# Appropriate consequence for taking Daddy's dessert?



## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

We had two very similar incidents a week apart, in which our 4-year-old ate what he clearly understood to be his father's dessert, and EnviroDaddy and I disagree about how they should have been handled:

#1:
We were staying in a hotel that gave us 2 cookies when we checked in on Friday night. EnviroKid and I each ate half a cookie. The remaining cookie was set on the desk in the hotel room, and there was no discussion of who would get to eat it. Saturday afternoon, EnviroDaddy was lying down with a headache while EnviroKid and I got rinsed off and dressed after swimming. It was well past lunchtime, and EnviroKid and I were hungry. While I was still in the bathroom, Kid noticed the cookie and woke Daddy to tell him that we were saving this cookie for him (Daddy); I did not hear this. Daddy said okay and closed his eyes. Kid brought the cookie into the bathroom, gave me a piece, and ate a piece. I told him, "Thank you, but let's not eat any more cookie because we're going to go get lunch." Kid went back into the main room, ate the rest of the cookie, then immediately went to Daddy and said, "I'm very sorry, but I ate your cookie," in (according to Daddy) a very cheerful voice.

EnviroDaddy was furious. He felt it was VERY wrong for EnviroKid to promise him a cookie (which he then began to look forward to eating when he got up) and then eat ANY of it, let alone ALL. He was further upset by being informed of this while he was trying to rest. He voiced these feelings angrily, stayed at the hotel while we went to lunch and a park, and continued nursing his grudge through my brother's wedding rehearsal dinner. EnviroKid, who hadn't had a chance to nap and had drowsed off during the rehearsal only to awaken when I tried to lay him down, ordered a smoothie and a veggie dog, both of which he was very much looking forward to, and was quite patient given the slow service, the uncomfortably warm room, and his tired state--sure, he interrupted conversation many times to ask when he'd get his stuff, but it WAS a long wait. And then he didn't like either item! He complained quietly, negotiated some trades with both parents, and ate a reasonable amount of food. When it was time to order dessert, I very much wanted a piece of carrot cake all to myself, but EnviroKid wanted carrot cake too, and I did not want to order him a whole piece. EnviroDaddy flipped out at the fact that I was even considering letting Kid have any dessert at all; he rehashed the whole cookie incident in a quiet but angry tone, then told Kid he was too angry to be near him anymore and stormed out of the restaurant. I ordered one piece of carrot cake, and both my dad and I shared with Kid. Afterward, I asked EnviroDaddy what would get him over the cookie incident, and he said he'd been very disappointed that we hadn't returned from lunch with another cookie for him--but he couldn't tell us that was what he wanted because then it wouldn't be as good. I pointed out to him that this is the exact same "There's one magic solution to my problem; I won't tell you what it is, but I'll be disappointed when it doesn't happen." thing that so infuriates him when I or EnviroKid do it.

My opinion: Kid saw the cookie, recalled that Daddy hadn't had any of the first cookie, and knew it would be fair to offer it to him; that's a positive act that should be acknowledged. Daddy neither ate the cookie then nor put it away. The hungry Kid was unable to resist, BUT he knew he'd done wrong and immediately apologized, another positive act. Daddy's reaction was too harsh; yes, he was in pain and not completely awake, but he should have been prepared to apologize for it when we returned, rather than expecting US to placate HIM. Bringing him a new cookie would've been a nice gesture if I'd thought of it, but OTOH it might give Kid the message that he can take Daddy's stuff because we'll just buy another one.... It was wrong for Kid to eat Daddy's cookie, but it did not justify even one angry freak-out, let alone another one several hours later that disrupted a special event. (I was very hurt that he took for granted he could storm off leaving me in charge of Kid, seeing as I'd been in charge most of the day and we'd previously agreed that, to enable me to get to know my brother's friends and in-laws, HE would be the Parent On Duty during the dinner!!) In a 4-year-old's mind, the events of the evening were far removed from those of the early afternoon, AND he had behaved very well at the dinner under difficult circumstances and had eaten some nutritious food, so I thought that allowing him dessert was reasonable.

#2:
We were at a friend's party. On the way there, EnviroKid tripped and got several bad scrapes and was upset. EnviroKid first said he did not want any food, then ate several bites of my burrito, then asked EnviroDaddy to make him a burrito. (These were smallish burritos made with 6" tortillas.) He ate 2/3 of his burrito. Meanwhile EnviroDaddy and I had gotten chocolate cupcakes, which were extremely rich. EnviroKid asked for and got 3 bites of mine. Then he demanded that I finish his burrito, get him his own cupcake, and get him some more water. I told him if he was hungry he could eat the burrito; he had not eaten enough real food to eat any more dessert; there was plenty of time to pause and finish eating later; I'd be happy to get more water if he'd ask nicely. He asked nicely, and I went to the kitchen for water. Before I got back (elapsed time one minute or less) I heard Kid wailing, and I returned to the room to find Daddy standing over him saying very angrily, "We're going straight home! Put on your shoes!" It seems Daddy set his unfinished cupcake on his plate, planning to finish it later, and when he looked away Kid took a bite.

After hearing Daddy's report, I got down on the floor to listen to Kid and hug him while he cried. He agreed that he'd taken a bite, that the cupcake was Daddy's and Daddy had said he couldn't have it, and that he'd heard me say he could not have any more dessert. He was very sad. I explained that telling Daddy he was sorry was the right thing to do. He wanted me to "help" him; after I pressed for specifics, he asked me to say every other syllable in, "I am sorry." I would not do that; the apology needed to come from him. After about 10 minutes (during which EnviroDaddy stood several feet away staring over our heads like he was waiting for a bus), EnviroKid apologized, though he did not sound very sincere; he acted as if he was afraid to speak to his father at all. Another child came over and asked him to play a game, and he did that. Later, our whole family played a game together and enjoyed it. We left the party an hour later in good moods.

Daddy believes that we must respond to "this sort of thing" with very firm and negative consequences so Kid will learn that he can't do it. He was very annoyed that I intervened in his discipline attempt and "made" him look like the bad guy. He says HE thought Kid had eaten enough to have dessert, but because I had said no he couldn't allow it.

My opinion: Taking a bite of Daddy's cupcake was wrong, but it was not such a big deal that it needed to change the whole course of the evening. Kid was showing regret for his actions, although his formal apology left much to be desired. Taking him home would not have accomplished much except making his parents miss the party. (Daddy says his intention was to take Kid home and let me stay, but he didn't tell me that in the moment.) However, I should not have intervened, because there IS a problem of the two of them not knowing how to get along together, and they're never going to work it out if I keep "rescuing" Kid from Daddy.

What do you think? How much of what kind of consequence is appropriate? What should EnviroDaddy do to calm down and make a fresh start after an incident like this? What can I do to keep myself out of conflicts that are between the two of them?


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## lurable (Jul 23, 2006)

nak
I think you handled both situations well. In the first incident I would have agreed with EDad- no dessert as EKid had already had his. In the second situation I would have done as you did. I think as far as you stepping in, sometimes it is useful to have a mediator- we do it all of the time in our house. I'll post more later- one hand typing is hard


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## 2xy (Nov 30, 2008)

It seems to me that the child might be reacting typically to overly coercive parenting. I see his behavior as subconscious pushing-of-buttons. The first incident was either a lack of self-control or outright deception; only you can be the judge, since I obviously don't know your kid. The second incident was sneaky. Maybe EnviroKid feels that he has no control over food issues.

Honestly, I can't imagine a grown man freaking out so much about losing a cookie or about being spoken to while taking a nap. Being interrupted and inconvenienced is part of parenthood. Sure, it was wrong for the boy to eat his dad's dessert. He's _four_.

More freedom might lead to less of a need for "consequences," IMO.


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## krystyn33 (May 30, 2006)

This may sound judgmental, but I question your DH's expectations and am having a hard time understanding such strong reactions from him over what seems trivial--a cookie? a cupcake? Don't put them where the kid can take them or get another one. He is the grown up and needs to act like it, IMO. Not many 4 year olds are going to have the impulse control to refrain from eating a sweet set out right in front of them, even when he knows it isn't his. If I leave a piece of fish on the counter and walk away and come back to find my cat eating it, what good is it to be angry at the cat? It was my fault. Yes, a four year old is not the same, but that temptation might be too much even for an older child.

Rather than brainstorming so much about how to manage this behavior issue, I'd invest some thought in figuring out why this was such a big deal to your husband. Seems like an anger or control issue on his part--something he needs to work out. Comforting your child when he's upset by his father's anger is not "reinforcement"--it is kindness, IMO. The behavior from his dad seemed very much like threatening rejection (or angry coldness) as punishment or to teach a lesson and I imagine this would be very confusing, scary and painful for a young child. To be made to feel like Daddy doesn't love you anymore because you ate his cookie just seems bizarre and harsh to me.


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## rabbitmum (Jan 25, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *2xy* 
Honestly, I can't imagine a grown man freaking out so much about losing a cookie or about being spoken to while taking a nap. Being interrupted and inconvenienced is part of parenthood. Sure, it was wrong for the boy to eat his dad's dessert. He's _four_.


Quote:


Originally Posted by *krystyn33* 
Don't put them where the kid can take them or get another one. He is the grown up and needs to act like it, IMO. Not many 4 year olds are going to have the impulse control to refrain from eating a sweet set out right in front of them, even when he knows it isn't his.

I completely agree with you both!

OP, I must admit I got a bit giggly from your account. Are you married to the cookie monster? Your husband sounds like he is far too attached to his cookies!









The "consequence" should be that your husband learns to put his cookies somewhere safer, and that he learns to be a little more relaxed about the "real food/dessert ratio", especially when there's a "special" occasion! And he should apologise to his child for being angry and seeming so hostile, it must have been scary for your four-year-old.


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## The Harpy (Apr 1, 2008)

Hmm... IMHO...

The cookie was wrong and he should not have been given any dessert/ carrot cake because he had already taken daddy's dessert and eaten it. Natural consequence is if you take someone else's dessert, you should give them yours. DS should have given Dad his carrot cake to make up for the cookie being eaten IMO. 4 yrs old is a good age to learn that, my son understood that w/ out a problem and he had done that ONCE w/ his sisters treat and it was easy to learn.

W/ the cupcake incident, DS was aware that he has already done this once that day (same day right?) and here it did it again. He hasn't learned that there are serious consequences for taking w/ out asking so he continues to do it. kwim?

I can understand Dad's upset as well because it sounds like he is feeling like you validate DS' feelings more than his and that you jump to DS' defence and disregard Dad's opinion. It is hard when one parent feels like their opinion in the childraising isn't valid or will be over ruled. If you continue to jump to the defence of Kid when Dad has an issue w/ him you are showing DS that your the go to person because Dad can just get overruled.







Be careful w/ this mama... it is a slippery slope.

I would say that if Dad and Kid spent some one on one time w/ out mom there, they might be able to work some of the bugs out. Sometimes Kid just needs to get the groove on Dad's parenting style w/ out mom there running interference..... ya know?


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## readytobedone (Apr 6, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *krystyn33* 
This may sound judgmental, but I question your DH's expectations and am having a hard time understanding such strong reactions from him over what seems trivial--a cookie? a cupcake? Don't put them where the kid can take them or get another one. He is the grown up and needs to act like it, IMO. Not many 4 year olds are going to have the impulse control to refrain from eating a sweet set out right in front of them, even when he knows it isn't his. If I leave a piece of fish on the counter and walk away and come back to find my cat eating it, what good is it to be angry at the cat? It was my fault. Yes, a four year old is not the same, but that temptation might be too much even for an older child.


ITA. i think it's weird for your DH to be so upset over a cookie at all-- especially over the fact that DS took it. 4 year olds are not known for impulse control. i mean, heck, if DH put a really yummy looking cupcake down and walked away for a second, *i* would probably take a bite









to me, this isn't something that really needs to be consequenced, as much as just talked through, which it sounds like you did.


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## elizawill (Feb 11, 2007)

eh. he's 4. it's not a big deal to me. i'm sorry your dh is all out of joints over it, but i don't know that creating a mountain out of a mole hill is going to accomplish anything. imho, instead of your husband being so angry he needed to leave the restaurant, it would have been better to use the situation as an opportunity for father/son to talk, reflect, reconnect, and forgive. i think if that had been done the first time around, then the second incident may not have occurred, ykwim?


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

Yes, I think there are issues on EnviroDaddy's part. He and I stayed up late the night of Incident #1 discussing, basically, WTF made it such a huge deal? It boils down to self-centeredness about his "right" to be treated well particularly when he feels bad. He was so wrapped up in it that he had given no thought to the feelings of EnviroKid (struggling to stay awake and polite at adult dinner party; disappointed by food choices) or me (taken for granted as Parent On Duty all day long; embarrassed by partner's behavior at special event) until I pointed them out.

