Monday, March 5, 2012

A difficult phase

Some times it gets really difficult to get Sophia to do things. We have read the literature, playful parenting and love and logic and many of the stuff in between. But sometimes, all you want to do is to put the exasperating kid on your knee and give three spanks.


Honestly, for a smart mouthed, big brained kid, she can be incredibly stubborn and incredibly difficult.


Here is what happened


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Sunday morning, we are getting the kids ready for the walk.


"Sophia, time to brush your teeth"


"Mummy, if you promith me that you wont hold me tight, and thatt you wont call daddy, then I will byush my teeth"

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This morning, before going to school


"Sophia brush your teeth"


"I want to byush my teeth in bed on mummy lap"


We do the required


"Now I want to byush my teeh on the bed"


We do the required


"I want to byush my teeth by myself!"


ditto


"You close your eyes and I will byush my teeth"


We all know what will happen, but I am fairly accomodating.


"Now, let me brush your teeth"


"No! I didnt byush my teeth by myself"


The thing about her is that she does all is in some sort of dogged play phase. It is possible to keep it light, but it is impossible to sway her to your way of thinking by using forcefull ness, You can only do that by using argumentative logic, and for that you need a lot of contextual and innate knowledge.


Here is a sample of a conversation that Sophia had with patti (reported)


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Patti was in the center sitting with her friends and having dinner after Mother's birthday celebrations.


"Patti, Anjali pulled my hand, like this and it is huyting sooooo much"


Patti massages the hand and gives her a kiss and everything


"Patti, your which eye is huyting?" (Innate knowledge: Patti likes to say that Anjali and Sophia are like her two eyes)


"This eye", says patti, pointing to one eye at random.


"Patti, patti", says the kid, whose mathematical skills dont have any flaws in them, whether this is due to the doman cards or if it is due to the fact that she simply refuses to do the counting activities in the Dora book, I dont know..


"Patti patti, if there is one more baby, which eye it will be?"


I later recouonted the conversation to husband and the imp was eavesdropping.


"Mummy, if there is one more baby and one more baby and one more baby and one more baby, how many eyes patti will have?"


Patti has to get a boon from Hera to have a hubdred eyes like Argus.


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We finally finished brushing the teeth and came to the living room to get dressed up. Anjali has gym on Fridays and Sophia has gym on Mondays. So Anjali wears her uniforma nd Sophia wears her gym clothes


"No! I dont want my gym clothes. I want like Anjali. I dont like gym!"


And she took off her clothes, refusing to put them on.


We all know that forcing her is not a solution to anything, and I let her have breakfast in her underwear, in the hope that the avocado smoothie will make her more open to argumentative persuasion (whatever)



And she didnt want Avocado milkshake.


"I dont like it. I only want vanilla milkshake"


The avocado was sneaked in the milkshake nevertheless with a couple of drops of vanilla essence. the kid downed half a tumblerfull before peeking into it.


"Why is it geen?"


"Its green vanilla", I said


"No!"


"Yes."


"There is no such thing as a green vanilla!"


But she downed her milkshake nevertheless.


She still didnt want to put on her gym clothes, not until husband threatened that the rest of the childdren would tease her if she went to school in her underwear.


She had been teased once before in ballet class when she didnt have a tutu, so she is rather sensitive to teasing. That made her wear her gym clothes and the socks and the shoes


"If I wear shoes, i dont need socks!", she maintains, adding that I dont wear socks.


What do you do under this kind of infallible logic in an argument?


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