Parenting Via Distraction
As a young parent the only reliable trick I’ve found is distraction. Children cannot be reasoned with but they can be distracted. To be honest, this is largely true with adults as well.
Distraction
As an example, last night my daughter found a toy and started screaming that she wanted every other toy in that matching set. In reality, she was just tired. I explained why we couldn’t do that, and quickly asked her which of five books she wanted to read. This distracted her, the question somehow filled up her cache memory and the toy issue was cleared while I put her to sleep.
This doesn’t work all the time, obviously. This morning she was genuinely if extravagantly hungry and distracting her with toys or other ideas didn’t work, she just needed to be given her third breakfast for the day. However, in my experience distraction is generally the only reliable trick that works.
It even works if a kid falls on their head. My son, for example, is good at running into things, especially furniture corners. When this happens I do grab him and kiss him and see if there’s any brain poking out, but rather than dwelling on the injury I quickyl rush him to the balcony and show him a bird or something.
