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[quote=Anonymous]Aw gosh we all have this. It's hard to be a parent.

A few thoughts. A small "control" struggle at this age can really spiral into obnoxiousness (on the part of the child) and then frustration/anger (on the part of the parent.) When these trouble spots come up (and I have a 2.5 yo, so like you they come up all the freaking time), I try to remind myself there are only a few things that, in my estimation, are worthy of the misery of the spiral: things related to safety (car seats; sitting at dining room table; holding hands in parking lot or crossing streets) and things related to cleanliness (changing diaper promptly, washing hands after using potty; brushing teeth.) I remind myself that besides these very critical things, I don't want to entertain power struggles and that I do enough "fighting" with my child over these very critical areas, so to let go in other areas. Something that sometimes helps me is to ask myself "Does it really matter if he "wins" this [staying longer at playground, refusing to change his shirt, buying some box of something ridiculous at the store]?" Often--if not about safety or cleanliness--the answer is that it doesn't matter in the big picture.

We've all had weekends that got off track and never righted themselves. It's a bad feeling as a parent. You might tell your DD "I've been thinking about yesterday, when you asked for a jelly bean and I said "no." I've realized that I was wrong. I want you to eat your lunch and be healthy, but I should have given you 2 jelly beans. I'm sorry that I made a mistake." I don't think it's wrong for children to hear that parents aren't perfect. And besides, my DS likes to correct me, so I think he finds it empowering. LOL.[/quote]

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