Keep loving them. Lots of affection, proactively. But you need to teach them. You’re the parent. They don’t set the schedule. You do.
Timestamps:
00:00 A 2-year-old takes 3 hours to eat, controlling the mother.
02:10 Parent's job is to set the schedule - use a timer to teach time, the child will know when the meal is over.
04:42 If you are their slave, it makes it impossible to teach them or love them.
This from a mother who is relatively new to the Parenting Training.
Permissiveness and Controlling
She writes:
"I was always in a hurry before, always nagging and rushing.
Now I have become comfortable with understanding that most of the day is just slow and repetitive, and it goes at the pace the little ones can go. Just eating takes up almost 3 hours a day for my 2-year-old. I’m respecting her, and she likes it."
I’ll bet she does like being in charge and doing whatever she wants.
It’s very common for us as parents to swing from one extreme to the other.
Permissive to controlling and back again.
But NONONONONO. We love and teach. You’re swinging from controlling to permissiveness.
You just said the pace of the day goes like the little ones CHOOSE. So now YOU are BEING CONTROLLED by a 2-year-old.
Keep loving them. Lots of affection, proactively. But you need to teach them. You’re the parent. They don’t set the schedule. You do.
Time to teach TIME
They sell inexpensive timers that show time decreasing in a progress bar, so they don’t have to know numbers or be able to tell time. BLUE is unexpired time, and the child can see it get smaller and smaller.
Set a time for her to eat. Explain that when the BLUE is gone, meal is over. Done. To the second.
You have other things to do. No wonder you feel like you have no time. The children dictate your schedule. Wrong
They can take their time doing things that affect ONLY their time. If it's just them on the toilet, for example, fine, sit there all day. But they don’t decide things that affect others, like things that:
- Keep you from other kids, which you complain about
- Keeps you frazzled
- Enables child, because you’re there serving her
Teach time. Welcome to life, kid.
Thanks Greg!