Oh my, what a day from hell and I was having such a good week ! I ahd a huge headhache all day and naps were terrible today.
Anyway so I've had 2 situations at pick up that totaly took me by suprise and I think I could have done better so I'm curious to know what you guys would have done.
1- At pick up, my 2 year old boy brought one of my toy car with him and I had not noticed. That was my mistake. They arrived a bit ahead of time and it was a bit cahotic as my own 2 year old had pooped her pants and it had overflowed on the floor and I was running after the 1 year olds so they would not get their hands in it...Anyway... So the dad asks the boy to give back the car and he refuses ( this child has NEVER had any such behaviour with me and he always very well behaved and when he is asked to do somehting he co-operates well ) So I asked him to give it to me and he threw it on the floor and I asked to please pick it up and give it back. I am standing there and waitting and he just pouts. I said that what he was doing was not really nice and not acceptable and so I asked again. Meanwhile he looks at mom and starts crying and she just hugs him and says something like '' Oh he just doesn't know what to do '' or somethign like that to excuse his behaviour. At that time another parent enters the door and I know I am not going anywhere with this now that he is in mommy's arms. So I take the car and Say ' Alright I'm going ot have to take it away and you wont be able to play with it'' Now I intend to have him make amends tomorrow by having him clean the toy (with me ofcourse) and put it away. What would you have done ? I was totally suprised by his behaviour and had too move on. If the parents had not been there and I was not rushed by another parent coming in I would have not allowed him to move on to another activity until what I had asked be done.
2- Again at pick up, I dont remember really but my 2 year old girl was in Daddy's amrs and he asked her to say bye to me or something like that and she just said ''Umm" with a little hand gesture meaning NO. As if she was mad at something for whatever reason. So I said, well that's a not really nice thing to do and she did the same thing again. She NEVER did this before with me at all. Dad just repeated what I said but did not do anything. So I moved on but she later gave me a big hug and I said well that's better, I like that '' Would you have done anything else ? It just took me by such suprise and really and she was in Dad's arms so... I really did not know what to do.
I know both families seem to be a little easy on discipline and what not and I do not want to start a big thing about it with the parents (their child their business) but I do want the child to respect me regardless of the parents presence or not. These kids are well behaved normaly... as least when they do make mistakes they do comply with amends so they are not usually like this.
