Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Empty Threats

Growing up, my parents could always convince me to pick u my toys by threatening to throw them in the trash. Anything left on the floor after a certain time was eligible for the garbage heap.

I am not sure if I ever lost some toys, but the threat did keep me on my toes and generally kept my toys put away.

We have problems convincing Macey to do her fair share of cleaning up her toys. Emma is a champion picker upper almost all of the time, and I guess that Macey has realized that someone else will take care of it.

So yesterday, I brushed off the old threat. There was a miniature Dora doll on the floor in the dining room, and I asked Macey to pick it up.

"No."

Not the answer I was looking for. I tried again.

"Macey, pick up the Dora or I am going to pick her up and throw her in the trash."

Well, my Macey may be little but she's big on stubborn. She walked right over, picked Dora up, and threw her away in the kitchen trash.

That was not what I had in mind. But I guess Dora did get picked up. But I had to save her from the trash.

6 comments:

Stephanie said...

I cannot believe that! You better be careful not to leave your stuff lying around or you might start finding your things in the trash. That girl doesn't miss a thing!

Garry said...

Negotiating with Macey is like negotiating with terrorists.

Melissa said...

Our son Jake did the same thing. We would tell him we were going to take his toys away and he would start handing them over. "Here, mommy, don't forget this one." Just don't let her see you rescue them, then she'll have you're number. You'll have absolutely no power as a parent whatsoever.

Unknown said...

The trash threat usually works pretty good with our kids...Sometimes I have to throw things away (broken toys, crinkled Pokemon cards, etc.)while they are gone, so they won't find them in the trash and "rescue" them.

Tina said...

Ha, Ha, Ha, you are going to have fun raising that little one!

Natalie C. said...

We had the same problem with Eli. He actually could care less if you threw his toys in the trash. It's a power struggle. I seem to remember a tip I got in a parenting class once about giving kids choices when there are power struggles so they feel like they're choosing something. "Do you want to pick up Dora or Boots?" "Do you want to put Dora in the pink bin or the yellow bin?" "Do you want to pick up Dora with your hand or with the Wall-E robot hand?" Something like that. Sometimes Mia says no to going to bed or taking a nap & I will say, "Do you want to hop on one foot up the stairs or do twirls on the way up" or something like that. It has worked for us.