Babies are sweet and cuddly and smell like sugar-coated sunshine (well, most of the time anyway), but babies can also be incredibly frustrating, mostly because the main form of communication between mother and child is crying. On both sides.
“Won’t it be amazing,” we foolishly think, “when this baby can understand what I’m saying? When we can have a real conversation and she can explain exactly why she’s screaming her head off at 2 AM?”
Then your child gets older, and she can tell you exactly why she’s screaming (usually something super logical like “THIS SWEATER IS TOO SWEATERY”) and you realize this communication stuff isn’t exactly all it’s cracked up to be. Tears made much more sense when you thought the problems were potentially life threatening.
You try logic, you try reason, you try begging and bribery, but eventually desperation leads every parent to the dead end of negotiation tools: the ultimatum. FYI, those never ever work.
7 ultimatums and the reasons why they won’t work:
“Sit here until you’ve cleaned your plate.”
I don’t know if you’ve met many kids, but if you think you can bore them into eating, you’re sadly mistaken. They’ll just sit there, happily pretending their fingers are superheroes, sending evil Green Bean Guy to his ultimate demise in a pile of slowly congealing mashed potatoes, until you send them to bed. Later, you’ll bring them a peanut butter sandwich—the same food they asked for two hours ago—because you’re pretty sure sending a hungry kid to bed results in a 3am wake-up call from your now STARVING offspring.
“If you don’t clean your room, I’m throwing all these toys away.”
Congratulations, your kid just tricked you into cleaning their room! Because let’s face it, angrily stuffing $1500 worth of toys into trash bags gets the job done, but it also gives you plenty of time to think about the sad fact that you’re the one who’s going to be paying for their replacements. As if on autopilot, you’ll slowly switch tactics and put the toys back where they belong.
“Get dressed right now or we’re staying home.”
Unless you were on your way to Candy Video Game Island, chances are your kid wanted to stay home anyway.
“No more iPad until you apologize to your sister.”
This one works pretty well, as long as your kids don’t call your bluff. As soon as they do, they realize you need the peace and quiet of screen time even more than they want to play on their screens. Besides, the iPad is pretty much the only thing that’s going to distract them from continuing to fight with each other for the rest of the day.
“Cut it out right now or I’m turning this car around!”
No parent in the history of parenting has actually followed through on this threat. Somehow children are born with this knowledge. They ain’t buying it.
“I’m going to count to three…”
And then what? Exactly. If a mom ever figures out something effective we can do after “3” that doesn’t involve screaming into a pillow or day drinking, she’s going to be a millionaire.
Sometimes an ultimatum is unavoidable, but most of the time, it’s preferable to try some tried-and-true discipline techniques that are proven to work—like yelling.
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This post was a collaboration with Robyn Welling. To read more from Robyn, visit Hollow Tree Ventures.
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My mom ALWAYS counted to 3, with IMMEDIATE response from me and my brothers, until one day, one of us called her bluff. She never counted to 3 again. RIP
I actually DID turn the car around one time. We were on our way to the park or something like that and the boys’ fighting, yelling, and kicking my seat just got to me… I turned around, pulled into the driveway, parked the minivan (yes! I drove a minivan! lol), and went inside. I left them in the van crying. I went straight to my room – did not pass Go!, did not collect a dime – and crawled into bed. I think that was the closest I ever came to losing it as a parent. I knew I had to walk away from them for just a few moments. Luckily, my husband (RIP) was home and got them out of the van. I think I scared my kids. In fact, I think I scared them all. My hubby cooked dinner that night and bedtime was the easiest it had ever been…lol!
Yelling or threatening was ineffective with mine; however, it was the few times I was completely silent that really straightened my kids up. They didn’t know how to react to a silent mother!
I was actually prouder of the moments I walked away for a few minutes rather than yelling or threatening my kids. I showed them that it is ok to take a moment to gather your thoughts so that you don’t over-react. They knew that if I went into the other room in complete silence, it was serious and they really listened to what I had to say….can’t say I miss those days too much, or the minivan!
I threw the birthday cake I made for my son’s sixteenth birthday into the driveway when he wouldn’t stop being a pain. It felt awesome for about a minute and then not so much
My almost 4yo knows that the toys are his duty. If I have to put them into their boxes, I’ll give them to another kids. I did it once and that was enough. If the clothes are in the floor then I walk over them. I did it just one time. So when I count to three, he’ll get a punishment and almost every time he shut up and breathe with me while we’re counting to five and we calm down. It works!
Yes! This was what I did when mine were little. If they behaved without asking for more than three things during the shopping at Large Everything Store, they could pick out a Hotwheel car to purchase. Then, if they decided to misbehave during the shopping at Ohio Grocery Store, I promised to pass their new car off to the next child who passed by. Both children only lost one Hotwheel in their childhood to this tactic.
My mom put my brother and I out of the car one time on the way home. We were arguing and she had asked us to stop or we had to walk home. And of course, we continued… she pulled that Mazda minivan over and put us out. I can only imagine the look on our faces. We walked a mile and a half home (in the neighborhood). I can say that we never did that again!
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We count to five, and if we get to five, we force her to do the thing. Example: picking up her toys, we’ll grab her arm and take the toy with her. We don’t use too much force (obviously) but just the fact that’s she’s not the master of her own actions pisses her off so much! We only had to do it a handful of times and now it’s like magic. But she’s four, it’ll probably change eventually!
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