Thursday, January 12, 2006
Finally
YA (who just turned 4, thank you very much) is finally getting out of diapers and into underwear. YW was not potty trained when YA was born. I have been wiping someone else's ass for going on Seven And A Half Years. I'm ready to be in charge of only my own butt. The current stage we're in is that YA wears a pull-up during the night and underwear during the day. Until a couple of days ago, I was putting him in a fresh pull-up to get to preschool where his teacher (for whom he will do anything) would get him into his Mr Incredible underpants. Yesterday I decided that he had gotten good enough at holding his pee that he could almost certainly make it to school without detonating in the car. I told him that we were going to put his underpants on at home. This was not what he wanted to hear and he ramped up from upset all the way to full-on tantrum mode with the screaming and the kicking of the feet and everything.
Whereupon YA had the opportunity to be reminded of one of Hank's Rules Of Parenting: Tantrums don't work. You, as my child, will never never never never get your way if throw yourself a tantrum. I don't reward that behavior at all. My thinking is that if you give in even once, all you've done is show the kid what s/he has to do get something s/he really wants. I don't like dealing with tantrums enough to encourage them.
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