Reply to Struggling getting 4 year old to cooperate

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are no answers that are acceptable to gentle parenting, OP. My two year old is the same and we’ve never solved it after a year of coming and parenting classes. We just bribe with dye free M&Ms now.[/quote]

I am the PP who suggested figuring out what you can let go.  We make our kids do certain things, but we pick our battles.  The point of my post was identifying where you can compromise or let go.  Kids have very little control over their day and routines and we are happy to make them feel like they have a say for stuff that's not essential.  I'm not sure if you were responding to me, but if so, that's what we try and do.[/quote]

Was not responding to you and did not  read your post. Just wanted OP to know some kids are extraordinarily stubborn and will never peacefully get with the program of doing reasonable things parents ask them to do. Ever. No matter how solid the routine is. I’ve been disappointed to find that no gentle parenting resources acknowledge this is a possible situation even after months and years of consistency.

M&Ms get us baths, non-screaming car  rides, potty training, tooth brushing, and all other necessities of life.[/quote]

I’m not sure what you consider gentle parenting but even the commonly cited examples like Janet Lansbury will tell you that sometimes you just have to step in and take over and make your kid do something. If you’re looking for a parenting method where the kids never fight you then I don’t think you’ll find one. [/quote]

+1, one thing that helped me a lot as a parent was realizing that I needed to not internalize or even really respond to my kid's resistance to certain things. I think where parenting a stubborn kid can go wrong is how you emotionally respond to their stubbornness. You have to learn to have no response. Like you say "time for bath" and the kids starts running away, crying, hiding under a table? You just go start the bath, go get him and take his hand or pick him up, and then walk into the bathroom and say "you have to take a bath but you can choose how you get in -- do you want to step in or do you want me to put you in." You stay calm and cheerful the whole time, no response at all to his panic and resistance, and 9 times out of 10, he'll just get in the bath.

Where things can go wrong as a parent is when you tell a kid to do something and they resist, and you get frustrated. Your frustration is the problem. That's what leads to just asking over and over (with the same result) or yelling or begging or bribing or whatever. You've given them too much power. This is a small child. If you decide he's taking a bath, he's taking a bath. You can give him some semblance of control over the situation (do you want to choose a toy for the bath? should we listen to music in the tub? do you want bubble bath or no?) but you don't have to view their resistance to the bath as really even an obstacle to the matter.

It took me a while to figure this out but once I did, a lot of this stuff got easier and more importantly, didn't stress me out even when it wasn't easy. Sometimes kids resist baths and brushing teeth and going to bed. It's very common. You just accept this and persist. It's an outlook change. You don't expect them to always be easy and compliant, but you also don't view their lack of compliance as a big obstacle because you know that you are in charge and will get your way.[/quote]

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