Two year olds can test your patience, but, so can their fathers. I know I’ve discussed this before but here I am again, because the issues remain the same and blogging about it makes me feel a whole lot better! I think blogging may be the single factor that keeps some women sane, really, the venting makes me feel better instantly!
But back to my point, the other day I was trying to tell my daughter not to do something that she was insistent on doing, and this time I was trying to be patient but stern (using all the distracting etc techniques to the best of my ability). She wanted a pen that she was coloring the bed-sheet with. I told her I’d give her a paper, but the sheet was not to be stained. She let out a scream and told me she’d only want to color the sheet.
At this point, my husband steps in and tells me to let her do what she wanted! His point was that the more you stop her the more she’d want to do it. Now, usually I buy that theory and also apply that to her when I can, if you stop a toddler from doing everything then at some point they’ll become stubborn, so maybe that was what he was getting at. But, the thing is that it should be left to the primary caregiver (in our case, clearly me) to make that judgment.
What he did was to counter me in front of her, so now she knows that when mamma says no she can run to daddy and he’ll lovingly oblige.
Result:
Mother: ogre, father: Santa.
mommyrage.com 