Eventually he said he is worried that EnviroKid will turn out like him--too focused on his own comfort to notice the feelings of others--and that's why he gets so freaked out when EnviroKid does something self-centered like this. Okay, but at the same time as he's thinking about punishing EnviroKid's undesirable behavior, he's GOT to think about the example he's setting with his own behavior!!

We're both concerned about EnviroKid's flagrant disobedience--both parents told him not to, but he did, a VERY short time later--but we have different opinions on what should be done about it:
DADDY: We cannot tolerate this. When EnviroKid does something unpleasant, we should make things unpleasant for him.
ME: We must acknowledge both positive and negative actions, and guide him to make amends for the negative ones. We are responsible for our own emotional states and must do our best to respond to an apology with more positive feelings. We need to take into account our child's developmental stage and current physical and emotional state.

Lurable wrote:

Quote:

In the first incident I would have agreed with EDad- no dessert as EKid had already had his.
He had 1/4 of a cookie 7 hours earlier. It seemed far-fetched to me to argue that that ruled out dessert after dinner. I guess it would seem like an appropriate consequence if we'd decided it right after he ate the cookie, but waiting until the question of dessert had been raised was pretty harsh.

I agree that EnviroDaddy's expectations of 4-year-old willpower are too high! We've got such a good, mature kid that it's easy to expect too much from him.














We haven't had the opportunity for a cool-headed discussion of Incident #2 yet, but I suspect that EnviroDaddy looked away from the cupcake to test EnviroKid, and I think that's really inappropriate! We should be setting him up for success.


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

Harpy: Not the same day. One week later.

I'm going away (to Girl Scout camp







) next weekend, so the two of them will be on their own. I hope it will be a good bonding time for them. They do seem to get along better with each other when I'm totally unavailable than when either of them feels I can be called to the rescue. It's not just Kid wanting shelter from Daddy's anger but Daddy wanting me to manage Kid since he doesn't feel he's as good at it as I am.... I tell him he never will be if he doesn't practice!!


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## elizawill (Feb 11, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EnviroBecca* 
He had 1/4 of a cookie 7 hours earlier. It seemed far-fetched to me to argue that that ruled out dessert after dinner. I guess it would seem like an appropriate consequence if we'd decided it right after he ate the cookie, but waiting until the question of dessert had been raised was pretty harsh.


i totally agree. that only would have been reasonable if your dh had clearly told your son 7 hours earlier that his consequence was no sweets for the remainder of the day. if your dh wants to be stricter with your son than you, i don't see that as a huge deal honestly. my dh and i parent differently on the GD spectrum as well. however, consequences can't be thrown around long after the offense has taken place. that's not fair. it also isn't fair to rehash the mistakes your little boy made. consequences should make sense, and they should be discussed and understood by parent/child. not to mention there needs to be further resolution through communication and forgiveness, yk? hugs mama. i hope you all find your rhythm.


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## HappiLeigh (Mar 30, 2005)

Yeah, I think there are a few different issues going on. I'm on board with the PPs opinion that Dad overreacted regarding the cookie--pouting about a cookie is not cool, no matter how old the person is! Was EDad irritated with child, though, or with you? It's not clear how the immediate after-cookie-eating episode went, except that your DH was angry and subsequently felt like *you* should have "fixed" it by purchasing another cookie. Which makes it unclear whether he was mad at the kid or you. It sound like maybe there is an issue with you guys not being on the same page about how to handle discipline situations with DS, which is something you all need to work out apart from these particular situations, just in general. (We have that going on at my house some, too, which is how I recognize it!)

Regarding the specific episodes, I respectfully disagree with the PPs who think cookies and cupcakes are not the stuff that big parenting issues are made of--those are small treats that can represent larger treats. We don't let our kids take other people's cookies because later we don't want them stealing cars, right? (Not that your kid is ever going to steal cars! I'm just saying that actually dessert _is_ important at four because it is a big deal to a four-year-old.) Which makes it a perfectly reasonable scenario in which to play out your family's reaction to minor infractions. It sounds like you guys just need to be on the same page about what that reaction is going to be, and have each other's back when it comes to carrying out your plan, so your DS knows that it's clear that in your family it is not okay with either parent if he takes someone else's stuff, whether that's a cookie or whatever.


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## elizawill (Feb 11, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *HappiLeigh* 
I respectfully disagree with the PPs who think cookies and cupcakes are not the stuff that big parenting issues are made of--those are small treats that can represent larger treats. We don't let our kids take other people's cookies because later we don't want them stealing cars, right? (Not that your kid is ever going to steal cars! I'm just saying that actually dessert _is_ important at four because it is a big deal to a four-year-old.)

i just don't view it this way i suppose. if my child ate a cookie at the age of 4 after clearly being told it was not okay, i think you should address it, correct them, and move on. i certainly wouldn't be worried about the behavior growing into carjacking







. i know your comment was a bit tongue and cheek, but some behaviors at age 4 are completely age appropriate in their development. so for me, it really isn't a big deal.


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## krystyn33 (May 30, 2006)

I've been known to polish off DH's ice cream left in the freezer--taking food that isn't rightfully mine. This hasn't led to stealing from friends, strangers, or even the grocery store, much less the notion that stealing larger, non-perishables like automobiles is ok.

My husband is never happy when this happens, but he is one of the precious few people in this world who love me in spite of my imperfections. Trust and intimacy and forgiveness are marvelous things--what better place to model them than within your immediate family.


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## tanyam926 (May 25, 2005)

This is what we probably would have done:

Incident #1, my dh would have told ds that he was looking forward to eating his cookie and was now sad that ds ate daddy's cookie. Ds would have felt bad and at lunch I would have suggested we save some cake to take home for daddy or get him another cookie, or asked what ds thought we could do to make it up to daddy.

I also agree that it's just too tempting to leave it out there. Kids, even at 4 have little impulse control, heck, if I was having a bad day and was craving a cookie I would have a hard time not eating the last one that was left for my dh. I would be sorry and then try and make it up to him.

Incident #2, Never turn your back on a kid and a cupcake, that's one thing I have learned over the years. Seriously though, we would have talked about how taking something that doesn't belong to us makes the other person feel, how it could have been handled better and then negotiated a solution.

I really believe in not setting kids up to fail though, and for my kids both situations would have been setting them up. I don't leave a plate of cookies cooling on the counter w/in reach if I really don't want my kids to get a cookie.

I agree w/ pps though that your dh's reaction was overboard. However, he was probably more upset about the principle behind it than the actual dessert. Maybe he thinks (like most parent's do) that your ds behaviour means that you are not teaching him the lessons he needs to learn?

I find that when my dh doesn't understand normal age appropriate behavior he is much more frustrated w/the kids. When he knows what is normal he can then move past the frustration to talking w/them and teaching them.

Sorry for the novel!


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## mamazee (Jan 5, 2003)

I think that a hungry 4-year-old is going to eat a cookie if it's out. He tried to get his dad to eat it if he wanted it. If the dad wanted it, he should have eaten it or moved it to where the 4-year-old couldn't get it. I think the appropriate response would have been to buy another cookie for dad if he wanted one. His expectations aren't fair. Young kids have a hard time controlling themselves around cookies. My 7-year-old can now, but I don't remember when that started. I do not believe she would have been able to at 4.


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## ~gilli~ (Jun 30, 2005)

Dude...it's only a cookie. Chill.


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## sunnmama (Jul 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EnviroBecca* 
We're both concerned about EnviroKid's flagrant disobedience--
.

I think your expectations are too high. A cookie or cupcake are VERY tempting, even for adults! Is his "disobedience" a real problem, or limited to relying on a 4 year old's impulse control to resist highly tempting foods that are out in the open? IMO, the situations (leaving forbidden treats out) set him up for failure.

My response would be first to stifle a laugh (he stole daddy's cookie!







), then to explain that it is wrong, and then to not leave treats out that he is not allowed to have (or eat them in front of him.....can the adults have the self control to wait until the child is allowed to have a cupcake too, or after the child is asleep?)


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

HappiLeigh wrote:

Quote:

Was EDad irritated with child, though, or with you? It's not clear how the immediate after-cookie-eating episode went, except that your DH was angry and subsequently felt like *you* should have "fixed" it by purchasing another cookie.
I don't think he blamed me for not preventing EKid from eating the cookie--I was busy rinsing the swimsuits and such, and EKid more often than not responds to instructions like "no more of that" by putting the thing aside appropriately. However, he refused any responsibility himself for preventing his cookie from getting eaten. I can understand expecting EKid not to EAT it (because he'd just SAID he was saving it for Daddy) but, since we were in an unfamilar space with our stuff all cluttered around, if I were EDad I'd have taken the cookie and put it in a specific place so I could be sure of finding it when I wanted it!

What EDad really wanted was for *EKid* to think of getting him another cookie. While that is not out of the question, it is a pretty high level of empathy and problem-solving to expect from a 4-year-old. If he HAD suggested it, I would've done it.

Second best for EDad would've been if I had thought of replacing the cookie and either directly suggested it to EKid or coached him through "How can you make it up to Daddy?" brainstorming. I didn't do this because I DIDN'T THINK IT WAS SUCH A BIG FREAKING DEAL, I don't want to give the impression that sweets buy happiness, and I was busy trying to get a good lunch and enjoy the day after that unpleasantness--we were in an unfamiliar city and had to wander a bit to find lunch, and we bumped into my aunt and uncle, so I really wanted to enjoy lunch with them rather than spend my time brainstorming how to "fix" EnviroDaddy, who can be difficult to coax out of a bad mood.

Where there is an ongoing conflict between EDad and me is not so much over discipline (although we've been disagreeing more about that just recently) but over his behavior at social gatherings: He tends to have something wrong (tired, bad mood, some type of pain, or genuine contagious illness) and therefore "drop out" of the event either by slouching in a corner with his eyes shut or by staying home/in his room. It's not just when we see my family but also his family or our friends; this happens more often than not. If *I* have something wrong but it's not contagious, I do my very best to participate in the event anyway and be pleasant, and that's what I'd like him to do because
1. It's more polite.
2. Now that we have a kid, his dropping out means extra responsibility and distraction for me, so I don't get to enjoy socializing as much.
3. He'd like me to cater to his delicate state, but I'm busy hanging out with other people and doing stuff and being the Parent On Duty, and I don't want to worry about him constantly or cut short the socializing to rush to his bedside!
I explained my feelings about this at great length the night after Incident #1. EDad was feeling better the next day and made it up to me by taking EKid swimming while I hung around the breakfast table with my relatives, taking charge of EKid at the "bachelor's lunch" so I could meet my brother's friends, and being very "on" and friendly at the wedding reception.









Quote:

I respectfully disagree with the PPs who think cookies and cupcakes are not the stuff that big parenting issues are made of--those are small treats that can represent larger treats. We don't let our kids take other people's cookies because later we don't want them stealing cars, right?
A lot of responses said it's not the same thing, but I see what you mean: I don't want my kid to take someone's cookie minutes after a specific agreement on the subject because I don't want him to turn into a teenager who says, "Dad, you're using the car tonight, right?" and minutes later drives away in it.

Sunnmama wrote:

Quote:

Is his "disobedience" a real problem, or limited to relying on a 4 year old's impulse control to resist highly tempting foods that are out in the open?
It's a real problem and not limited to this type of situation. I mean, Tanya is right that EDad has age-inappropriate expectations and is jumping to the conclusion that any misbehavior means EKid hasn't learned what's right, but there IS a problem with obedience recently. Let me cite another example that I think is quite similar in MO but that did not involve EDad:

EKid and I were at the playground at dusk. We agreed that after one more round of hide & seek, we'd go down the slide once together and once each, and then we'd go home. As I was about to cover my eyes...
KID: I want to take off my shoes.
ME: No, we don't run around the playground without shoes. Keep them on.
KID: Okay. Count!
(I count, then seek and find him.)
ME: Hey, you're not wearing your shoes! I told you to keep them on.
KID: Gosh! How did that happen? I didn't even notice!
ME: I think you did. You wanted to take off your shoes, and you did it even though I told you not to do it.
KID: I didn't hurt my feet!
ME: I am glad you didn't hurt your feet. Put on your shoes now. We are going home.
KID: But! What about the slide?
ME: I told you to keep your shoes on. You chose to take your shoes off. We can't stay at the playground because you broke the rule I told you.
He started crying. I hugged him and said things like, "You're disappointed that you can't go down the slide." and "You wanted to take off your shoes so badly that you pretended it was an accident." Finally we left the playground without going on the slide, although we did stop to retrieve his important pine cone.

Things like that happen just about every day: He says he's going to do something, a parent tells him to do otherwise, he does it anyway, and then he does a sort of cute-mischievous act in which he might apologize (as he did for the cookie) but often pretends it happened by magic or someone else's fault or something. This is annoying, and I don't want to encourage it in any way, but I regard it as developmentally normal and something we have to take in stride and work through. EnviroDaddy is more concerned that it indicates a budding problem and wants to crack down hard on it.

