The Princess can be trying these days.
The other night while putting the boys to bed, she said to me “Will you read me a story?”
“Yes, honey, when the boys are in bed.”
“You said you cared about me” she said flouncing off.
When she is cross and one of us picks her up, she glares balefully at the offender and says ” you hurt me, you hurt me on purpose.”
We are approaching our wits’ end in the matter of discipline. The “coin colere” has been devalued through constant use. The other day, I said to her “you have been so bold, that I am going to take something you really like and put it out of reach for a while” while frantically thinking what that might be.
“That’s a good idea, Mummy” said she “let’s think what might be a good thing to put out of reach, I really like my tea set” she offered.
I was torn between laughter, admiration and desperation. Suggestions please? As she doesn’t watch television, we can’t use banning it as a threat but I’m half thinking of introducing half an hour a day for that sole reason.
I appear to have one of those at home with me too! Not sure what to suggest as nothing seems to work here….just kinda hoping she’ll grow out of it!!xx
What happens if you pretend she hasn’t done whatever it is you don’t like? I hesitate to say “ignore” because it is probably stronger, even, than ignoring? It does sound like she relishes attention…
Banning TV works for us sometimes! We have indeed introduced 30 minutes between 4.30 and 5 for that very purpose. And we rarely have to ban it which means 30 minutes of peace and quiet (Smarteenies followed by Brum if you were wondering!) Going to her bedroom works marginally but not for long. Ignoring just means “aha, i got away with it” in Belle’s head…… Otherwise – no suggestions I’m afraid. I’m going for the “this is a developmental stage” defence in my head!
We use counting – i.e. ‘I’m going to count to 5 and if you haven’t done x, then you’ll only have 2 stories tonight’ – if that doesn’t work, it goes down to 1 story and then teddies start getting removed from the bed. The trick is not to remove everything, otherwise they end up with nothing to lose and you’re back where you started.