I bribe my child
I have a confession to make. I have fallen into the deathly parenting trap known as ‘the bribe’. I know, I know, it’s not good, I’m creating a rod for my back with this kind of behaviour but the problem is that when I’m in a hurry and need to get Coco to move fast, it works. A treat. Touche.
It all started when I started working and needed to be out of the house by 8am at the latest to get her to Kindy and myself to my desk by 8.30am. My child is not an early riser. In fact this morning we both slept in until 9am. I know – it’s crazy! We’re lucky… so friggin lucky. But it’s really not that great when you need to be somewhere ON TIME and early.
My daughter is much like her father. She wakes slowly, eyes blinking, limbs wriggling and a bit of toss and turn. She loves to snuggle and will often come into bed with us in the morning and say, “let’s stay in bed all day”. We love it! It’s awesome. And thus we’ve created a monster. Because she doesn’t know about “working weeks” and “weekends” and it’s really hard to train her to be sleepy and snuggly a few days a week and bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed on other days.
Once she’s up, she often insists on being carried to the lounge. Then I settle her onto the couch, with a blankie, milk and start to make her breakfast. It probably takes her a good 15 to 25 minutes to really wake up. And if I haven’t got her out of bed by 7.15… this can cause problems.
The next stumbling block is that she’s a really slow eater. Like really slow. In fact, Kindy have told us that she can spend UP TO AN HOUR sitting in her chair nibbling like a mouse at her lunch. An hour! You’d think she’d want to race off and play. I’ve no idea where she gets this from as I’m sure the husband and I often wolf down our meals while we’re virtually trying to do something else. So in the morning when I’m clock watching and nearly starting to panic, she’s nibbling on her toast, savouring it, as if it’s her last supper.
Then there’s the getting dressed rigmarole. It can go two ways.
Example One is a good day. She’s so busy watching TV that I can dress her without fuss.
Example Two is like yesterday and goes like this:
Me: “Come on Coco we have to get you dressed.”
Her: “No Mummy I have to finish my toast.”
Me: “No Coco, you can get dressed while you eat your toast.”
Her: “No Mummy, you have to catch me.”
And then we start chasing her around the house. Some times the Husband (on the rare occasions he’s at home in the morning) tries to get HER to dress HERSELF. Now I know how great it would be if she did this. And the sneaky little monkey is actually able to do this. But I’m always in such a rush, always about to run late so I ALWAYS end up doing it myself. And we have quite the routine: I tap her leg, she lifts it and puts it through her pants. I tell her to tickle the moon and she raises her arms. It’s too easy. But not good.
So back to yesterday when I needed her to be ready in like ten minutes. I’m trying to get her dressed and she’s jumping on the bed. I tell her off. She cries and buries her face in the pillows. I drop her clothes on the bed and tell her that I’m getting grumpy and I would like her to get dressed or she can go to Kindy in pajamas. She actually doesn’t care. On this particular day the Husband was home and he stepped in. She just jumped on the bed some more. I growled at her. She cried and said, “but I just want a treat.”
Rewind to every other morning in the past few weeks.
I remember myself saying, “Ok Coco just get dressed quickly for Mummy and I’ll give you a treat.”
And so I have created the biggest blunder ever. And it’s all my fault. I realise, as I drive away with a sobbing child (the Husband insisted that we had to break this bad habit) that my desire to find the quickest, easiest result had actually backfired on me. My clever child knew that if she was difficult to get dressed, she’d get a marshmellow (or snake, or biscuit).
She’s not actually being naughty, she’s kinda just being clever. And I need to quit with the treats – cold turkey.
Wish me luck tomorrow.
What kind of bribery do you resort to and have you ever had it backfire on you?
Tamsin blogs here and here and you can follow her on Twitter @beautygoss