Mamazee wrote:

Quote:

I think that a hungry 4-year-old is going to eat a cookie if it's out. He tried to get his dad to eat it if he wanted it.
You know, I think that's an important point: Although the words were quite clear (he said the cookie was for Daddy, and Daddy agreed), he may well have gotten the impression from Daddy's not taking control of the cookie that Daddy did not much care about it. That would've made the intensity of Daddy's reaction a big shock. The cheery-sounding apology that so annoyed EDad may have been the cheer of having just enjoyed a cookie coupled with the feeling that Daddy was going to be okay with that--not a smirking attitude toward having gotten away with stealing the cookie. Now that I think about it, EKid's reaction to EDad's anger both times was a wail of shock, as if he'd been slapped.







So yeah, Daddy needs to work on SHOWING the boundaries, not just speaking them.


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## krystyn33 (May 30, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EnviroBecca* 
Things like that happen just about every day: He says he's going to do something, a parent tells him to do otherwise, he does it anyway, and then he does a sort of cute-mischievous act in which he might apologize (as he did for the cookie) but often pretends it happened by magic or someone else's fault or something. This is annoying, and I don't want to encourage it in any way, but I regard it as developmentally normal and something we have to take in stride and work through.

I agree with you here & can't think of any children I've seen who don't engage in some amount of testing in this way. A 4 year old is not operating with the higher reasoning capability that most 10 year olds have--even one who is highly intelligent and has strong verbal skills that make it seem that way.

I've noticed that some of your language in these posts suggests that obedience from your DS is very important to you. If your goal is control over his behavior--having him obey the adults in his life as authority figures, then your overall approach would be very different than one valuing the learning process (often messy, non-linear & mistake-ridden) to behave in appropriate or acceptable ways out of inner motivation & understanding.


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## sunnmama (Jul 3, 2003)

I think the real issue here is impulse control. It is very normal for a preschool age child to have poorly developed impulse control. Worrying about driving off in cars in teenage years is borrowing trouble; what you are describing with your currently 4 yo child is typical (although undesirable), and children normally develop impulse control as they mature and do not steal cars.

IME, borrowing trouble has a negative affect on my parenting NOW. Your response at the playground was perfect, imo....he did what you asked him not to do, you empathize with his disappointment, but now you are leave. Your dh's response to the food episodes, otoh, were HUGE overreactions in response to fears for ds's future.

Instead of looking for the right consequences (although I believe consequences have a place, and you used one appropriately at the playground), I would focus on helping my dc develop impulse control. Maybe you could play some games that involve NOT touching things (simon says) or STOPPING an action (spin as fast as you can until I say stop!, red light green light). Also, try to keep his current development in mind and avoid setting him up for failure (having forbidden foods out in the open, etc).


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## Just Elsa (May 18, 2009)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sunnmama* 
I think your expectations are too high. A cookie or cupcake are VERY tempting, even for adults! Is his "disobedience" a real problem, or limited to relying on a 4 year old's impulse control to resist highly tempting foods that are out in the open?

Really? Daddy can't even eat his dessert without keeping a hand on it because junior can't be expected not to steal food off his plate at the table? He put his food on his plate and within a minute the kid was grabbing it.

To the OP:

I spotted a couple issues in the OP. One is the need for the parents to control boundaries. Yes, four year olds have poor impulse control. I do think if a four year old chooses to steal, that's more than just poor planning on the parent's part. You should not have to hide everything from a four year old and at four my kid was totally able to tell "mine" and "not mine" apart and to leave "not mine" alone. Your kid is almost certainly equally capable of learning that lesson. As it is, he got two cookies AND cake, so what's his motivation to NOT do it again? Based on the fact that he did it again a week later, there's probably no real awareness of the first action being wrong.

The one thing that really leaped out at me and that in your husband's shoes would have made me absolutely livid was that he was wronged, he set a consequence and you overrode him. He said, "you grabbed my food and ate it, we're leaving now" and the next thing he knows you're cuddling the kid on the floor, he's getting an insincere apology and the kid is scampering off to play... completely undermining his authority to issue a consequence. This was a second offense in a short period of time and there was no validation of his belief that this required disciplinary action.

I know you said he thinks you're better at the parenting than he is, but... maybe your actions are making him think that *you* think so. I had trouble adjusting to letting my husband co-parent my kid when we got together and letting go of some of the control and letting him manage certain situations was hard. It's paid off in the long run though and I'd encourage you to let Daddy's word stand if it's not way over the top. I mean, don't let him hit the kid or send him to military kindergarten, but losing a treat or leaving a party is not crippling. It's less harmful in the long run than letting the kid think you don't support Daddy's discipline. Even when you think he's wrong, sometimes you need to back him up and discuss it later.


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## labdogs42 (Jan 21, 2009)

EnviroDad needs to get a grip. A cookie? really? He sounds a little control-freaky to me.

It sounds to me like your DS knows how to push your DH's buttons really well. DH needs to not make such a big deal of having his buttons pushed. It sounds to me like he needs to spend more quality time with DS, too. Kids will take any attention they can get and if they are happy with negative attention, it means they needs more positive attention to stop that trend.

I'd recommend picking up a copy of Playful Parenting and How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will talk for your DH.


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## RoundAbout (Aug 3, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *labdogs42* 
EnviroDad needs to get a grip. A cookie? really? He sounds a little control-freaky to me.


I totally agree. Dad's reaction was totally out of proportion to the offense. If his anger is proxy for something else (feeling disrespected, etc.) then he needs to deal with the something else and not take it out on the kid. In my house this would get about 10 seconds of attention ("If you want a bite of someone else's food you need to ask first, ok?") and we'd move onto something else.


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## rabbitmum (Jan 25, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EnviroBecca* 
he may well have gotten the impression from Daddy's not taking control of the cookie that Daddy did not much care about it. That would've made the intensity of Daddy's reaction a big shock. The cheery-sounding apology that so annoyed EDad may have been the cheer of having just enjoyed a cookie coupled with the feeling that Daddy was going to be okay with that--not a smirking attitude toward having gotten away with stealing the cookie.

I think you are right. That's the impression I got from your first account, too. I can't imagine a four-year-old "smirking" about managing to trick his dad out of a cookie. Maybe he thought that you would both think he was funny?

One of the things that make four years old a challenging age is that they are just learning to assess situations and understand subtleties in language. We humans don't always mean exactly literally what we say after all, and an important part of social life is to understand the half- or non-spoken messages. Sometimes they get it wrong.


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## chfriend (Aug 29, 2002)

I think EnviroDaddy needs more consistent desserts. He seems to be feeling deprived and defensive of his "treats."

Maybe up the cool treat quotient for the family.


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## earthmama4 (Oct 13, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *2xy* 
It seems to me that the child might be reacting typically to overly coercive parenting. I see his behavior as subconscious pushing-of-buttons. The first incident was either a lack of self-control or outright deception; only you can be the judge, since I obviously don't know your kid. The second incident was sneaky. Maybe EnviroKid feels that he has no control over food issues.

Honestly, I can't imagine a grown man freaking out so much about losing a cookie or about being spoken to while taking a nap. Being interrupted and inconvenienced is part of parenthood. Sure, it was wrong for the boy to eat his dad's dessert. He's _four_.

More freedom might lead to less of a need for "consequences," IMO.

Yes, I agree. As my kids get older, I realize what babies they still were in early childhood. I often expected too much, overanalysed things, and over-talked it. It sounds like your DH and maybe you too are falling into the same trap. You can't reason and rationalize with a four year old the same way you can an adult! Even children with exceptional verbal skills do not have the critical thinking skills to problem solve like an adult. At four your child is just barely grasping the concept of cause and effect. Your DH is taking it personally rather than realizing he is simply a child with normal impulse-control challenges. He needs to be the adult and let the child be the child.

My Early Childhood Ed training really helped me see what was developmentally appropriate to expect of my children. I highly recommend some self-schooling on the subject. The Gesell Institute of Human Development publications are well-researched and very helpful in understanding each age. Here is a link to their websites FAQ page
http://www.gesellinstitute.org/layout.aspx?pageid=16

And here is their book on the Four Year Old Child
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Four-Year...ref=pd_sim_b_4

It is often helpful to have the ages just preceeding and following (ie Three and Five) as children pass through the developmental stages in a sequence but not according to a calendar. You may be able to find some excerpts on the web somewhere. Many child development oriented sites quote from these publications as the institute is the gold standard for what is "normal" development.

Good luck!


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## phathui5 (Jan 8, 2002)

I'd recommend some reading up on preschoolers for EnviroDad, maybe something like Positive Discipline for Preschoolers, coupled with more chances for them to be without you and work things out themselves.


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## webjefita (Aug 16, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *2xy* 
It seems to me that the child might be reacting typically to overly coercive parenting. I see his behavior as subconscious pushing-of-buttons. The first incident was either a lack of self-control or outright deception; only you can be the judge, since I obviously don't know your kid. The second incident was sneaky. Maybe EnviroKid feels that he has no control over food issues.

Honestly, I can't imagine a grown man freaking out so much about losing a cookie or about being spoken to while taking a nap. Being interrupted and inconvenienced is part of parenthood. Sure, it was wrong for the boy to eat his dad's dessert. He's _four_.

More freedom might lead to less of a need for "consequences," IMO.

I also think it sounds like EKid might be reacting to feeling controlled or punished. It sounds like a highly emotionally charged situation or environment is developing.

Have you ever noticed that if you overreact to a child's misbehavior, it continues or gets worse? I definitely see this with my kids.

I think the natural consequence of stealing someone's dessert is that that someone is going to be sad... if it were my 3- or 4-year old I would look sad and say, "Hey, I really wanted that. Now I don't have anything, and I don't like you taking my food." Pause for child to express natural reaction... which I'm confident they will do if they don't fear punishment coming.

The shoes at the park, for me would have been a quick connecting with the child through the game, and then, "You need to have your shoes on. Go get them now" and "I'll help you put them on" if needed. I wouldn't have left the park for it. There's a danger in starting to give the child too much negative attention or focusing too much on behavior problems... they get worse... in other words, "What you focus on, you get more of!" (From Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline, an excellent book). Children sense our expectations, even on a subconscious level, and they know if we expect them to be difficult or misbehave, and will act accordingly.

Whether you want to use natural, or logical consequences, or problem solving, I think it works best when the attachment between child and parent is strong and the relationship is very secure. And you are very emotionally neutral about the rule, the consequence, or whatever... communicating disappointment if needed but also that "our relationship is not threatened by what just happened." I also think that for under 6-year-olds, communicating disappointment with behavior but not _with the child_ is very tricky, and they don't get it sometimes. They just feel _bad._

This sounds like it is about a lot more than dessert... Sounds like the child is being shamed and there is also a threat of abandonment, emotional withdrawal, etc.

I have just read a fantastic book called Hold On To Your Kids, and he has an excellent chapter on discipline, he talks about what makes kids easier to parent, how a strong attachment is necessary in order to have natural parenting power, and he also has a chapter on "counterwill" or defiance: the causes, the remedies. One of the great tips is: connection before direction, which means putting the relationship with the child first. he gives many examples and some specific ideas for how to do this. We are benefitting so much from working on the relationships in our family instead of the specific discipline "incidents." I highly recommend it for anyone who works with kids.

As a final note, I wouldn't ask or try to get your DH to read it. But whatever you decide to do, just do it with confidence and if it starts getting good results with your son, your DH will wonder what's up and he'll start asking you or copying what you do.


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## oceanbaby (Nov 19, 2001)

Haven't read the replies, but I don't think I'd get worked up in either scenario. Most 4yos struggle with impulse control, and boy is is tough to just see that cookie or cupcake sitting right in front of you.

I'd let him know that it was not a nice thing to do, but then I'd move on. (I'd also make sure to put my desserts out of reach!)


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## octobermom (Aug 31, 2005)

obviously this wasn't my child whom when presented with cake will look







and say can't I just have a bannana instead? If it was a chocolate chip cookie that she might have taken







.. For how I would have delt I just would have told my DD daddy was looking foward to his dessert and you ate it you need to applogize and then worked with her on making amends with daddy. (baking him some cooking buying some new ones ect). Here sweets are just part of the meal if we have them but then again my DD just doesn't like them so its not something we really deal with.


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## Paeta16 (Jul 24, 2007)

I don't have the time for a full reply but my first thought is truly that your DH needs to seriously relax a little. A cookie? A grudge? Seriously? Sounds like HE was acting just like your 4 y.o. IMO.

I think you handled both situations well to be honest. With the cookie incident, I think maybe your DS was offering it to your DH to be kind, but also because he probably wanted your H to say "don't worry about saving it for me" and that way he would have taken it as permission to eat it. The whole incident was WAY overblown IMO.


