Currently we’re having a challenge with the boy. Life is of course full of challenges and parenthood thrusts many more upon people who may or may not have the skills and mindset to deal with problems. My normal approach to a problem is to ignore it and hope it goes away, which of course seldom works in the outside world and almost never works in parenting. Apart from when you hide in the bathroom for half an hour, the kids run out of tantrum and then wander off to do something else, then it’s the best form of parenting ever.
Our current challenge is getting the 8 year old to accept “no” as an answer to some of the requests he makes. Like asking for the iPad at 6:30 in the morning, or the 2DS at 8pm. Currently his strategy veers between violence and sobbing, with a (un)healthy dob of endurance thrown in. This morning’s lasted for well over an hour by the time I left for work. It’s bad and that’s before I remember Trifle Gate.
This morning we showed him this video that wifey found on Facebook, and I can’t help but think it’s great and the vast majority of adults I come into daily contact with would also benefit from following it’s 3 easy steps to accepting a “no”:
I’d love to say it worked but it didn’t immediately and I had to flee the premises with the threat of murder upon me. Still, lessons sometimes take a while to sink in with the boy so we can live in hope…