My wife and I have set up our days such that, after an early rise to get ahead on work and some household things in motion, I have the pleasure of spending an hour and a half every morning with my son before getting down to work for the day. Needless to say I am aware that this is precious time for me to build the bond with my little guy.
Of course he is not quite so aware of this.
He works his way out of bed, dropping his little legs to the floor in the morning and sets off to whatever it is he woke up wanting to do. Some mornings this means washing his hands, others he wants ice and sometimes he needs to find that toy occupying his thoughts at that moment.
I of course have my own agenda.
Here in Spain 8:30 – 10:00am is prime time to head to the park: its not too hot yet, there are no other kids there to get in Alex’s way and its an incredibly peaceful time at the park close to our home. My wish is to go to the park and have a blast with Alex and squeeze the most out of our time together, and indeed this happens on many occasions. Unfortunately it isn’t always so easy to get him out of the house and when met with resistance from your young one, what is the best thing to do?
Suggest, negotiate, coerce?
I’m from the school of thought that wants to respect the little person that my boy is, so if he doesn’t want to go out but instead build a tower out of Mega Blocks, the obvious answer is that we sit in the living room and build a tower out of Mega Blocks.
But I also think that being the little fellow that he is he may not be thinking too far ahead, for example that later at noon its 38 Celsius outside and too hot for the park. So I feel justified in making the suggestion, “Hey, do you want to go to the park and blow some bubbles and play on the swings?”… “No”.
Now what? We can stay inside and play, but this usually leads to him wanting his mother around, at which point she doesn’t get her morning time and he and I don’t get our father son time. So we negotiate, or perhaps its more incentivise because he doesn’t do much negotiation (yet).
“Hey, why don’t we change your diaper, put on some shoes and go and play with your cars in the park?”… “No”.
Rinse and repeat a few times until something catches his interest. At this point I feel like it is becoming coercion. Regardless of what it is, if we do go out he and I have a blast. Lots of screaming, laughing and him saying his version of “Papaaa, Papaaaaa!” that he says when we’re having a great time together.
But I still cannot shake the idea that I’ve tried too hard to get him outside.
He spends a lot of time inside playing these days. This may be what he wants to do, but at what point or if there is a point how do you get him to explore outside or new things without feeling like you are coercing them?
I don’t want to be a negotiator with my children. I have the idea that if you can build up a string bond built on trust, like a great friendship, negotiation should not be necessary.
Is there some way to get to this point with a toddler or are you bound to their whims until you can convince them that something else could be more interesting?
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Here is a quote from “The Aware Baby” …they always act in ways that will best get their needs met. If this is true, suggesting or incentivising might not be the best thing to do.
I think he really knows what he wants, when you ask him to do something that he really wants to do you don’t have to ask twice do you want to go home and look for the pelotita (little ball)?… vale!, and right now he might just need to be home, or he might be afraid of interacting with other kids, or maybe he is more aware of danger and he feels safer at home…I don’t know, but deep inside I feel that, when possible, it would be best to do what he wants to do.
I have to think about it a bit more though.