Ok, parents. I need help. Again. The picture you see above is the result of "you may not get down until you've taken at least one bite." I lost. After I snapped this pic, I gathered him up and put him down for his nap. In case you can't hear it from there, he's already snoring. Surprisingly, this isn't so much about eating or not eating his food. He's a good eater when he's not already dug his heels in about it. It goes like this:
Here's the problem we face with Athan at least three times a day right now. It starts quite amicably: we give him a choice to make. Today it was "eat lunch" or "rest." Sometimes when he comes home from school, he's not hungry yet if they've just had snack. He gets sleepy before he gets hungry. Usually I just try to decide which is right for him, and act on my decision. Today I couldn't tell, so I gave him a choice. Per usual when given an either-or question, he announced his decision. "Rest."
So we head for the bedroom. No problem. He goes down for a nap most days sans protest. Normal. Except half way there, he changes his mind. "No I want to eat wunch first, Mama." Ok.
So we head back down the hall toward the table, where lunch is sitting ready for him to eat. "Actually, I want to rest first." Ok.
Back down the hall. "No lunch first." Ok. Back down the hall. "No rest first." Ok. Back down the hall... I calmly let him walk out his indecision for a few minutes until the tears come. He starts to shout at me each time he changes his mind "NO MOM I SAID REST FIRST!" even though I'm not arguing with him or impeding him in anyway from doing which ever he chooses.
Then I try to intervene, not because I'm in a hurry to get him to bed or to the table, but because it seems the only way to rescue him from the cycle of indecision he can't break alone. Of course, it's going to go badly from here because no matter what I do, it's the wrong choice. But now I've made a stand of some kind, and I can't let him just scream his way out of it. Thus "you have to take at least one bite before you get down" (the One Bite Rule is long-standing at our house, so that's not a surprise to him). So he cries into his pile of apples, ignores his quesadillas, refuses consolation, and falls asleep at the table (in this instance).
It happens almost any time we try to offer him a choice, and this is where I'm stuck. I don't know how to help him. I've tried letting him come to the end of indecision himself, and he just starts crying and gets angry. I try to intervene and decide for him, and he screams. I try to avoid giving him any choices at all, which might be why we're still in this pattern after so long, or it might be the right thing to do... AAAAHHH! I'm stuck.
Morgan never did this. It was enough to just say "you can't have both" or "you may decide or I will help and decide for you." She was ridiculously rational. Athan is not.
Any advice? Is he just too young to do what I'm asking him to do? How do I help him enjoy the freedom that comes with a choice instead of feeling trapped by them, to teach him how to choose? We're going on well over a year of this same pattern here, so any change would probably be a good one. :)
5 comments:
Sounds like you're doing all the recommended things. The only other thing that came to mind was that a friend once told me about a similar frustration with her daughter. She decided that her daughter needed more practice making choices, so she started giving tons of unimportant choices every time she could think of it. Do you want to hold my left hand or my right? Do you want to turn the light on or should I? would you rather eat with a fork or your fingers? She wrote that somehow, with each decision that didn't end the world, her daughter gained confidence and choices became easier. Not sure if its the same issue, but I hope you figure out something. That's a tough one.
I had to laugh while reading about the number of trips you took up and down the hall with Athan. Poor indecisive little guy.
This is outside of the box, but what if you let him eat his lunch in his bed? This could potentially be messy, but you could say - "eat what you can and lay down when you are tired - when you wake up I'll have what you didn't eat waiting in the kitchen for you." Two big downsides are the potential mess and the potential choking hazard.
Since I'm not a parent and don't know what the ramifications could be, this could be a terrible idea - but just wanted to throw my two cents in!
Hi! I run into this with some of the kiddos I work with too... we just have to teach them how to make choices. So you do want to eat a sandwich or a shoe?! Practice having him make choices between a super high preference item/activity and a silly/low preference one. Good luck!!!
Don't have any advice worth reading, but that picture of him asleep on the table sure does make me miss the little guy...
Have you looked in to Love and Logic by any chance. We are "trying" to enforce that at our house, but it is hard to break out of our patterns not hard for our kids to accept and move on.
I know this may sound harsh, but if it were my kid I would make him stick to his first choice even if it means screaming all the way. In life the choice you make is the one with the consequence. In this case the consequence is not that bad and next time he has that same choice maybe he will remember rather or not he liked the end result and chose the same or different. I think it is important to teach children the ways of the world so while they are young the consequence are little and hopefully when they are big and the consequences are big they will be equipped to to make "good" choices .......hope that makes sense.
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