Parenting Tip of the Day:
You cannot let the child stay inside all day and watch YouTube videos.
It’s just not healthy for the child. So after lunch we decided to go for a walk at Devaux Woods Park where I knew they had a relatively new playground so she could go outside and play and climb.
We got there and she played and climbed for about 15 minutes or so and then the adults decided we wanted to go for a short walk in the wood.
Cue the feet dragging.
“I don’t wanna”.
“I want to stay at the park”
I. I. I. I.
I told her that life is not all about you and you’re not the spoiled little princess you think you are and there are sometimes - and some things that you are doing that you don’t want to do. For example: teeth brushing. It’s happening. Twice daily.
We knew this walk would not be long - we’re talking about a city block around. A mile at most.
She did not want to go.
She went.
When we got to the actual path to the woods - which is just a big circle that dumps us into the parking lot again - there was a sign to beware of coyotes.
This triggered fear as well as a discussion on coyotes. I tried to convince her that there was a thing called “night bears”, but she’s not buying it
“They’re not real”, she says to me.
Then when we were in the woods the complaints continued:
“It smells weird”, she said.
It smells like outdoors we tell her. Then we tell her that she should listen to the birds talk to each other
Because suddenly she knows everything she tells us that birds can’t talk. She’s not wrong but we were going with the talking. They communicate, we tell her.
“Now, keep walking”, I tell her. “We are going to have a nice walk as a family”, I tell her.
Not more than 15 minutes our walk is over and the wildest animals we saw were 2 squirrels and a chipmunk. Also, our wild woods backed on to somebody’s backyard so it’s not like we were lost - we were just in the suburbs.
A few more minutes at the park and then we went to get what is probably our last ice cream out for the summer.
Oddly enough, there were absolutely zero complaints about the ice cream part of our adventure.
I don’t know what’s going on, but as soon as she hit first grade there’s been a whole lot of ignoring and not listening and just overall being a little turd. When we got home we told her we’re all going to read books for half an hour. Of course, she stealthily took off looking for her tablet, but Dad took it away for the rest of the day.
She realized that the tablet was done for the day and eventually got some books and an old cardboard box and some pillows and blankets and was reading to herself for a bit.
Eventually she realized that what she wanted and what she was getting were two different things, but boy was it a struggle today.
Until Next Time,
TH and Co.