A Watched Pot
Elijah spent a recent late afternoon watching a movie with Regina, who'd taken to bed with the auge. OK, so the movie was Finding Nemo. Please don't make me justify that right now. Regardless, the movie ended, and he left his mother to sleep. I was in the kitchen, pulling dinner together.
"I want to watch a show," he said.
"You've watched enough TV today," I said.
"No I haven't."
"Yes you have."
"No. I haven't."
"You have. Now go into your room and play while I make dinner."
Elijah ran into the living room, sobbing. He sat in a chair and began clawing at his face.
"Daddy!" he said. "You're not being very nice to me!"
"I'm being perfectly nice to you," I said.
"I want to watch a show!"
"No."
"But I've only watched three today!"
"That doesn't help your argument."
"It's not fair!" he said.
"Life isn't fair," I said, feeling very much like a parent.
"I don't like you anymore!"
"That's fine."
The sobbing and screeching continued. Elijah was trying to show me up. But rather than punish, I tried an advanced fathering tactic.
"Do you want to come help me make dinner?" I said.
He stopped crying, looked at me with surprise, and snuffled.
"Ooooo-kaaaaaaay," he said.
"Then come in here," I said.
He did.
"Get your white stepstool," I said.
He did.
"Now, I'm going to fill this pot up with water. And then I'm going to put it on the stove and turn up the heat. What I need you to do is watch the pot very carefully until the water boils."
"What's boil?"
You never know what they're not going to know.
"When the water gets very hot, there are bubbles on the surface. I need you to watch for the bubbles. And then when it boils, we'll dump in the green beans."
"OK," he said.
For the next ten minutes, Elijah stared at the pot like a scientist looking through a microscope.
"I see bubbles," he said.
"Those are little bubbles," I said. "At the bottom of the pot. You need to look very closely."
The TV had been forgotten. I put my strategy into the "good parent" column, which had been a bit thin of late. Next week, I'll keep Elijah busy by watching paint dry.
Readers: Do you have any favorite child-distraction techniques?
Comments
i don't really have any techniques, but i do know that offering a kid an alternative to whatever you're telling them not to do increases your chances of getting them to obey you. sounds like you did a great job.
Posted by: amy | June 22, 2007 3:03 PM
Ah, yes. The "allow me to distract you from whatever insane thing you're fixating on with a completely mundane and boring, but novel to you task" strategy. Use the hell out of it while you can, it stops working somewhere around 8 or 9.
Posted by: ttrentham | June 22, 2007 3:10 PM
This is not my own. I stole it from a very resourceful woman with three boys. However, it works like magic for my VERY active nearly-three-year-old. I think Elijah is older (not sure), so this may not work for him, but it's worth a try and it just might help someone else reading this. When I need a few minutes of peace and quiet, I put a little bit of water in the bottom of a plastic snack bowl and give my son a few paint brushes. He "paints" everything he owns, beginning with his cars and trains. I got an order from Amazon the other day, and he spent an hour or so painting the boxes. First they were buildings, then parking garages and then roads. It's never failed me. I also hear (but haven't yet tried) it's an awesome outdoor activity. They can "paint" the house, the deck, the driveway, the porch, whatever!
Posted by: Student of Life | June 22, 2007 3:52 PM
allow me to second, third, fourth, and nth the "allow me to distract you from your previous desire by asking you to help me with something that is in all reality a non-task." Of course, if you can get them to truly help you--that's all the better. Boiling water (and chef's knives and mandolines and...) is currently not on the menu for three-year-old to-be Maia, but she's a whiz with cracking an egg into a measuring cup and holds teaspoons and tablespoons like a champ.
In general, I've found that anything that remotely sniffs of "go away" is a No. 1 cause of hell breaking loose--while anything that says, "Learn/See/Help with this" is sure to be worth extra story points at bed time & reduces the number of books to be re-read by @ least half.
Posted by: minnesotaj | June 22, 2007 6:19 PM
Scatalogical humor works wonders with our five-year old daughter. If she's fussing or being obstreperous, a strategic fart can go a long way to bringing her around--at least once she's done giggling. She's also been channeling Rodney Dangerfield circa Caddyshack. I cut one recently and got a "Whoa, did someone step on a duck?" out of her. Best of all, she knows those kinds of jokes have their time and place. She leaves it up to me to embarrass myself, just like a good kid should.
Posted by: PhillyD | June 22, 2007 7:41 PM
Er, scatological.
Posted by: PhillyD | June 22, 2007 8:21 PM
Homemade play dough (it isn't as messy) is the world’s greatest distracter. Whenever I need a bit of time I give my son the play dough, a plastic knife, and some hot wheels, and he's in heaven.
I don't hear anything but his own personal theme music (he seriously likes to hum his own adventure movie type song as he does this) for the next 30 minutes.
Best play dough ever:
2 ½ cups Flour
1 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
½ cup salt
3 TBSP Vegetable Oil
2 cups Boiling Water
1 pkg unsweetened kool-aid
Combine flour, salt, kool-aid, and cream of tartar. Add oil and boiling water. Stir until mixed then knead when cool enough to handle. Add more food coloring if desired.
Posted by: sadie | June 25, 2007 8:06 AM
Our 21-month-old is intensely nocturnal AND intensely obsessive, while his father and I prefer sleeping soundly to being shouted at in the middle of the night ("Outside! I want outside! I go outside! Mama outside! Daddy outside! OUTSIIIIIDE!"). Last week, in sheer frustration, I flung his bedroom curtains open in the middle of the night so he could see that there was nothing interesting outside at that time of day.
Best mistake I ever made. There was a SMALL RED LIGHT blinking on the dashboard of a truck parked outside of our house. He quieted down immediately, his gaze fixed intently on the blinking red light. "Light," he kept saying, over and over. "Light. Light. Right there! Light. Truck. Light. Light." His breathing got slower and deeper, he snuggled against my shoulder, fixed his eyes on the red light and was asleep within 10 minutes. We've since realized that asking him to watch something for us suits his temperament just great. At least for now.
You go with your kid's strengths. Too bad we were so slow to realize what his were.
Posted by: Kathy | June 25, 2007 12:09 PM
Neil, you did make sure to tell him it was HOT, right???
Posted by: rebecca | June 26, 2007 1:35 PM
Neal, you did remember to tell him it was HOT, right?
Posted by: rebecca | June 26, 2007 1:37 PM
A rousing game of fetch works for my toddler. Also giving him simple tasks like putting shoes away in the shoe basket works.
Mo, our 4 year old loves walking our dog. When he starts to have a melt down I nip it in the bud by suggesting we walk the dog. It takes about 5 minutes and when we get back inside all is right as rain.
Posted by: Ashley | June 27, 2007 7:51 AM
My dad once kept my nephew rapt for something like half an hour with what he called "Alaskan Roulette." It consisted of watching two ice cubes to see which melted first.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 3, 2007 12:14 PM