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

Krystyn33 wrote:

Quote:

I've noticed that some of your language in these posts suggests that obedience from your DS is very important to you. If your goal is control over his behavior--having him obey the adults in his life as authority figures, then your overall approach would be very different than one valuing the learning process (often messy, non-linear & mistake-ridden) to behave in appropriate or acceptable ways out of inner motivation & understanding.
No, I do value learning of inner motivation above blind obedience! It's not that I want him to treat us as authority figures but that I want him to treat us as (a) real people with feelings and possessions that deserve respect, and (b) experienced people who know what they're talking about, for instance that it's not a good idea to run around an outdoor public place barefoot in near-darkness.

He was doing REALLY WELL on both these concepts for more than two years before the current stage, which leads us to believe that he is in fact capable of being compassionate, respectful, and obedient. I can accept that he's testing limits as he gets older and feels more qualified to make his own judgments, but that doesn't mean he won't learn anything unless we let him do whatever he wants.

Sunnmama wrote:

Quote:

I would focus on helping my dc develop impulse control. Maybe you could play some games that involve NOT touching things (simon says) or STOPPING an action (spin as fast as you can until I say stop!, red light green light).
Hey, good idea!









Just Elsa wrote:

Quote:

Yes, four year olds have poor impulse control. I do think if a four year old chooses to steal, that's more than just poor planning on the parent's part.
Okay...what is the "more"; what do you think is motivating him?

Quote:

You should not have to hide everything from a four year old and at four my kid was totally able to tell "mine" and "not mine" apart and to leave "not mine" alone. Your kid is almost certainly equally capable of learning that lesson.
I agree. Like I said, he HAD learned it, long ago, but now seems to be regressing or purposely acting out. In the last month or so, we've had many incidents of his suddenly grabbing food off our plates without asking (when he has his own plate of the same food) or deciding he doesn't want something and flinging it into a parent's plate.







:

Quote:

As it is, he got two cookies AND cake, so what's his motivation to NOT do it again? Based on the fact that he did it again a week later, there's probably no real awareness of the first action being wrong.








You think that having his father yell at him twice about Incident #1, argue that it should affect his options at a separate meal hours later, and leave the building saying he was too angry to be near him, did not convey that his action in Incident #1 was wrong and did not motivate him to avoid this type of action in future?

In both incidents, he did not get ANY of the contested dessert after stealing some--many hours after Incident #1, he got a different dessert; after Incident #2, he did not get any sweets at all for the rest of the day. I don't understand your implication that his behavior was reinforced with sweets.

Quote:

The one thing that really leaped out at me and that in your husband's shoes would have made me absolutely livid was that he was wronged, he set a consequence and you overrode him. He said, "you grabbed my food and ate it, we're leaving now" and the next thing he knows you're cuddling the kid on the floor, he's getting an insincere apology and the kid is scampering off to play... completely undermining his authority to issue a consequence. This was a second offense in a short period of time and there was no validation of his belief that this required disciplinary action.
I understand that point of view and might have felt the same myself, in the moment--but once I had cooled down, I would understand that
*"cuddling the kid on the floor" is not a reward for bad behavior but an attempt to connect with the kid, speak to him on his level, and show love as you help him work through a difficult situation;
*discussing with a child what he did wrong, advising him to apologize, and holding him there until he makes some effort to do so is, in fact, disciplinary action;
*given that this was MY second offense in a short period of time of flipping out about a dessert, my partner might not be inclined to view me as capable of reasonable behavior here;
*given that my previous reaction had involved disregard for my partner's feelings and that I had not bothered to tell my partner that in this case I planned to take over as Parent On Duty rather than impose my consequence on my partner as well as my child, my partner could be forgiven for seeking a solution that did not involve leaving the party;
*if imposing my consequence was important to me, I should have taken some action to engage in the problem-solving, rather than standing over it waiting for my partner to do everything.
And now that he is cooled down, I think EnviroDaddy is mostly in agreement with those points. HOWEVER, we still have the issue that I intervened in his attempt to discipline our child and "rescued" the child from the consequence he wanted to impose, and he DOES have a valid point there, and so do you. I agree that I need to back off and let him handle situations sometimes even if I disagree with the way he's doing it.

Chfriend wrote:

Quote:

I think EnviroDaddy needs more consistent desserts. He seems to be feeling deprived and defensive of his "treats."
Interesting point. I was surprised by all this because he (like me) normally isn't all that interested in sweets, enjoys them but doesn't feel a real need for them or make a big deal out of having them. I've been noticing the past few weeks that *I* have more of a craving for sweets than usual. Maybe there's something askew in our diet, from traveling?







I'll ask him about this.

Webjefita wrote:

Quote:

I think the natural consequence of stealing someone's dessert is that that someone is going to be sad... if it were my 3- or 4-year old I would look sad and say, "Hey, I really wanted that. Now I don't have anything, and I don't like you taking my food." Pause for child to express natural reaction... which I'm confident they will do if they don't fear punishment coming.








That sounds just right to me. And when we DO react in that kind of way, instead of getting very upset very quickly, EnviroKid's response is a lot better!

Quote:

The shoes at the park, for me would have been a quick connecting with the child through the game, and then, "You need to have your shoes on. Go get them now" and "I'll help you put them on" if needed. I wouldn't have left the park for it.
If you were already in the "last things before we leave" process, would you have dropped the final things on the list and left immediately, which is what I did? It really was quite late and nearly dark. I wouldn't have left the park for that small a thing if we'd been planning to stay a while. That's what makes the difference to me between this and leaving the party--we'd been at the party maybe 20 minutes, with the intention of staying a couple hours and playing some games--that, and there is a clear connection between "we don't run around the playground without shoes" and going home because you took off your shoes, whereas eating Daddy's dessert without asking is something that would be just as wrong at home as at the party.

Quote:

There's a danger in starting to give the child too much negative attention or focusing too much on behavior problems... they get worse... in other words, "What you focus on, you get more of!" (From Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline, an excellent book).
I read it and thought this and several other points were excellent, but the book has some major flaws.

That's something that bothered me about the idea of leaving the party because EKid took a bite of EDad's cupcake: It would have put the focus of the entire rest of the evening on the fact that he misbehaved. Sure, they could have done some positive thing together, but they'd both be aware the whole time of the fact that they were missing the party and the reason why.

Quote:

As a final note, I wouldn't ask or try to get your DH to read it. But whatever you decide to do, just do it with confidence and if it starts getting good results with your son, your DH will wonder what's up and he'll start asking you or copying what you do.
How I wish that worked! Although I read a lot of books and online materials about parenting and he reads many fewer, he persists in believing that my better results with our son are because "You have lots of experience with kids, and I don't," and "He likes you better."







Now, both these things are true--before we had kids, I did babysitting and volunteer work with kids and spent time with younger cousins, whereas he didn't, and I was a developmental psych major; my child bonded with me through breastfeeding and likely hasn't entirely outgrown his preference for me that springs from that--BUT both these things are within his power to change, right now!!!


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## swd12422 (Nov 9, 2007)

Okay, first scenario: I think EDad took his grudge a tad far. He's starting to sound a bit like the toddler -- wanting you to magically guess that he needs his cookie replaced when really he could have just said so or, oh wait, GONE TO LUNCH WITH HIS FAMILY INSTEAD OF POUTING ALONE IN A HOTEL ROOM. Yes, DS should have been told he'd had enough dessert for one day (if you ration sweets like that) so no carrot cake, but DH was silly to continue to be angry, what was it you said? 7 hours?, later.

Second scenario: How do you not just crack up laughing at this scene? I can't advise on any discipline other than ("don't do that again") b/c I'd be in hysterics. But that's just me... I realize this may be more of a problem than one or two situations...


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## TiredX2 (Jan 7, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EnviroBecca* 
HappiLeigh wrote: I don't think he blamed me for not preventing EKid from eating the cookie--I was busy rinsing the swimsuits and such, and EKid more often than not responds to instructions like "no more of that" by putting the thing aside appropriately. However, he refused any responsibility himself for preventing his cookie from getting eaten. I can understand expecting EKid not to EAT it (because he'd just SAID he was saving it for Daddy) but, since we were in an unfamilar space with our stuff all cluttered around, if I were EDad I'd have taken the cookie and put it in a specific place so I could be sure of finding it when I wanted it!

In this situation, *I* probably would have eaten the cookie!

You got two cookies on Friday night. The next afternoon, EK is starving and points out to DH that he had saved him a cookie. DH continues to nap. In our house if we get something like cookies or doughnuts there is a limited time to eat them. If you've been told that it is for you and you don't go eat it, then its assumed that you don't really want it. I would have assumed at that point that DH didn't actually want it and that if I was hungry I was welcome to it. Especially considering my kids are STARVING after swimming and it was past lunch time, I would have fully expected that if my kids told DP that there was a cookie, that if he didn't say somethink like, "Great! Can you put that by my book/on this table/whatever, I will eat it after lunch" that they would assume that he didn't really want it and they could eat it as a snack.

As for the 2nd one. When we are out eating, I generally say no dessert for anyone until everyone has finished (or has decided they aren't going to finish/don't want dessert). I think it puts way too much pressure on young kids to eat quickly when they see what they assume is a limited item (dessert) and know they can't eat it until they are "done" with dinner. If DS was going to be allowed dessert after finishing the burrito (were you going to order another? or was he going to share with DH?) I would say specifically, "I will put this cupcake aside for you for AFTER you finish. No one will eat it so you can go ahead and eat up your dinner. It will be waiting for you." In the situation you describe, my kids would be looking at the rapidly disappearing cupcakes and thinking, "I'm never going to finish this burrito before mom & dad finish those cupcakes."

I wouldn't get that upset about the cupcake unless I had made it very clear that it was my special cupcake (we're generally pretty lax about sharing food--- if something looks good, it's just assumed that you can snack on other peoples stuff UNLESS they have made it clear that it was a particular treat for them).

I agree, though, that I probably would not have handled the cupcake issue the same once ED had made it clear he was upset. He had a specific punishment in mind, EK did not appologize or make the situation "right" in ED's mind and he was allowed to go off and play. I think I would work on bring resolution about quicker. In the cookie story, ED continued sulking for 7 HOURS over a cookie?!?! And then the cupcake fiasco! I would try and talk to ED about what he feels is the immediate appropriate outcome (should EK should have gone and got another cupcake, appologized, done a small act of service, etc...?) and start working on getting past small stuff like this.


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## ramama (Apr 13, 2007)

I have perused the replies, but may have missed a few key points...

What first struck me, is why are people eating dessert while DS is still eating dinner? Dude, if I'm not done with dinner and someone brings chocolate cupcakes to the table, I'll toss my dinner and grab a cupcake too! Perhaps keeping treats out of sight until the appropriate time would help?

Is it possible to pull DH aside when he's in the midst of throwing around empty threats and quickly decide what an appropriate consequence would be, and have your DH deliver it? I think that DS taking daddy's treats repeatedly may indicate that DS knows you'll back him up and daddy has no real power. It strikes me this way, because, sadly, this is how it is in our house (but we're working on it!)


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## BellaRose0212 (Apr 3, 2009)

This may not be a very helpful comment but I have to agree with previous posters who think Daddy way overreacted. I cannot believe a grown man was that upset about a cookie. His want to deal harshly with those situations seems to me to be more about a childish want for revenge than anything else. As a kid, I might throw a fit if one of my siblings ate my dessert and demand later that they not get any. I would probably be ignored and explained to that it was in the past and my sibling apologized. This would infuriate me, at about the age of seven. It sounds like you are raising two kids.


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## JessicaS (Nov 18, 2001)

I am not huge on dessert, I never really was growing up either. I was always the LAST one to finish my holiday candy or the LAST one to eat my dessert. Others were always eating it.

Even now, people STILL eat my dessert. I really have to hide any candy I plan on eating cause it will go away. My sister sent me some chocolates from Hawaii and my HUSBAND ate ALL of my milk chocolate macadamia thingies. That is just wrong!! He wasn't even sorry! He was "I can't stop myself!! You waited too long!!"









I think the waking him up about the cookie thing was "Warning: 4 year old has reached critical cookie resistance, you MUST devour your cookie now if you are ever to see it again"

I don't think it is a good idea to get dessert out before food is eaten. I mean I would rather eat burritos before cupcakes but I LOVE burritos, a four year old might not be hungry for burrito after smelling cupcake.

I guess my point it, he just has to eat his dessert faster or hide it.







No one seems to feel bad when they eat my dessert and they are grown-ups. (I still can't believe my husband ate my chocolates! Did I mention it was in my birthday box?? Of course...he didn't eat them all until a month later but still...)


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## rabbitmum (Jan 25, 2007)

.


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## rabbitmum (Jan 25, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *webjefita* 
The shoes at the park, for me would have been a quick connecting with the child through the game, and then, "You need to have your shoes on. Go get them now" and "I'll help you put them on" if needed. I wouldn't have left the park for it.

