I Call It Compromise, My Friends Call It Suckered...

My parenting style is pretty laid back. I still discipline and I have boundaries and rules. However, there is some flexibility in there. For instance, bedtime is usually an ordeal at our house. Jaycie just does not like to go to bed on her own. She will, eventually, and she's not nearly as bad as she used to be. It used to take a good 2 hours of constant screaming before she'd go to sleep. Well, since she is doing much better with the whole bedtime thing I compromise with her every now and then, mainly when I'm too tired to devote at least 30 minutes to singing her songs, reading her books, singing her songs, saying goodnight to all her stuffed animals. It's a whole ritual, really. The compromise is I give her a choice. She can either go to sleep in her bed or Mommy's bed. When she sleeps in Mommy's bed she gets to sleep on Mommy's pillow and I read one story, sing one song, and say prayers with her and say goodnight and she's out. If I put her to sleep in her bed sometimes she'll get out of bed and come up with a million excuses of why she can't go to sleep right then, most of which are ignored. Then when I'm ready for bed I move her to her own bed and all is good. She still goes to sleep fairly well in her own bed the next night, so I don't feel like it's a bad compromise at all.

There are other small things I compromise on. If I hear her playing with water and I know she's not making a huge mess I'll overlook it. I do like her to explore her creativity through water play, so I don't think it's a big deal. Josh would disagree, but we agree to disagree on some things. If Jaycie asks me for a snack and I originally say no because she didn't finish her lunch I'll compromise later by saying if she finishes a certain amount of said lunch she'll get some sort of fruit, but not the pudding she asked for. I try not to sweat the small stuff. If I did I would go insane. So, I compromise. I feel like it's a great way to teach Jaycie about decisions and make her feel like she's making some decisions for herself. This in turn keeps tantrums to a minimum. Though honestly, she doesn't have many tantrums and the ones she does have are pretty short lived. She knows that there are things I will give on and there are things I will not give on. I probably should be more consistent on certain issues. And there are times where I fully admit she suckered me with her cute and clever ways. Like when today I told her no candy and she came to me holding a bag of M&M's and wiggling her eyebrows saying, "Rook! I found M M's, Mommy! Can I? Can I? Huh? Can I? PLEASE?" Seriously, it's the funniest and cutest things ever!