ways to communicate his desire— and his crying became limited to those things he didn’t have a word for (gas bubble, don’t put me to bed, etc) or my not being able to react to his needs because I was in a store/driving/doing something that prevented me from being timely.
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stupidisasstupiddoes
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It’s not backseat parenting at all. The father works to provide money for the family, the mother is taking a career break while the kids are young. That was their decision, earning money to get the food is not backseat parenting. The father also has the decency not to contradict his wife in front of the children, so your reading of the situation is totally wrong and i think you are prejecting a scenario from your own experiences onto mine.
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Milt
Guest
One of the big junk food problems I had was they come back with loads of that stuff from school.
Remember this. Children do not come with an instruction manual and what may work for one will not for the other.
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Xantippe
Guest
It is backseat parenting to want the spouse doing the work to do things how the spouse not doing the work (and who has never actually tried out their theories) wants it to be done. Armchair warriors are always unpopular with the guys in the trenches, and the holidays and travel are tough for people with small children. Children are likely to be especially difficult when their routine is disturbed.
I would also point out that the way you’ve been describing the situation, it’s as if the mom “broke” the kid permanently. Whereas the truth is that there are second chances all the time. One of my kids was a sugar fiend in early elementary school and very hard to get moving physically. (True story–when she was in physical therapy, the therapists used to reward her with a small pack of candies for every lap run. I was aghast, but it worked.) She’s 15 years old now, eats a balanced and varied diet, is scrupulously moderate about sweets, and exercises a lot. Things change.
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stupidisasstupiddoes
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Thank you, i hadn’t considered that. It was very off-putting. We’ve been married 4 years and get along fantastically. At the moment it does seem like children are going to be a sure fire way to ruin the harmony between us! 
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Clementine14
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One of the most irritating things as a parent is to receive unsolicited “parenting” advice from people who are not actually parents. I know that I thought I knew a lot more than I actually did before we had our son. A lot of the things I thought I knew went right out the window.
For example, I could never understand why parents kept their kids on such rigid schedules. Don’t kids sleep anywhere? HA! When my son was born, he would scream for hours and hours on end. It would take me an hour to get him to sleep for ten minutes. I tried holding him all day, I tried the swing, I tried the car, etc. Everyone had told me that children should be able to sleep wherever they are, so I just kept dealing with it. I was an absolute mess. Finally I tried putting him in his room for naps, got him a sound machine, and he would fall asleep within ten minutes and sleep well. Following my own instincts about my own child saved me from what might have become a nervous breakdown.
Similarly, I couldn’t take him anywhere without him screaming. Some babies do great in church and become more difficult when they are toddlers- mine is the opposite. The first year of his life was very hard, I could barely go anywhere, and now at three he is a very well behaved boy in church.
Feeding issues? Our son has a lot of sensory issues, so everyone’s advice that he will “eat when he is hungry” does not apply to us. If you do have a child with any special needs at all, you will really need to be open to adjusting your beliefs and strategies almost daily.
Overall, I think the best advice is to approach being a new parent with a very open mind. Let go of what you think you know, and realize that your child will be the one to tell you what is needed. Listen to your instincts, and if the “advice” you get isn’t working, try something else. You will be the expert on your own child.
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Xantippe
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Parenting does create novel situations that generate disagreements, because there are problems that haven’t been solved yet.At the moment it does seem like children are going to be a sure fire way to ruin the harmony between us!
But at some point, you have achieved workable solutions to various problems and/or the kids eventually grow out of the problem behaviors. (This may never happen in the case of severe disability, of course.)
It’s a good idea for both parents to have at least some experience with doing the daily childcare tasks before wanting a seat at the table for figuring out family policy. Family policy needs to have some basis in practice, rather than just working well in theory.
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Clementine14
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Yes, absolutely. Dad might have a lot of great “ideas” about what he thinks should work, but he has to be willing to follow through and implement his own advice if he thinks he can do better. If Mom has been dealing with feeding issues day in and day out, and is at the end of her rope, and Dad comes in and says in not so many words “You’re doing it wrong, I know better” then Mom should leave and Dad should try it out and report back.
Something else to consider is that children often save their worst behavior for Mom. So if Dad can get the child to do something, he thinks Mom just isn’t doing it right, when really that’s not the problem.
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Xantippe
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Yes, it’s common for small children to mind babysitters better than mom. But if that babysitter has children of her own, she won’t necessarily get such amazing results with them.
Likewise, big kids are often much better at school than at home.
It’s not necessarily that the parents are pushovers, but that the kid feels more comfortable and safe at home, so feels freer to act up than at school. Similarly, it’s not necessarily true that mom is a pushover, but a child who spends all day with mom is going to feel freer to act up with mom than dad.
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stupidisasstupiddoes
Guest
That’s just a logical fallacy and means you don’t know your subject matter well enough to rebuke an arguement. As it happens, they were making the statement to me uninvited because i said i wouldn’t stand for a child demanding to be in my bed every night, (a child is not the center of the universe).
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Inisfallen
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That’s funny. Is this a thing with little girls? Because my older girl (4 now) loves sweeping and mopping, and has since she was about two.
Weird, but cute. And funny.
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Xantippe
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Yeah, Baby Girl has been doing this household stuff since 2. Around that age, she liberated herself from the feeding seat (she put a small animal friend there instead and took a real chair for herself that she could hop on and off of) and then started foraging around the kitchen using my step ladder. She gave up the stroller around then and also put up a heroic but unsuccessful attempt to liberate herself from the car seat.
The bottom shelf of the fridge is devoted to her stuff (kid yogurt, her half-eaten sandwich from lunch, partially eaten apple, box of washed strawberries), and I keep her applesauces and peanut butter crackers on an easily accessible shelf in the pantry. There’s also a fruit dish on the kitchen table if I’m really on the ball.
But neither of the older kids were this self-sufficient until much older. I suppose it makes a difference that Baby Girl is surrounded by big people.
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