I agree, I think it's far too strict. Little kids will do the opposite of what they're told sometimes. A too strong reaction from the parent will make the child feel bad and don't help them learn anything. The punishment and the feeling of being bad is what sticks, not the lesson about the necessity of shoes in the park. At most you can cause the child to be obedient out of fear of what the parents might do if they don't try to please them all the time.








In fact I never use leaving a place as a "consequence" because I think it's unfair to turn a nice thing into a punishment.

ETA: Sorry, I hadn't read your last post before I posted this. I see now that you agree with me!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *abimommy* 
(I still can't believe my husband ate my chocolates! Did I mention it was in my birthday box??

That's awful! My husband would never dare do something like that (I hope). I hope he bought you new ones!







:


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## MayBaby2007 (Feb 22, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *rabbitmum* 
Are you married to the cookie monster? Your husband sounds like he is far too attached to his cookies!
























:

Quote:


Originally Posted by *2xy* 
Honestly, I can't imagine a grown man freaking out so much about losing a cookie or about being spoken to while taking a nap. Being interrupted and inconvenienced is part of parenthood. Sure, it was wrong for the boy to eat his dad's dessert. He's _four_.

More freedom might lead to less of a need for "consequences," IMO.









:

Quote:


Originally Posted by *krystyn33* 
This may sound judgmental, but I question your DH's expectations and am having a hard time understanding such strong reactions from him over what seems trivial--a cookie? a cupcake? Don't put them where the kid can take them or get another one. He is the grown up and needs to act like it, IMO. Not many 4 year olds are going to have the impulse control to refrain from eating a sweet set out right in front of them, even when he knows it isn't his. If I leave a piece of fish on the counter and walk away and come back to find my cat eating it, what good is it to be angry at the cat? It was my fault. Yes, a four year old is not the same, but that temptation might be too much even for an older child.










:

Quote:


Originally Posted by *webjefita* 
The shoes at the park, for me would have been a quick connecting with the child through the game, and then, "You need to have your shoes on. Go get them now" and "I'll help you put them on" if needed. I wouldn't have left the park for it. There's a danger in starting to give the child too much negative attention or focusing too much on behavior problems... they get worse... in other words, "What you focus on, you get more of!" (From Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline, an excellent book). Children sense our expectations, even on a subconscious level, and they know if we expect them to be difficult or misbehave, and will act accordingly.

ITA.

If dd said "I want to take my shoes off", instead of simply saying "we don't run around with no shoes on" I would say "We can't play at the park without shoes. If you take your shoes off, we will have to leave." If she took her shoes off, then we would leave.

If I offered no consequence but told dd to leave her shoes on and she took them off, I would tell her "You need to put your shoes back on. If you want to be barefoot, we will have to go home. Your choice." That seems much more fair than what happened.

By not stating what the consequence is, I don't think it's fair to end playtime. We (adults) follow rules daily--at work, on the road, etc--but I think it's safe to assume that we know what the consequences are for breaking rules also. If I didn't know there were any consequences for stopping at a red light, I probably wouldn't because I don't like red lights.


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

TiredX2 wrote:

Quote:

As for the 2nd one. When we are out eating, I generally say no dessert for anyone until everyone has finished (or has decided they aren't going to finish/don't want dessert). I think it puts way too much pressure on young kids to eat quickly when they see what they assume is a limited item (dessert) and know they can't eat it until they are "done" with dinner. If DS was going to be allowed dessert after finishing the burrito (were you going to order another? or was he going to share with DH?) I would say specifically, "I will put this cupcake aside for you for AFTER you finish. No one will eat it so you can go ahead and eat up your dinner. It will be waiting for you." In the situation you describe, my kids would be looking at the rapidly disappearing cupcakes and thinking, "I'm never going to finish this burrito before mom & dad finish those cupcakes."
and Ramama wrote:

Quote:

What first struck me, is why are people eating dessert while DS is still eating dinner? Dude, if I'm not done with dinner and someone brings chocolate cupcakes to the table, I'll toss my dinner and grab a cupcake too!
I know it must be confusing with the two incidents and multiple locations--Incident #2 (no cupcake until you finish your burrito) was not in a restaurant; it was a party at a friend's house. We arrived a little late and couldn't start eating until we cleaned up EnviroKid's scrapes from falling down on the way there. We could hardly expect the other ~15 guests to wait until we'd eaten dinner before they got out dessert; in fact, I think some people already were eating desserts when we arrived. However, it was a huge batch of cupcakes, and there were at least 20 piled up on the plate when I got mine. I can understand that seeing his own parents eating cupcakes while he was supposed to finish dinner was more of a temptation than seeing other people eating cupcakes, so that was poor judgment on our part. But, as I said in my first post, EnviroKid at first said he didn't want anything to eat; by the time he decided he DID want a burrito, EnviroDaddy was completely finished eating his, and by the time EDad had EKid's burrito ready for him, I was done eating mine, and everyone else present was done with dinner if not dessert. Both parents could have sat around waiting for EKid to eat, and if he had a history of this being a big issue (we've been to a zillion potlucks and buffets, and it's never been a problem before) that's what we would have done. Note that I did let him have a substantial taste of my cupcake when he asked; I only resisted getting him HIS OWN cupcake because he had eaten an amount of real food less than the volume of the cupcake, and I did not want him to fill up on junk or to get hyper and then crash as he sometimes does if he eats lots of sugar on a too-empty stomach.

To clarify, when we WERE in a restaurant in Incident #1, by the time the dessert orders were being taken, EnviroDaddy and I agreed that EnviroKid had eaten enough dinner. What I was pondering was how he could have an appropriate portion of carrot cake (I wanted a whole piece for myself, but I knew he would not eat a whole piece even if I got him one), and EDad felt he should not get any dessert at all. But the timing of/amount of dinner was not a problem.

Quote:

Is it possible to pull DH aside when he's in the midst of throwing around empty threats and quickly decide what an appropriate consequence would be, and have your DH deliver it?
Yes, it would be much better for us (at least both parents, ideally the whole family) to discuss and agree on a solution, than for EDad to leap into punishment. I mean, at the party, Ekid's action AND EDad's decision about what action to take went down in literally one minute. That indicates a "snap" reaction from EDad, and IMO when you feel that happen, the best thing to do is to step back for a second and get your breath (while taking action to stop the immediate problem, such as putting your cupcake out of reach). Even a few seconds' pause gives you a chance to calm your snappiness and think of a better approach.

However, I can understand that because he feels I've been intervening in his discipline too much, he may have thought he had to choose and impose a consequence before I got back or he wouldn't have any authority at all.









Abimommy,







you should be able to save your treat if you specifically set it aside!







:

MayBaby2007 wrote:

Quote:

If I offered no consequence but told dd to leave her shoes on and she took them off, I would tell her "You need to put your shoes back on. If you want to be barefoot, we will have to go home. Your choice." That seems much more fair than what happened.
By not stating what the consequence is, I don't think it's fair to end playtime.
Different kids may vary on this, but what I've found with my son (and this tends to work with my Girl Scouts, too) is that warning of the consequence seems to give the impression that I EXPECT him to do it again. Just telling him to stop tends to be more effective than, "Stop that or else." Warning of a consequence also has a negative effect on my ability to be patient and kind about his behavior after the warning, whether or not he repeats what I told him not to do. (If he repeats it, I feel like, "That dang kid, doing what I told him to stop! I'll fix him!!" If he doesn't repeat it, for quite a while I'm on edge watching for it.) In fact, sometimes it's best if I don't even give a "stop that" warning but just move on with the consequence. Really, the consequence is supposed to be a consequence OF THE BEHAVIOR, not of continuing the behavior after multiple warnings, right?

As for "If you want to be barefoot, we will have to go home.": Going home means walking 7 blocks on gravelly sidewalks and crossing a busy street where we need to walk at full speed, not mincing on bare feet. My child weighs 42 pounds; I can't carry him that distance. If he won't put his shoes back on, we have to stay at the park! I could say, "If you want to be barefoot, you can do that at home--so put on your shoes and let's go!"

Quote:

We (adults) follow rules daily--at work, on the road, etc--but I think it's safe to assume that we know what the consequences are for breaking rules also. If I didn't know there were any consequences for stopping at a red light, I probably wouldn't because I don't like red lights.
Well, different people may vary on this, too, particularly people raised with different types of discipline. I was raised with GD and natural consequences, and the reason I follow rules usually is NOT fear of an imposed consequence such as a traffic ticket; it's that rule-following is a way of cooperating with my fellow citizens so we all know what to expect and, in some situations, safety. The reason I stop at red lights has absolutely no connection to having been warned that I'll get a ticket if I don't. It's because the other drivers and pedestrians are expecting me to stop, and if I don't there might be an accident. Sometimes I do drive through a light that has just turned red, if I can see that there's nobody else around to be endangered by it or if making my left turn now (before the light for the other street turns green) will prevent me from blocking traffic and inconveniencing a bunch of people in the next cycle of the light.

In fact, the only time I got a traffic ticket, it was for something I didn't know was illegal, and I certainly didn't know what the specific consequence was going to be. The highway split into two lanes each way, I realized I was going the wrong way, I drove across the striped wedge to get into the right lane, and then I saw a patrol car signalling me to pull over. While I waited for the ticket, I wondered what it would say--"driving in the stripey zone"? It said "illegal lane change" and the consequence was a $90 fine. I didn't argue that it was unfair because nobody warned me that if I drove across the stripes I'd have to pay $90, and I certainly didn't think he should've let me go without penalty and said, "If you do that again, you'll have to pay $90."







I may have been unaware of that specific rule, but I know that the Highway Patrol officers know the rules and are there to keep us all safe and I need to do as they say.

In this case, EnviroKid is well aware that we wear shoes in outdoor public places except for rare exceptions. We've talked before about how going barefoot in the dark is more risky because you might not see things on the ground. We've even had several previous conversations about how wearing shoes is a condition of staying at the playground, this same specific playground. So it's not like he's unaware of the rule and its consequence; I don't think it's "unfair" not to warn him every single time.


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## heartmama (Nov 27, 2001)

How to say this gently:

The degree of adult emotion, energy, and attention given to this issue is far and away the most urgent problem. I think it is extremely unhealthy for a small child to be exposed to this level of "drama" for being childish in the first instance and perhaps due to the way his father responded, tempted to deliberately engage in a power struggle in the second instance.

I would drop the entire issue, set up definite occassions when he can have treats, and put away foods he cannot have in a place where he cannot find them.

You are going to foster a very unhealthy emotionally attachment to sweets if this keeps up. One of my hard and fast rules with parenting is to never give attention to an issue you don't want to be a 'big deal' in the mind of a small child. Children are so easily influenced by parental emotions. If his father keeps making such a HUGE deal out of this, your child will naturally conclude that sweets are HUGE deal.


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## DevaMajka (Jul 4, 2005)

In the first scenario, I would have thought nothing about ds telling dp that dp could have the cookie, then (ds) actually eating it. If no one actually claimed the cookie, it seems totally fair game to me (even though Kid offered it to Dad- he's 4yo, kwim?). If there's something sweet that I want, I make it perfectly clear AND put it out of direct sight (not necessarily where he couldn't reach it, but where it won't be tempting him every time he walks through the room).
I *might* think more about the fact that you had told him not to eat any more of the cookie, but, let's face it, he had ONE bite, then was left alone with the rest of the cookie. Many (most?) adults I know wouldn't have the impulse control to refrain from "just another bite...or two..."
My reaction would have been along the lines of "Hey! Didn't I say no more cookie? Next time, we'll do x instead" (and I'd probably mention something about me putting it up or something, and telling him what HE could do to try to control his impulse).

The second scenario would depend a lot on what else is going on in the relationship. With MY ds, it would have been a "hey! That is NOT cool" end of story. He was specifically told not to, and did so anyway. But that would have been out of character for ds, so if it were something of an ongoing thing, I may talk to him more about it.
I think that consequences, especially in this situation, will do nothing to improve things (except perhaps on the surface, maybe), and may well make things worse.


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## sunnmama (Jul 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *heartmama* 
The degree of adult emotion, energy, and attention given to this issue is far and away the most urgent problem. I think it is extremely unhealthy for a small child to be exposed to this level of "drama" for being childish in the first instance .









:

I gave a quick synopsis to my dh--up to the point of boy informing dad about the cookie, and dad continuing to sleep--and dh said, "and the kid ate the cookie, right?" Right.

It's normal and expected. It's funny! And it is no big deal.


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

Thanks, everybody. I am appreciating so much validation of my impression that these were pretty normal, minor things for a 4-year-old to do and that his father was overreacting. It appears that the appropriate consequence for taking Daddy's dessert is to hear Daddy say, in a startled but not yelling way, "Hey, that was mine, and you ate it! I'm sad that it's gone." and to be encouraged but not forced to apologize or make amends.

The bigger issue is that EnviroDaddy needs to improve on a bunch of things. Honestly, most of the time he is much more mature and reasonable. It's just once in a while he gets unhinged over something, and then it can take a long time for him to get re-hinged.


