It's Not FAIR!
Get used to it, Bub.
At the top of the stairs.
All protests must be at the top of the stairs in our house.
Tonight, after dinner, she decided to go back upstairs and watch more YouTube Kids. 1
Okay, whatever - it was early and we were still cleaning up from dinner so the fact that she was out of our hair was actually a good thing. But then she got bored.
Her boredom and my plans for her to go have a bath met at the top of the stairs and did not mesh at all.
She wanted to play her Nintendo.
I wanted her to go have a bath because, it’s time. It’s a school night.
I don’t have to tell you that this did not go over well, because, well - it didn’t
Cue the screaming and the pleading: “Just five minutes”, she pleads.
“No minutes” I tell her.
“Pleeeeeeeeassee” she whined at me - as this would help her cause any.
Once again, NO. Go have a bath.
The end.
“It’s NOT FAIR”!! she protested. She then went on to tell me why she’s all of a sudden not tired and she doesn’t need a bath because she had one last night. I told her that last night didn’t really count because there was not a whole lot of effort with the soap and that tonight you will actually use soap - besides, she was in the pool earlier and..oh nevermind for god’s sake!
JUST GO GET IN THE TUB!!
Good lord.
By this time the mood has been set for the bath and the hair washing and the bathing went as expected.
I’m trying to get her to be a little more independent and have her stop thinking I am her personal valet, so I set a timer and told her she has 8 minutes to get out of the tub and dressed. If the alarm goes off and you’re not dressed, I told her - no snack tonight - just straight to bed.
Of course, she farted around the bathroom until the last 15 seconds and out she comes in a towel and beep beep beep! - there’s the alarm.
She looked at me - thought about where she was, what she was doing vs what she was supposed to be doing and then burst into tears while dripping all over my clean floor.
She realized she had made a mistake in that moment. I keep telling her that if she listens to Dad that good things happen, but I guess sometimes she just doesn’t get it.
“IT’s NOT FAIR” she exclaimed again. This is the 2nd time tonight with the fair thing.
Like all good parents do, I let her sweat it out for a minute and then told her if she put her PJ’s on and stopped the screaming that we could still go down and have a snack before bed.
Around here we like snacks a lot more than screaming so this was an easy deal to make.
One might even call it a FAIR DEAL.
Keep negotiating,
TH and Co.
once again, parent of the year.
Love this! The way kids wield 'not fair' like it's some unbeatable argument is wild. I've learned that timers are both a blessing and a curse, they work until the kid realizes they can just...ignore them. That last-second deal you made was clutch tho, sometimes giving them a way out teaches more than sticking to the line.