The thing I (eventually) realized was that all that advice and techniques almost never help with the current situation you are in. However, it almost always helps with future situations. Rarely do kids (or people, or pets even!) stop their reaction when you use some technique. However, the next time they have that reaction, they will remember what happened before and react differently.
So when my son was a toddler and through his food on the floor, me taking the food away caused a tantrum and made that moment worse. However, the next day (or whatever) when he had the same food, it was much less likely he would throw it on the ground because you could see him remembering what had happened before.
I think of it as teaching my future kid ;)
And so far, it still holds up (my son is 10). If he is arguing too much with his friends, the discussions I have with him about it rarely fix the immediate problem, but I can see it have an impact on future situations. "Dad, my friends were being mean to me, but I remembered we talked about how sometime I talk over them, so I stopped talking as much and they started being nice to me again." Stuff like that.
Also: parenting is fucking hard, I agree, and 100000% agree on being empathetic with them. By far the biggest phrase I use that helps with my son is, "Buddy, growing up can be really tough, and we're here to help as much as we can!"
> So when my son was a toddler and through his food on the floor, me taking the food away caused a tantrum and made that moment worse. However, the next day (or whatever) when he had the same food, it was much less likely he would throw it on the ground because you could see him remembering what had happened before.
At the same time that you're training your toddler not to throw his food on the floor; he's training you not to take it away. Conditioning goes both ways.
I dont know why this was downvoted. The other way really works too. Adults adapt to what child does both consciously and subconsciously. The difference is that the child at that age does not do it for purpose, they dont plan yet.
I didn't downvote it, but it came across as faux-deep psychological "fact" that parent's are being played by their children because they are weak or something. However, I don't think the OP intended that, or at least I hope not.
Thanks for the insight. I didn't intend to imply it meant the parents are weak --- really just something to watch out. Just pointing out that children are _really_ good at conditioning parents, which is sometimes not noticed.
Cool, glad to know you meant that, because I totally agree with it! We've typically had our son eat something different from us - some friends say we should have him eat what we eat, but I point out to them that they tend to end up eating a lot of mac and cheese and hots dogs ;) We like spicy (hot) food that has complex flavor profiles - we have our son try everything, but kids palates are different than adults, and we'd rather not him condition us into eating kid food!
So when my son was a toddler and through his food on the floor, me taking the food away caused a tantrum and made that moment worse. However, the next day (or whatever) when he had the same food, it was much less likely he would throw it on the ground because you could see him remembering what had happened before.
I think of it as teaching my future kid ;)
And so far, it still holds up (my son is 10). If he is arguing too much with his friends, the discussions I have with him about it rarely fix the immediate problem, but I can see it have an impact on future situations. "Dad, my friends were being mean to me, but I remembered we talked about how sometime I talk over them, so I stopped talking as much and they started being nice to me again." Stuff like that.
Also: parenting is fucking hard, I agree, and 100000% agree on being empathetic with them. By far the biggest phrase I use that helps with my son is, "Buddy, growing up can be really tough, and we're here to help as much as we can!"