V3ra
One thing I find helps is to let the seat straps out to their full length before the child sits on the seat.
Put the straps loosely over their body, buckle up and then pull the straps snug until they're correctly fitted.
It's not such a claustrophobic wrestling match that way!
I've had parents on my drive trying to get their child in the car seat to go home for twenty minutes on occasion.
One lovely, but timid, dad phoned his wife at work to say he couldn't get the child to sit in the seat and what should he do? 🙄
On principle I don't interfere or contradict parents, but occasionally if I've seen they're struggling I've gone out and taken over, and told the parent it's ok to be the adult and be in charge. Car safety is not negotiable as others have said.
I've also talked firmly to the child in question the next day; they're not allowed to mess around in my car and they mustn't in Daddy's.
Some children kick off purely because they enjoy the drama. It makes them the centre of attention, especially if the journey isn't for their benefit eg taking another child to school as in the original post.
There’s some good tips at beginning here but it’s well known that toddlers invariably ‘play up’ for their parents or grandparents, the ones closest to them. Not sure what your role is - perhaps a childminder from what you say ? If so the child would look upon you as an authority figure so they are more likely to comply for you - rather than someone they can finally relax with be their true selves, a safe haven at the end of a long day and busy day. I’m sure the daddy in question was relieved that you were able to get the child into the seat so he could get off home but in the process you would have inadvertently made any parent feel a total failure with comments along the lines of ‘it’s ok to be the adult etc etc. ‘
I used to take two of my grandchildren to nursery at different stages - one got into the seat with no problem the other one was a total nightmare. If I hadn’t have bribed her I’d have ended up with a black eye from her flailing legs or a bad back trying to restrain her. It was so much easier and calmer to reward her good behaviour getting nicely into the seat with a few chocolate buttons, after a while she got in automatically without the bribe. That was a number of years ago - obviously she can’t remember any of that drama, she has turned into a well behaved loving young lady and doesn’t even like chocolate these days.
