"No"
Oooooooookay.
So I had a "mirror" moment with my kid last night. You know, that moment when you see yourself, more specifically--your own behavior, reflected back at you through your child(ren)? Yep. It happened, and my son is about 15.5 months old.
W is a toddler, and recently I've been using the word "no" a lot...to very little effect. So I tried another approach: using facial expressions along with that "no". The first time I did it, W literally laughed at me, at my facial expression, and (of course) ignored the No I was trying to tell him.
Well, we were in the bathroom last night for his bath, and he was picking up the scale, which is made of glass (probably tempered but still glass), and I tried to put it back down safely so it wouldn't drop and break. Guess who disapproved (he wanted it upright on its edge)...and looked at me with *my* No-expression.
I burst out laughing because it was just too much. Not only did he apply it correctly, but delivery was perfect. His eyes were a perfect reflection of my own.
This morning, he has been giving me No-looks whenever I did things that prevented him doing what he wanted (like pulling off the packing tape from a package I taped up to send back). Or trying to stop him from messing with the clock during attempted nap time. (He hasn't napped yet today.)
I will need to work on my facial expressions from now on and also work on another approach to convince him to cooperate with me.
So I had a "mirror" moment with my kid last night. You know, that moment when you see yourself, more specifically--your own behavior, reflected back at you through your child(ren)? Yep. It happened, and my son is about 15.5 months old.
W is a toddler, and recently I've been using the word "no" a lot...to very little effect. So I tried another approach: using facial expressions along with that "no". The first time I did it, W literally laughed at me, at my facial expression, and (of course) ignored the No I was trying to tell him.
Well, we were in the bathroom last night for his bath, and he was picking up the scale, which is made of glass (probably tempered but still glass), and I tried to put it back down safely so it wouldn't drop and break. Guess who disapproved (he wanted it upright on its edge)...and looked at me with *my* No-expression.
I burst out laughing because it was just too much. Not only did he apply it correctly, but delivery was perfect. His eyes were a perfect reflection of my own.
This morning, he has been giving me No-looks whenever I did things that prevented him doing what he wanted (like pulling off the packing tape from a package I taped up to send back). Or trying to stop him from messing with the clock during attempted nap time. (He hasn't napped yet today.)
I will need to work on my facial expressions from now on and also work on another approach to convince him to cooperate with me.
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