Getting Your Child To Do What You Want

The terrible twos aren’t really that terrible if you can understand that you aren’t dealing with a helpless baby anymore, but another fully functional, and willful, person.  Once babyhood is over, you basically have a hobbit living with you who can make their own decisions and has likes and dislikes that may be different than yours.  What I’m learning is that I just need to learn how to communicate differently, just as if I met a new friend and was learning what their interests and boundaries are.

Here are some of the things I am practicing right now to avoid knock-down, drag-out fights and preserve my relationship with Lily. 

Give your child choices

If I’m trying to get shoes on Lily, and she has a different agenda, I pick out two pairs of shoes, put them in front of her so she can see them, and then ask her, “Do you want to wear your pink shoes or your white shoes?”  A little twist on the choice option is to give her a part to play, like “Do you want to try to tie the shoelaces on the pink shoes?”  These usually change the focus from me bugging her to get ready to her trying to accomplish a task.  Kids are very industrious at this age, and will welcome a challenge most of the time.

Talk through a puppet

The best and worst thing that I’ve done recently is to begin talking to Lily through a rubber snake.  She knows it’s a snake, but she calls it a shark, and she is always telling me to “talk to shark”.  If I ask her to do something, there’s a 50/50 chance she will do it, but if I “shark” asks her to do it, it’s almost 100% guaranteed that she’ll comply.  If you’re going to try this strategy, do it with a lightweight puppet or stuffed animal.  Even a paper lunch bag will work, as long as it’s not you.  Also, it doesn’t matter that your child sees you right there next to the puppet.  To them, it’s a different person, and they’ll listen to it.  A few times I’ve asked Lily to do things and her response has been “talk to shark”, and five seconds later, when I ask her using the snake, she does it.  This is a fun way to ask your kids to help out, and it taps into their expanding imaginations. 

Give them lead time

Give your child a few minutes to finish what they’re doing before asking them to switch gears and do something totally different.  It shows them that you respect what they’re doing, and it’s also a good opportunity to talk to them about the concept of time.  Just this morning, when trying to get Lily to change out of the diaper she slept in, she was only interested in playing with her pretend food.  After asking a couple of times, I told her, “Lily, I’m going to set the timer for two minutes.  When it goes off, it’s time to go pee pee.”  Two minutes later, when the timer went off, she bounded into the bathroom to do her business.  In addition to showing your child that you respect her time, this is also a way for you to avoid the frustration that can occur when your child doesn’t just hop up and comply immediately with your request.

This is obviously not a comprehensive list, but these are some strategies I’m trying to practice right now.  If you’re running out of options, try them out and let me know how they work.    

Cheers!