Yesterday, my 3 year old daughter was very upset because she wanted to wear her very dirty top from the day to bed. I took exactly the approach described. I didn't scold her for being upset about something that doesn't matter - it did to her! - I sympathised about how she felt, but also explained that it had to be changed.

This didn't result in her refusing and a big fight. She agreed and changed her top without any physical force.

As she did, she was still crying, but with hugs from me. Instead of me being the adversary imposing the rules, she got to have emotional support through what was, for her, a hard time.

She will not grow up to be an emotionally fragile adult, upset every time she needs to change her top. (At least, not because of that interaction.) That's giving your actions too much credit! She will learn for herself that it's not important. But she'll grow up feeling supported.

(Honestly, it probably wouldn't have been that bad if I had let wear it to bed! But I'm sure you wouldn't prefer that level of pandering.)

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Edit:

Piggybacking my comment to add: a great book on this subject is "How To Talk So That Kids Will Listen" and, for younger children, "How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen". An approach it advocates is:

1. Clearly sympathising with the child's emotion (as several of my replies say, this takes a lot more effort than just saying "I see that you're sad, oh dear").

2. Saying "The problem is ...". Not "but"! Like adults, children know that nothing before "but" means anything.

3. Give a brief reason why you're going to do something different. To repeat what I said in several comments, the goal is not to persuade them (although, of course, it's great if it does), just to demonstrate that there is a reason.

4. Follow through with the action regardless.

I have since seen my daughter saying to other children (or her animals during imaginary play) "the problem is..." :-)

It does have some great other tips e.g. using a visual timer to illustrate when there's some amount of time to complete an activity.

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bonoboTP 13 hours ago | parent [-]

But you did impose the rule, it didn't come from outside so you misled her.

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quietbritishjim 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You are really stretching!

The reality of dirty clothes getting her bed dirty comes from physics, not me.

Edit: As another example, I might impose the end of TV time but still give a brief reason of it not being good for your concentration to watch too much. The point is not that every explanation will be understood, but to at least demonstrate that there is a reason for preventing fun things, even if it's complex and confusing - it's not me just enjoying her being upset.

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bonoboTP 12 hours ago | parent [-]

I sometimes see parents doing this "always rationally explain everything to the small kid and expect them to simply follow and accept the logic" tactic in public and it seems... Ineffective.

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quietbritishjim 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, I explained that already in my comment. It was in an edit, maybe you drafted your reply before that. I said:

> The point is not that every explanation will be understood, but to at least demonstrate that there is a reason for preventing fun things, even if it's complex and confusing.

If I tell my 3 year old that watching too much TV will affect her concentration, I absolutely don't expect her to make a complex long-term value judgement, or even to know what the word "concentration" means. I also don't expect her to just say "oh fair enough then". As I said, it's just to demonstrate that there is a reason (even if she doesn't understand it) beyond my own satisfaction.

Can you really not see that there are three possibilities here:

1. "I don't care if you're upset, so that's what we're doing".

2. "I don't want you to be upset, and although there's a good reason, if I can't persuade you logically then you can have it your way"

3. "I don't want you to be upset, but there's a good reason, so that's what we're doing"

(Edit: Having written that, the last one is still not quite right. The point is to acknowledge why that have that feeling - not just assert that they're upset. Usually it's pretty simple e.g. they want to carry on playing. But it does take more effort than either of the other approaches.)

> I sometimes see parents ...

In my experience (from casual observation), the very worst behaved children have uncaring parents that shout and scream at them.

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vharuck 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a long game thing. My kid surprises me with how far back he can remember the things I've said. He'll say them like he came up with them independently. That means those words are getting through and being internalized.

	▲	testing22321 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My almost three year old shocks me every day with the stuff she remembers- things we did, things I said, etc. Not just outright memory either, but applying logic to those memories “last time we left the car alone we said it would be lonely, now the bike is alone so it will be lonely”

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jamiejquinn 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You can firmly impose a rule and be sympathetic to a small child's reaction to that rule, no? What would you have done differently?

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bonoboTP 12 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm with Zizek on this stuff.

> “Imagine you or me, I’m a small boy. It’s Sunday afternoon. My father wants me to visit our grandmother. Let’s say my father is a traditional authority. What would he be doing? He would probably tell me something like, “I don’t care how you feel; it’s your duty to visit your grandmother. Be polite to her and so on.” Nothing bad about this I claim because I can still rebel and so on. It’s a clear order.

> But what would the so-called post-modern non-authoritarian father do? I know because I experienced it. He would have said something like this, “You know how much your grandmother loves you, but nonetheless I’m not forcing you to visit her. You should only visit her if you freely decide to do it.” Now every child knows that beneath the appearance of free choice there is a much stronger pressure in this second message. Because basically your father is not only telling you, you must visit your grandmother, but you must love to visit it. You know he tells you how you must feel about it. It’s a much stronger order.”

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martimchaves 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm not sure this applies. In the prior case they were talking about recognizing emotions and asserting rules (with explanations). I think Zizek's example here is more about disguising a direct order as a way to obfuscate authoritarianism. I don't think OP is saying that you should use subterfuge to get your way, but instead that you should recognize negative emotions as they happen, by explicitly noticing and talking about them out loud.

I think that if OP were to use the approach Zizek mentioned, they would've said something along the lines of: "You don't have to take off your dirty shirt, but oh the bed would be so sad if you were to wear it, really you would be the most beautiful child if you were to take off your dirty shirt and put a clean new one".

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wilkommen 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's another way of handling it - remind your son that his grandmother would love to see him, and if he doesn't want to go, let him. Maybe from his perspective he doesn't feel very loved by his grandmother. If he did, he would probably want to go. Problem solved. No demand is made on the child to either do something he doesn't want to do, or to feel some way he doesn't actually feel.

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