No means I can decide for my self.

My Tessy is constantly telling me "No" these days. Recently I will ask her to come here, her answer is "no" I ask her to eat. No! I ask her to go get on the potty. NO! Oh and it wasnt just "No" it was a little smirk and sometimes a giggle then she would go right back to what she was doing. In my mind Im thinking "that little shit, she thinks she is funny." Between me and you, It was quite cute after the fact. But during, oh no! I was ready for a "yes" and "No" war.


So after a week of that I stopped asking her and began to tell her what to do and threaten "time out". She would get in time out and cry for a minute and sure it made me feel like the boss again but that still didnt get the deed done in the potty, it was one more pull up I had to change and two mouths to feed instead of just my own.

I read a book a while back called Parenting with Love and Logic. I didnt read it all the way through but I did get some great knowledge out of the book. I learned that a child is saying "No" because they have learned they can make their own choices. And the giggling and smiling that goes with it could be them just loving the feeling of having their own sence of independency. The book gave an idea on how to over come that. Its about giving them choices and making it a choice that, either way, the outcome isnt demolishing their feeling of being able to choose what they want and being sure you still feel like you are in control.



So for dinner one night she didnt want to eat her dinner, of course. I was ready to put her in time out until she was ready to eat. (last time I did that it resulted in her coming back to the table, taking one bite and throwing up all her food) So I thought to my self, Tesslynn loves deserts and she will be so excited if she gets a little snack after dinner. So I said "If you eat 5 more bites I will give you a apple with some peanut butter or some fruit snacks" She was all over it. And when she was done I let her make her choice of which snack she would perfer. I should have already known it was going to be fruit snacks but Hey, dinner got eaten and she felt good about it.