Naughty grandaughter

My four year old grandsons keep telling me I won't be going to their birthday party if I'm naughty! Nothing to do with me pulling them up about jumping on top of each other on their new trampoline, of course!

JANTHEA , me too .

Laugh.

Hmmm...... Never make threats you have no intention of carrying out ! Would your daughter really have cancelled the party ?

janeainsworth Of course not. Have you always carried out your threats?

I think it's better to negotiate than to make threats janthea, and that goes for anything from small children to political leaders, so I don't make them.
Sorry if I'm turning a light-hearted thread into a serious one.

Negotiate with my four year old grandsons? Jane, I'll pm you their address and maybe you'll nip round and have a go! The head of United Nations would be tied up in knots in moments with those two!!

.....but yes, I agree - only carry out what you can reasonably threaten, like 'I shall confiscate that water pistol if you drench nana again.'

At my wits end with a very difficult FE class in Moss Side, I once threatened : If anyone does A, B or C again, I'm going to do something to you that's so horrible I haven't even thought of it yet! (Which was of course the truth!) A stunned silence fell and lasted throughout the last of the class.

My daughter hardly ever uses threats and is very adept at negotiations. However, she is very pregnant, tired and as well as the 4 year she has a tearaway 19mth old boy!! So I think we can allow her a slip now and them. I only posted it because I thought it was funny! We've all been there.

Of course it was funny janthea and we have indeed all been there.

Yes I have to admit I am speaking from the position of hardly ever seeing my DGCs because they live so far away so I don't have the everyday hands-on experience that many of you have. And I do remember having two small children and another on the way janthea
And of course I would use the water pistol type threat where the effect of the threat is immediate, obvious and appropriate to the age of the child, but so often it is not!

Whenim Threatening to remove water pistols from two small boys sounds like a recipe to get totally drenched. The only way is to get a bigger and more powerful water pistol than they have.

I found negotiating anything much with my very verbal 2yr old DD was often pretty pointless, but at that stage I could just pick her up and cart her off from wherever it was she was inventing creative reasons for why she must stay. Parental control wins as long as you are strong enough.

My DGD will be five in October, she too can be a little minx. When she misbehaves I warn her that if she continues I will tell her parents and she knows that I will keep my word, likewise I always praise her when she is well behaved and I always let her parents know too.

janthea your daughter certainly has her hands full. Does she know if number three will be a minx or a menace

My 2yearold DGD is already at the non-negotiating stage. If you ask her to do something she doesn't want to, she will look at you and say*NO*! In a tone of voice that this says that this request was either totally unreasonable or might even be indecent!
(Takes after her mother of course)

sook Another menace!! So I suppose grandaughter will be able to boss her little brothers around!! Hopefully she will want to help with the new baby. Although when told she was having a new brother she said 'I don't want this baby, I want a sister' and cried. Soon got over it and I'm sure when the new addition arrives all will be sunny!

My DGD doesn't want her expected sister! NO very firmly.

Yesterday at the local school Open Day Iwas walking rounfd with DGD2 (nearly 5), @are you looking forward to coming to school C? asked the teacher 'No I am not' Said C. And she meant it!

My sister was very jealous of a new baby brother and poured a packet of salt down his back. She was not quite three. When he died of meningitis at six months, she was convinced it was her fault, so when I arrived the following year she was very, very kind to me - and always has been.
We just don't know what ideas young children have, do we?
My gd and gd-in-law have been lucky - both my two older great gds were thrilled to have little sisters, and I gather both pairs now gang up on their long-suffering parents.

When my son was three I was a struggling hard working single parent. We had nothing very much and virtually everything in our flat was second, third or fourth hand. I saved up like mad and eventually got a new lounge carpet that was my pride and joy. My son, knowing how precious this carpet was to me used to blackmail me into doing something or giving in to something by threatening to spill his juice on the new carpet although he never actually did, he would start to tip the cup just to get me going. We have a laugh about it today and when he (he's 33) asks me to do something (usually extra babysitting) I say "what will happen if I don't"? and he always says "I will spill my juice".

janthea GD is very bossy with both her brother and cousin who are almost two . She is also very helpful coaxing them to eat, wiping their faces and she will rock the pushchair back and forth to get them off to sleep. I hope all goes well for your daughter.