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## heartmama (Nov 27, 2001)

Yes it's perfectly fine to express surprise and disappointment, I can be quite grumpy if someone snags the last piece I wanted for myself. I guess I consider that as outside the realm of discipline. It's not bad that your dh was disappointed. That is human nature. He has a right to say 'Oh no, I wanted that cookie'. He can't control whether your ds concludes from that statement 'Oh no, daddy wanted the cookie, I will be sure to never eat any dessert of daddy's again'. You can't make a little child reach that conclusion. It's just beyond the pale that he went on and on about it later and wanted the child punished or what-have-you.

I mean, that is taking yourself too seriously. He didn't get his cookie. He doesn't have to force a smile and say 'I hope you enjoyed it, son!" but anything more than "hey, I thought you told me I could eat it!" or a simple "next time please save one for me" is enough. I bet your little one really wanted to be magnanimous and give daddy a cookie, and when daddy went back to sleep, he just moved on to the next moment and thought "Okay he doesn't seem to want it that bad, I guess I'll eat it".

I probably would have done the same thing, and gone back downstairs to get another cookie for dh from the front desk


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## shelley4 (Sep 10, 2003)

i think EnviroDad was over reacting.. it's just a cookie and half of a cupcake, not the end of the world. yes, EnviroKid should have had permission first, but really... all that over a cookie and half a cupcake?


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## One_Girl (Feb 8, 2008)

He did both of these things after being told not to, I think that is a concern especially if it is an ongoing thing with him. It may not have been the dessert eating that bothered your dh, it may have been that he has a tendency to not listen to your dh. I think you should ask him about this and address it from that angle rather than from a dessert punishment angle. I would leave and go home if dd was consistently getting into things she was told not to get into and I was tired of it. I think you should back up your husband and come up with consequences you are both comfortable with if your son is going through a stage where he makes up all the rules. I also think your husband's idea of making amends is a good one that you and he should develop further. Amends mean a lot more than an apology.

If this is just about a little food being eaten, then I think that he needs to let it go. It may be that he was cranky because of the headache the first time and then ticked off because he was being ignored the second time. I know that I would probably be very angry if someone drank my Dr. Pepper when I am having a migraine, he may have viewed the cookie as a balm to the pain and the two incidents may not have pushed his buttons for the same reason.


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## webjefita (Aug 16, 2003)

Quote:

Different kids may vary on this, but what I've found with my son (and this tends to work with my Girl Scouts, too) is that warning of the consequence seems to give the impression that I EXPECT him to do it again. Just telling him to stop tends to be more effective than, "Stop that or else." Warning of a consequence also has a negative effect on my ability to be patient and kind about his behavior after the warning, whether or not he repeats what I told him not to do. (If he repeats it, I feel like, "That dang kid, doing what I told him to stop! I'll fix him!!" If he doesn't repeat it, for quite a while I'm on edge watching for it.) In fact, sometimes it's best if I don't even give a "stop that" warning but just move on with the consequence. Really, the consequence is supposed to be a consequence OF THE BEHAVIOR, not of continuing the behavior after multiple warnings, right?
ITA with you on this. On all points. My DH and I have different discipline styles, and I cringe every time I hear him saying to one of them, "The _next time_ you do that..." It's like, you just told him he was going to do it again! Self fulfilling prophecy! Sometimes I step in and say, "No, actually, there's not going to be a next time. You can't do that because..." Or "Do this, here."

I totally get the desire to step in and comfort the child or try to smooth over things between dad and child. I think I probably should not, but sometimes I just want to be on their side, and not have mommy and daddy ganging up on them together, I think that's the way Alfie Kohn put it. But I know I'm probably also intefering with the relationship.

I have been taking one boy (and the baby) out on alternating weekend days so that both DH and I can get some one-on-one bonding time with both of the older kids, and it is really helping. Misbehaviors are fewer and dad's reaction is more even tempered and helpful


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## lena1984 (May 29, 2005)

am i missing something here? your DP got that upset over a cookie?


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## Marsupialmom (Sep 28, 2003)

I don't think it is just the cookie/cupcake is the fact he did something he knew he shouldn't.

I honestly don't think either one of you handle it right.

BUT NOBODY IS PERFECT!!

In hind site coming up with a way to make it up to dad after the cookie or "correcting" his mistake would have been good. Save that for the next time he does it.

On the cupcake.....I wonder if your dh sees the situation different than you. He saw that he refuse to eat. Then he refuse to eat all his diner. Then asked for a cup cake. Then pulled the sneaking -- take a bit out of dad's cupcake. I think there might be room to say it was several things that added up to last situation. This doesn't mean I think dad handled it correctly. But at the same time I think YOU both need to work on IMPULSE control, stealing, and being direspectful to other peoples things -- in this case it happens to be food. But being respectful to other peoples things applies to allot of other areas.


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## Thisbirdwillfly (May 10, 2009)

Quote:

Eventually he said he is worried that EnviroKid will turn out like him--too focused on his own comfort to notice the feelings of others--and that's why he gets so freaked out when EnviroKid does something self-centered like this.
Holding a grudge against a four year old, for any reasons, is not productive.

My father was a good parent but he also became "unhinged" and had a hard time getting back to normal. He never struck me and rarely yelled but his anger and grudges were nursed for far too long. Not often, but often enough. I learned to be hyper-aware of his moods in an attempt to not get taken by surprise when he became unhinged...not healthy for a child. It was a source of a lot of anxiety for me, inspite of my father's very good intentions.

My parents believed very much in a united front and not undermining each other infront of us. I grew up feeling like what my Dad did was okay and that my Mom approved. I don't do that with my kid, he's 17 now and has a good relationship with both of us but he knows we are two different people and not always of the same mind.


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

One Girl wrote:

Quote:

He did both of these things after being told not to, I think that is a concern especially if it is an ongoing thing with him. It may not have been the dessert eating that bothered your dh, it may have been that he has a tendency to not listen to your dh.
Yes, I think the root problem is feeling that EnviroKid doesn't listen to or care about him.

Quote:

I would leave and go home if dd was consistently getting into things she was told not to get into and I was tired of it.
I would, too! But in Incident #2 when EnviroDaddy said we/they had to leave, that was the FIRST time at the party (and first time since getting up from nap an hour before we left for the party) EnviroKid had misbehaved, he had NOT been told not to eat that particular cupcake--EDad thought (and I don't think this is all that unreasonable) that EKid should understand that the cupcake being on someone else's plate and having been told to eat burrito before cupcake meant that he could not eat the cupcake--and he was recovering from a frightening fall and painful scrapes. That's why I think leaping up to leave the party was too sudden and extreme a consequence.

Thisbirdwillfly wrote:

Quote:

My father was a good parent but he also became "unhinged" and had a hard time getting back to normal. He never struck me and rarely yelled but his anger and grudges were nursed for far too long. Not often, but often enough. I learned to be hyper-aware of his moods in an attempt to not get taken by surprise when he became unhinged...not healthy for a child.
This is exactly what I'm afraid will happen between my child and his father.







In a way I think EDad would like it if everyone was hyper-aware of his moods and walked on eggshells around him...but the cost to us is too great. It's already a problem for me at times--I get to feeling like if I dare ask him to do anything for me or around the house, I'll be blamed for ruining his whole day; because of this, I wind up suppressing my needs and feelings until I am ragged and of course feel that it is HIS fault--and I don't want my vulnerable little child mixed up in that! I have discussed this with EDad many times and suggested that he try therapy. He doesn't want to go because a therapist will "waste time" delving into his childhood. (His father is a therapist! This attitude speaks volumes.) I say, if you won't seek help with this problem you are responsible for solving it on your own. Rinse and repeat.







:


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## Dragonfly (Nov 27, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *heartmama* 
How to say this gently:

The degree of adult emotion, energy, and attention given to this issue is far and away the most urgent problem. I think it is extremely unhealthy for a small child to be exposed to this level of "drama" for being childish in the first instance and perhaps due to the way his father responded, tempted to deliberately engage in a power struggle in the second instance.

I would drop the entire issue, set up definite occassions when he can have treats, and put away foods he cannot have in a place where he cannot find them.

You are going to foster a very unhealthy emotionally attachment to sweets if this keeps up. One of my hard and fast rules with parenting is to never give attention to an issue you don't want to be a 'big deal' in the mind of a small child. Children are so easily influenced by parental emotions. If his father keeps making such a HUGE deal out of this, your child will naturally conclude that sweets are HUGE deal.

I agree with heartmama to the nth degree. This is something that I've struggled with because I've had some pretty serious food issues and, in my quest to not project those onto my kid, have managed to totally project them onto him. What I've come up with recently is that we don't do sweets/treats during the week and on the weekend, anything we have in the house is fair game. Sometimes we have ice cream for dinner and fish for dessert. Who cares, really? It seems to work and it takes all of the questioning/looking for direction about what's appropriate or not to eat out of the equation.

And those issues involving your husband that you've spoken about in your most recent post are so, so difficult to navigate. Honestly, it's one of the reasons I'm divorced (not that I'm recommending that - just stating a fact). Combine a father who makes everyone in the family responsible for his emotions with a child who is sensitive, compassionate, and tends to err on the side of being overly attentive to the feelings of others, and it can get quite ugly.

I don't know the dynamics of your relationship, but what has worked for us is a) speaking frankly to my (now-ex) husband - which I still do and b) being the processing person for my son when his dad starts weighing on him too heavily. He's 8 now and remarkably insightful about these things.


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## Tani (Feb 18, 2003)

I think EnviroDaddy needs to pull on some big boy man-ties and not act like a 4yo about it. Sounds like a real prize.

As for the disobedience, I think that's within the norm for a 4yo, but obviously he's old enough to know better, so he should be given appropriate consequences. However, Daddy acting like a 4yo isn't one of them.

HTH!


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## Thisbirdwillfly (May 10, 2009)

becca, You've taken a big step in recognizing that it's a problem. Have you considered therapy for yourself? It's very frustrating to deal with someone who refuses to get help for themselves, you deserve support as you try to deal with this.


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## Dandelionkid (Mar 6, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *webjefita* 
I also think it sounds like EKid might be reacting to feeling controlled or punished. It sounds like a highly emotionally charged situation or environment is developing.

Have you ever noticed that if you overreact to a child's misbehavior, it continues or gets worse? I definitely see this with my kids.

I think the natural consequence of stealing someone's dessert is that that someone is going to be sad... if it were my 3- or 4-year old I would look sad and say, "Hey, I really wanted that. Now I don't have anything, and I don't like you taking my food." Pause for child to express natural reaction... which I'm confident they will do if they don't fear punishment coming.

The shoes at the park, for me would have been a quick connecting with the child through the game, and then, "You need to have your shoes on. Go get them now" and "I'll help you put them on" if needed. I wouldn't have left the park for it. There's a danger in starting to give the child too much negative attention or focusing too much on behavior problems... they get worse... in other words, "What you focus on, you get more of!" (From Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline, an excellent book). Children sense our expectations, even on a subconscious level, and they know if we expect them to be difficult or misbehave, and will act accordingly.

Whether you want to use natural, or logical consequences, or problem solving, I think it works best when the attachment between child and parent is strong and the relationship is very secure. And you are very emotionally neutral about the rule, the consequence, or whatever... communicating disappointment if needed but also that "our relationship is not threatened by what just happened." I also think that for under 6-year-olds, communicating disappointment with behavior but not _with the child_ is very tricky, and they don't get it sometimes. They just feel _bad._

This sounds like it is about a lot more than dessert... Sounds like the child is being shamed and there is also a threat of abandonment, emotional withdrawal, etc.

I have just read a fantastic book called Hold On To Your Kids, and he has an excellent chapter on discipline, he talks about what makes kids easier to parent, how a strong attachment is necessary in order to have natural parenting power, and he also has a chapter on "counterwill" or defiance: the causes, the remedies. *One of the great tips is: connection before direction, which means putting the relationship with the child first.* he gives many examples and some specific ideas for how to do this. We are benefitting so much from working on the relationships in our family instead of the specific discipline "incidents." I highly recommend it for anyone who works with kids.

As a final note, I wouldn't ask or try to get your DH to read it. But whatever you decide to do, just do it with confidence and if it starts getting good results with your son, your DH will wonder what's up and he'll start asking you or copying what you do.

Thanks for this- I totally agree- esp. with the bolded. This is why "time-outs" don't make sense for me. Good reminder to seek connection when misbehavior occurs.


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## lara1828 (Aug 11, 2005)

_Eventually he said he is worried that EnviroKid will turn out like him--too focused on his own comfort to notice the feelings of others--and that's why he gets so freaked out when EnviroKid does something self-centered like this._

I agree with PP that your dh really overreacted to these situations. I wanted to focus on the quote above.

I firmly believe that children learn the most from the behavior that their parents model, not "teach." So, in the cookie situation, your DH has modeled *self-centerness*: "You woke ME up, took MY cookie and didn't make it up to ME", rather than *empathy and compassion*: "Wow, you must really have been hungry to eat my cookie. I appreciate and accept your apology."

