Waving the white flag....

I must admit I don't follow too many of the nouveau age parenting skills...ie: the get down to eye level of a preschooler in the midst of a full out tantrum and ask him to discuss his feelings...'Why are you angry? Why are you upset? Let's talk about why your feeling like this?' philosophy.

I'm more of a 'you can scream it out all you want in the comfort of your own room' parenting follower, which is a slight improvement from my dad's back in the day 'so help you if I get to number three and you have yet to stop screaming and crying'. His parenting methodology always worked like a charm. For the record, my dad never got past one and on those really test the limits I'd let my dad get to two but never past two. Must of been that Italian old school upbringing of my dad's and I have to say I turned out pretty well.

But back to the year 2009....

I have discovered that if I start a sentence with any of these conversation starters with my little dramatic preschooler I am at best completely screwed. These words will guarantee that I will be waving the white flag. My little guy may be only 3 and a half but I swear the kid knows how to wear me out...

So here are those tread lightly and use with extreme caution conversation starters...

• "In five minutes OK pumpkin...Mommy just needs five minutes to finish what I am doing, then we can do whatever it is you so desperately want to do."

• "Pumpkin not now Mommy is on the phone..."

• "Pumpkin let's try and keep really quiet. Remember, who is trying to sleep right now?"

• "Pumpkin tomorrow, I promise we'll do that tomorrow."

• "Pumpkin I don't care how loud you yell the answer is no." [this one usually takes place in the grocery store]

• "Pumpkin we're going to have some quiet time right now because Mommy doesn't feel very well/has a headache."

• "Pumpkin Mommy wants to watch her TV show right now OK..."
  

With that being said...Lord give me strength.

photo credit: magfree.files.wordpress.com/