7.25.2007
A good argument.
Sage is always coming up with good arguments. I ask her to do one thing and she explains why she doesn't need to do it, or why Aspen should do it, or better yet, why I should do it. Sometimes I even have to laugh and say, "Well, I guess you are kinda right." Which leads me to the question: Where do we draw the line between squashing our kids' sense of arguing and problem solving and letting them run the house? Sometimes I just want to be able to ask my kids to do something without having to explain it or without getting some certain toddlers advice on how it could be done better. Lately I have been trying to listen to the arguments first instead of just saying, "No buts." "But, but, but Mom!" It's really hard though, especially when you are trying to get out of the house and nothing is going right. My motto this morning was, "Listen, think, then speak."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Oh Boy! I have been going through something quite similar lately. I will ask Abby, "Can you please get me ______." She then says "No." Well I did ask her a question. I didn't say it in a way that she has to do it. So I am trying to watch how I ask her to do things because I want her to be able to say "no thanks" sometimes but when I tell her I want her to do it. So tough!
Amber I'm sorry to say but they will always ask but why,I will later, not now I'm busy, I'm too tired..or my favorite the rolling of the eyes. Its always a constant battle it just changes as the grow older.
Wow Amber, looks like you have your hands full... I am glad you give her the opportunity to make her argument... I never got that chance as a kid!
I like what you said about "listening" and "thinking." This is kind-of unrelated, but the other day Amber Shea was telling me something in the car and I had my mind on 10 other things and I just kept saying, "Yeah" "Uh huh" "Yeah" until I had agreed to do something I didn't even realized I had agreed to. Yikes! Then I had to backtrack and tell her that I wasn't listening. (I should have written this in my blog). Anyway, sometimes I need to listen a lot better!
I have done that so many times, Christine. I just keep saying, "Yeah, oh, yeah," and pretty soon I have signed up for hot air ballooning and ice cream for dinner!
My general policy with my four is do it first, ask questions later. But that doesn't always work. I'm just scared of them getting into a pattern of thinking that as long as they ask enough questions, or present enough arguments, they can get out of doing it. And besides, with four contenders, that would be a LOT of arguing. And sometimes maybe it would have been more fair to ask someone else to do it, but that can always be addressed after the fact, and usually remedied satisfactorily.
Post a Comment