You see what I'm saying? He's modeled the behavior he says he doesn't want the kid to learn!

I really like Elizabeth Pantley's book _Hidden Messages: What our words and actions are really telling our children_ on this topic.

Lara

ETA: I also don't think "consequences" are necessary or helpful in any of the incidents you've described. This is normal 4 yo behavior. Explain what the problem is, be more vigilant next time, and move on!


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## mama_daba (Dec 7, 2004)

would enviropapa be willing to read a book or do a workbook that deals with empathy? my dp and i have been talking a lot lately about the importance of empathy and how it might be good if we both work on having more empathy as a way to be good role models for our son.


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## krystyn33 (May 30, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EnviroBecca* 
I get to feeling like if I dare ask him to do anything for me or around the house, I'll be blamed for ruining his whole day; because of this, I wind up suppressing my needs and feelings until I am ragged and of course feel that it is HIS fault--and I don't want my vulnerable little child mixed up in that!

EB, this is totally the vibe I'm picking up from your posts. Have you read _Unconditional Parenting_? (There's a DVD too.) Since you spend time in this forum, no doubt you've heard the accolades... He makes a strong point about how what we do or say to our children carries less power than their inner perceptions. The message that that a parent's love, affection, etc. is conditional upon good behavior, may come through even despite other intentions in implementing "consequences" in order to teach a lesson.

Anyway, my dad had a huge temper and we always had to walk on eggshells. I internalized the message that I was only good or worthy of love if I was well behaved & compliant. As a result (with other influences) I wound up in a string of abusive relationships in which I was convinced that my compliance and good behavior would earn me the love I wanted, and in no way were my feelings, wants, needs (for respect or anything) important enough to assert myself... Took years & years to work through that--an ongoing process at various levels...

EB, you sound like such a conscious & deeply devoted wife & mama. It seems (from what you've described here anyway) like you are working awfully hard, wracking your brain over something so trivial on the surface--maybe there's a need for more unconditional love in all of your lives? We shouldn't need to be perfect or even our "best" all the time with those who truly love us.

(Again--I don't know what your life is really like--this just comes through to me in what I've read here.)


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## katiesk (Nov 6, 2007)

i have not read the replies, but it sounds to me like you have two four year olds on your hands. and i don't say that to be insulting...everyone has their four year old moments...

i think that as long as you maintain consistency and reasonable expectations for your kiddo, he will develop more impulse control and perhaps you all will have better luck designating which food belongs to whom.

maybe you and ekid should bake some cookies for edad tonight...just a thought.


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## BetsyNY (Jul 1, 2005)

Everybody else has basically said it, but I just want to echo that both of you are way, way, WAY too hung up on food. You really wanted carrot cake, but didn't want to order two pieces, chocolate cupcakes that were really rich--good gravy! There's been too much time and too many words invested in what should be a relatively minor issue.

Plus, I just have to add--your husband already had his time to be a four-year-old. It's not fair to your son, who IS a four-year-old, to make him responsible for his father's feelings. Your husband needs to grow up, big time--I think you know this--but don't validate his feelings that his son doesn't treat him well or doesn't "respect" him or any rubbish like that. Your son is the child. Full stop. That's where it ends.


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## Realcraftymama (Sep 22, 2007)

OMG, all this drama over a friggin cookie? A cookie?

As a punishment for EnviroDad, I'd buy twenty-two packs of cookies and make sure he ate Every. Single. Crumb.

WTF?


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## ~gilli~ (Jun 30, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Realcraftymama* 
OMG, all this drama over a friggin cookie? A cookie?

As a punishment for EnviroDad, I'd buy twenty-two packs of cookies and make sure he ate Every. Single. Crumb.

WTF?









:








Totally, been thinking that this whole thread!


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## Aleo (Jan 1, 2009)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *~gilli~* 
Dude...it's only a cookie. Chill.









:

EnviroDad had a really immature reaction, it was just a cookie.


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## SunshineJ (Mar 26, 2008)

Reading all of this I have to keep wondering if you realize the conflicting messages you're sending your 4 yr old and that in a way you totally set him up for this? You and he shared the first cookie. You and he shared the 2nd cookie. HE got in trouble with his dad for eating "dad's" cookie. That you had shared with him. At the party, you shared quite a bit of your cupcake with him. He then ate some of his dad's cupcake. He got in trouble with his dad for "stealing" dessert off of his dad's plate after YOU had already set the precedent that it was ok to share food (in this case dessert) with mom and dad. You changed the rules on him midstream, and then your 4 yr old who's trying desperately to function correctly in this grown up world gets in trouble for it? I have to respectfully wonder wtf on this one.

As for your DH's reaction, really I have no words. The only one who claimed the 2nd cookie was your DH's was a starving 4 yr old child. Seriously, if it's that important then do what thousands of other folks do, pop some advil and go get your own. I can't imagine a grown adult man behaving the way your dh did. I was going to say in public, but really, ever. I most certainly would not be making him cookies to apologize, if anything the apology would need to come from him.


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

I appreciate the ongoing support for my feeling that EnviroDaddy over-reacted. We haven't had any more incidents like this. I e-mailed him some of the comments from the thread about how to handle this sort of thing better.

SunshineJ, your interpretation makes sense only if you assume my child does not understand words spoken by himself or others. In both cases, there was discussion about who would eat what, and I don't think he was confused about the "rules"; I think he was unable to control his impulses. I don't think it is at all unusual for a person to share something and then decide not to share any more of it, and I don't think that one person's choice to share with you means it is okay for you to "share" someone else's things without asking, and my son has shown a good understanding of sharing (and that people's tolerances for it vary) for about 3 years now. Sure, he's allowed to have the occasional lapse in appropriate behavior, but I regard it as a lapse rather than an indication that he couldn't possibly understand what he was doing.


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## LionTigerBear (Jan 13, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *elizawill* 
eh. he's 4. it's not a big deal to me. i'm sorry your dh is all out of joints over it, but i don't know that creating a mountain out of a mole hill is going to accomplish anything.

Your four-year-old is acting like a normal four-year-old with appropriate impulses and decisions given his age. He's being a good kid. A few appropriate words with him would serve the situation just fine. Your DH, on the other hand, is acting like a spoiled four-year-old. _If he has his way, he will turn his son into another version of himself-- a man with some serious issues._ Good heavens, a preschooler steals his cookie and he freaks out all day over it?







I would not tolerate that behavior from a child, let alone a grown adult-- seriously.

And I DO have a four-year-old boy, FWIW.


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## LionTigerBear (Jan 13, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SunshineJ* 
As for your DH's reaction, really I have no words. The only one who claimed the 2nd cookie was your DH's was a starving 4 yr old child. Seriously, if it's that important then do what thousands of other folks do, pop some advil and go get your own. I can't imagine a grown adult man behaving the way your dh did. I was going to say in public, but really, ever. I most certainly would not be making him cookies to apologize, if anything the apology would need to come from him.

I agree. I really think his behavior is quite shocking for an adult. I had to check to make sure it wasn't April 1st.


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## SunshineJ (Mar 26, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EnviroBecca* 
SunshineJ, your interpretation makes sense only if you assume my child does not understand words spoken by himself or others. In both cases, there was discussion about who would eat what, and I don't think he was confused about the "rules"; I think he was unable to control his impulses. I don't think it is at all unusual for a person to share something and then decide not to share any more of it, and I don't think that one person's choice to share with you means it is okay for you to "share" someone else's things without asking, and my son has shown a good understanding of sharing (and that people's tolerances for it vary) for about 3 years now. Sure, he's allowed to have the occasional lapse in appropriate behavior, but I regard it as a lapse rather than an indication that he couldn't possibly understand what he was doing.

Eh it's got nothing to do with understanding the spoken word. You showed him in both situations that it was ok to eat the items in question. In the first incident a 4 yr old stated the cookie was dad's, then you shared same cookie with him. Heck that's confusing even for me and I'm a relatively intelligent person according to the gen pop. With the second incident, yeah he was told to wait on the cupcake - after he'd already been allowed to have it. Rather like shutting the barn door after the horse escaped really. Sure he should have known better and not taken some from his dad _because it wasn't time for him to have one yet_ but given that you'd already shared with him and given him permission at that point, I couldn't even *begin* to imagine accusing my son of _stealing_. Sneaking a bite when he probably knew better? Sure. But if you're in the habit of sharing food with your child, which many people are and your post sounds like your family does as well, then to suddenly accuse him of theft - which is pretty serious imo, is indeed changing the rules and a far cry from reasonable. I see a lot of problems all around in this whole situation, and honestly none of them belong to your son.


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## LionTigerBear (Jan 13, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SunshineJ* 
I see a lot of problems all around in this whole situation, and honestly none of them belong to your son.









:
I agree with everything SunshineJ said, but the last line bears repeating.


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## 4evermom (Feb 3, 2005)

I'm probably repeating someone since I'm not taking the time to read 4 pages carefully.









I'm not sure why anyone was eating a cupcake in front of Envirokid if he wasn't allowed to eat one. That is just odd. You wouldn't do that to another kid (I assume) so why would you do it to your own? It is simply rude.

I can't imagine taking ds to a restaurant and not allowing him to order dessert when the other people are. Even if I don't think he'll finish it. Again, kind of odd.

The cookie thing? I'm not going to touch on that. I'm sure it's been thoroughly covered.


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## 4evermom (Feb 3, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EnviroBecca* 
Eventually he said he is worried that EnviroKid will turn out like him--too focused on his own comfort to notice the feelings of others--and that's why he gets so freaked out when EnviroKid does something self-centered like this. Okay, but at the same time as he's thinking about punishing EnviroKid's undesirable behavior, he's GOT to think about the example he's setting with his own behavior!!

It could very well be you are both helping Envirokid along the same road to the same destination. Since he doesn't have parents helping him gain comforts, he is forced to focus on getting them, himself. It's hard to focus on generosity from a place of limits. With two cookies and three people, there is an inflated value to that cookie. In my limited experience, it is MUCH easier for children to learn and develop generosity from a place of plenty. If things are limited as much as they sound in your household, the child is forced to focus on how to get enough to satisfy himself. There isn't much chance for him to focus on sharing.


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## PassionateWriter (Feb 27, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *4evermom* 
It could very well be you are both helping Envirokid along the same road to the same destination. Since he doesn't have parents helping him gain comforts, he is forced to focus on getting them, himself. It's hard to focus on generosity from a place of limits. With two cookies and three people, there is an inflated value to that cookie. In my limited experience, it is MUCH easier for children to learn and develop generosity from a place of plenty. If things are limited as much as they sound in your household, the child is forced to focus on how to get enough to satisfy himself. There isn't much chance for him to focus on sharing.

i just wanted to say this is an excellent post IMHO


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## LionTigerBear (Jan 13, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *4evermom* 
It could very well be you are both helping Envirokid along the same road to the same destination. Since he doesn't have parents helping him gain comforts, he is forced to focus on getting them, himself. It's hard to focus on generosity from a place of limits. With two cookies and three people, there is an inflated value to that cookie. In my limited experience, it is MUCH easier for children to learn and develop generosity from a place of plenty. If things are limited as much as they sound in your household, the child is forced to focus on how to get enough to satisfy himself. There isn't much chance for him to focus on sharing.









What a great post! And probably just a good parenting reminder, in general.


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## heartmama (Nov 27, 2001)

Just a reminder to focus on solutions and ways to help solve this situation--it does not really help to focus primarily on negative statements toward the husband in this situation.


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## elizawill (Feb 11, 2007)

oh, misunderstood.


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## readytobedone (Apr 6, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *rabbitmum* 
I agree, I think it's far too strict. Little kids will do the opposite of what they're told sometimes. A too strong reaction from the parent will make the child feel bad and don't help them learn anything. The punishment and the feeling of being bad is what sticks, not the lesson about the necessity of shoes in the park. At most you can cause the child to be obedient out of fear of what the parents might do if they don't try to please them all the time.







In fact I never use leaving a place as a "consequence" because I think it's unfair to turn a nice thing into a punishment.


i agree that making him leave the park b/c of the shoes thing was too strict. maybe when he said he didn't realize he took them off, he actually meant it. lord knows i do things all the time that i don't realize i've done (putting grapes in the toaster oven, or keys in the fridge







).

i think a stern reminder about the shoes, helping him get them on if needed, then going on about your business would be better. if it continued numerous times, then yes, another consequence like leaving the park would be in order.

or alternatively, you could let him go barefoot--depending on how dangerous that is. DD wants her shoes off at the park all the time, and often i let her take them off.


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## 1littlebit (Jun 1, 2008)

ok to be blunt, i agree with most of the pps but esp. everyone who said you guys are kind of setting him up for this.

you have a got a really bad case of do as i say, not as i do going on here. is he stealing food from people besides you and our dh? b/c if not i think that you and him share things and he doesn't understand that daddy doesn't like to share.

i am sorry but it i really truly think you have unrealistic expectations for you son. you said that he has been showing compassion and such for years but has been having trouble recently. perhaps the best way to help bring out his thoughtful and compassionate behavior is to model thoughtfulness and compassion during a time when he is having trouble showing it.

If DH doesn't want ds to turn out like him he needs to change himself. holding grudges, yelling at him in public, and having unpredictable and irrational reactions to normal child hood behavior he is going to turn your son into a mini DH ... possibly even angrier. and i think you know that... but your dh really needs to understand that. you don't teach kindness and compassion through anger and humiliation.

dh really needs to chill out though. i am not saying its not true but i have a really hard time believing that all of this was about your son misbehaving and turning out like him. that sounds like something he thought of later and hoped would excuse his totally inappropriate behavior. if your sure this is the real reason thats fine but if you have any doubts it might be something worth thinking about. the only way your dh is going to stop acting this way (and he needs to, his behavior is hurting your son) he needs ot know why is acting that way.

fwiw it might help if dh tried to look at this from your sons perspective. ex (just incase he doesn't want to do that you can let him read this or make up your own or something) if it were me who was really hungry and ate the cookie i would have been heartbroken if my dad yelled at me like that. think about it. he was really hungry, the cookie was there, he didn't think daddy would mind.. and then daddy flips out. and the cupcake thing... all he did was take a bite of a cupcake. i bet he offers to share his food with daddy... and daddy screams at him in front of everyone. again. crushed and heartbroken. and totally not understanding why daddy won't share his cupcake with me. i would be willing to bet he didn't think it was a big deal. your husband is acting like your son did these things as a personal insult and attack on him.


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## lucysmom (Oct 17, 2004)

Haven't read the whole thread, but my reaction is different than those who chalk up the initial cookie-eating by your son to impulse control, etc. I would trace the whole chain of events to his dad's self-centered reaction to your son offering him the cookie. You relate that the cookie at issue didn't belong to anyone at first. It only became "daddy's cookie" because your son offered it to his dad. I'd bet it was because he could tell his dad was not feeling good & he was trying to help. Then his dad responded completely inadequately (said "okay" and went back to sleep, perhaps conveying resentment for being awakened, as you say).

Poor kid. No wonder he came & shared the cookie with you & ate some himself. His dad was behaving like a self-centered jerk. Sorry to be so blunt. Even when as a parent you are feeling like crap, you still have to notice when your child is trying to be nice to you, and you don't just ignore it or worse, act peeved that they interrupted your beauty sleep.

Then the storming out of the restaurant & telling the kid he can't be around the child because of the cookie trangression earlier in the day?? Are you kidding me?? Who is the child here, for goodness' sake? The hurt done to the kid in those two episodes could be pretty profound. He is trying to express love for his dad, is rejected, behaves rationally in the face of that (eating the cookie himself & sharing with you), recovers, then has to be subjected to a performance in front of other people about how he did a terrible, terrible thing to his father, so terrible his dad cannot stand to be in his presence? Wow.

No wonder he ate a bite of the darn cupcake a week later.

This is NOT about dessert. It is NOT about your son being hungry. This is NOT about your child's behavior. This is about your partner hurting your son. I would get ready for a lot worse behavior from your kid if this sort of thing continues.

Again, I'm sorry to be so blunt, but this story is more jaw-dropping than it sounds like you think it is from your account.

Hugs. I'm sorry you are contending with this. Please don't assign yourself the role of making up for your partner's deficiencies ... this is not something you can fix.


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## Britishmum (Dec 25, 2001)

Oh my gosh. My reaction to the cookie would have been, "Oh, you monkey! That was Daddy's cookie!" Then we'd have probably had a giggle together, and that would have been that.

As for the carrot cake, cupcake and whatever other treats, heck........what a lot of stress over dessert. I can't imagine giving dessert so much attention and energy!

A 4 yo is going to find it hard to resist a cookie. He hasn't learned to control his impulses yet. His father obviously got stuck at that point of development too, and needs some serious work in this area.









FWIW, my 4 yo would most definitely eat the cookie. Today we made cookies to share with some guests, and ds arrived at the door clutching two cookies, which he shoved into the guests' hands, then he ran back to the plate to grab two for himself. And none of us got bent out of shape about it - in fact, we all thought it was really cute!


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## Brisen (Apr 5, 2004)

OK, EnviroBecca originally posted over a month ago. There have been plenty of posts listing her dh's faults and problems already, and she has taken it in stride quite well and discussed it calmly and coolly. I think we get the point. Do we really need more EnviroDaddy bashing here? This has all been said & discussed already.


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## lucysmom (Oct 17, 2004)

To the extent that was directed at my post -- I led by noting that I had not read the whole thread (just the first 25% or so). No, I don't think it is a problem to do further commentary on how problematic her partner's behavior is. I lived with similar behavior from my then-partner for years, and I think it is quite serious. It is not "bashing" to say that this sounds like it reflects a pretty serious dysfunction and is not about her and is not about her son. The whole initial discussion is about her son's behavior and whether it is a big deal (see the thread title, in fact ... what consequence for eating daddy's dessert?). My point is that this man is hurting his kid emotionally and is willing to hurt his kid. If OP has come to terms with that & its consequences in a month, despite lots of views about how it was not OK for the kid to eat the cookie, etc., I'm very impressed.

EnviroBecca, my heart goes out to you. Good luck finding your way through.


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## lucysmom (Oct 17, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *heartmama* 
Just a reminder to focus on solutions and ways to help solve this situation--it does not really help to focus primarily on negative statements toward the husband in this situation.

I'm sorry, I disagree. (I hope that's allowed.) Realizing the seriousness of the situation is a step toward finding a solution. Check in with those of us in the single parenting forum on that point. I'm not saying that is the _only_ way forward, by any means, but negative reactions to this story are not unconstructive.


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## heartmama (Nov 27, 2001)

The father's behavior has been discussed at length. It is important to recognize and correct our own behavior issues as parents. This thread is past that point of needing it pointed out to the OP that her husband was unreasonable. What makes sense in the beginning of a thread can become overly critical and destructive when repeated again and again after 5 pages of processing, reflection, and discussion with the OP.

Thus, posting just to make negative statements about her husband is not helpful at this point. If there are new perspectives or solutions to offer, by all means, please share them.


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## KSLaura (Jan 22, 2007)

Awww... he is only 4! I'd let him have the sweets. If he shares, he shares. He will evnetually learn. OP, you are a good mama. He learns a lot by sharing with you. Before you know it, he will be sharing cookies and cupcakes with your grandchildren.


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

It's now been 5 and 6 weeks since these incidents. Since then we have not had anything even similar. We baked a birthday cake that we then had to finish in 5 days before leaving for a trip, and we all remained sane over it. Even the more general "I'm going to do exactly what you just told me not to do and then act cute and flippant about it." kind of thing has become much less frequent. So I think the KID's behavior was a phase that is now resolved.

I may never know exactly what made EnviroDaddy so unreasonable that first weekend, but I think the basic explanation is what I wrote before:

Quote:

It boils down to self-centeredness about his "right" to be treated well particularly when he feels bad. He was so wrapped up in it that he had given no thought to the feelings of EnviroKid (struggling to stay awake and polite at adult dinner party; disappointed by food choices) or me (taken for granted as Parent On Duty all day long; embarrassed by partner's behavior at special event) until I pointed them out.
I am NOT making light of this problem, and I certainly am not taking lightly the effect of his EXTREMELY UNREASONABLE REACTION on my child. EnviroDaddy needs to work through his issues and control his temper.

However, tossing him aside and assuming I can do a better job as a single mom is not going to solve anything. I agree with Heartmama: I'm looking for positive ways to prevent and solve this type of problem, not for endless bashing of my beloved partner whom I've repeatedly said (particularly if you bothered to read the whole thread) was VERY, VERY WRONG.

SunshineJ wrote:

Quote:

In the first incident a 4 yr old stated the cookie was dad's, then you shared same cookie with him.
I was not within hearing distance when he decided the cookie was Daddy's and announced that to Daddy. There had been no previous discussion of who would eat that cookie. There were 2 cookies for 3 people (because the hotel does not consider a 4-year-old to be a person who gets a cookie







which is a whole separate issue!) so it was not obvious. I am not a mind-reader, cannot hear through walls and running water, and therefore CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR "CONFUSING" MY CHILD ABOUT AN AGREEMENT HE MADE OUT OF MY HEARING. If anybody was genuinely confused about what was the "rule" about that cookie, it was me!

4evermom wrote:

Quote:

It could very well be you are both helping Envirokid along the same road to the same destination. Since he doesn't have parents helping him gain comforts, he is forced to focus on getting them, himself. It's hard to focus on generosity from a place of limits. With two cookies and three people, there is an inflated value to that cookie. In my limited experience, it is MUCH easier for children to learn and develop generosity from a place of plenty. If things are limited as much as they sound in your household, the child is forced to focus on how to get enough to satisfy himself. There isn't much chance for him to focus on sharing.
So, what would you do? Let him eat all the sweets all the time whenever he wants?

Lucy's Mom wrote:

Quote:

I would trace the whole chain of events to his dad's self-centered reaction to your son offering him the cookie. You relate that the cookie at issue didn't belong to anyone at first. It only became "daddy's cookie" because your son offered it to his dad. I'd bet it was because he could tell his dad was not feeling good & he was trying to help. Then his dad responded completely inadequately (said "okay" and went back to sleep, perhaps conveying resentment for being awakened, as you say).
Yes, exactly! I think our biggest mistake was not acknowledging the generous impulse that led him to tell Daddy that one whole cookie was for him! It's entirely possible that he was hoping to help Daddy feel better and then thought this strategy wasn't working.

Britishmum wrote:

Quote:

My reaction to the cookie would have been, "Oh, you monkey! That was Daddy's cookie!" Then we'd have probably had a giggle together, and that would have been that.
Is there any advantage to laughing about it? What message are you trying to convey?


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## Brisen (Apr 5, 2004)

lucysmom -- I just happened to post right after you, I wasn't trying to single you out.

I wasn't trying to minimize the seriousness of the situation, but based on the OP's posts, she gets it, and I agree with heartmama that lots of posters saying "Wow, he's immature and was out of line" stops being helpful when it goes on for pages.


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## 1littlebit (Jun 1, 2008)

honestly? sometimes people just have crappy weeks... maybe it was just one of those things..esp. since you said you haven't had anything similar happen since then. Maybe he was just having a crappy week or he was tired or any number of little things that all aligned in the right way to create a crappy situation.

either way it sounds like things are better and thats great. sometimes things like this are really tough in the moment but get much better when you get some distance. maybe dh learned something from it.. and it sounds like you have which is great.

i agree about the impulse to offer daddy the whole cookie not being a good thing but i don't think you will be able to always be able to foresee these things so i wouldn't beat yourself up about it







we all do our best but no matter how hard we try we can't catch everything yk?

your said something earlier that i had a question about. you asked why someone would laugh about it and what message they would be trying to convey. i agreed with the PP when i first read this... it wouldn't have been a big deal to me ... as long as it was only between us. if the cupcake had belonged to an aunt, friend, cousin etc i would have had more of an issue with it. but now after reading what you asked i am wondering what you are worried about by not addressing it. i wonder if not addressing little things like this will lead to things that i would consider a problem.. like eating other peoples food without asking for ignoring me when i ask him not to eat something when he gets a bit older. i am wondering if by not thinking it is a big deal i would be giving him the impression that it is ok to take other peoples food without asking or something.


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## Snugglebugmom (Mar 17, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *heartmama* 
How to say this gently:

The degree of adult emotion, energy, and attention given to this issue is far and away the most urgent problem. I think it is extremely unhealthy for a small child to be exposed to this level of "drama" for being childish in the first instance and perhaps due to the way his father responded, tempted to deliberately engage in a power struggle in the second instance.

I would drop the entire issue, set up definite occassions when he can have treats, and put away foods he cannot have in a place where he cannot find them.

You are going to foster a very unhealthy emotionally attachment to sweets if this keeps up. One of my hard and fast rules with parenting is to never give attention to an issue you don't want to be a 'big deal' in the mind of a small child. Children are so easily influenced by parental emotions. If his father keeps making such a HUGE deal out of this, your child will naturally conclude that sweets are HUGE deal.

Well put!
Don't put a hungry child in a position where he can see a snack he loves but cannot eat it. Don't eat sweets in front of him and tell him he cannot have one because he needs to finish his burrito. A four year old has no impulse control to speak of, he should not be put in a position like that. If he's not allowed to have it, then keep it out of his sight.
And a grown man that carries a grudge against a four year old... That would worry me. Seriously.


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## GuildJenn (Jan 10, 2007)

This reminds me so much of the marshmallow experiment.

http://www.ted.com/talks/joachim_de_...allow_yet.html


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