All I did was ask her to feed the dogs this morning.
A bystander might have thought I’d asked her to sacrifice a finger.
Pint sized hissy fits would be cute, if they weren’t so blisteringly infuriating. To me, it’s the mindset I figure the kids assume when they embark on this path- one of entitlement. Apparently, they should just ipso facto have uninterrupted cartoon time simply because they, the couch and Netflix exist. How dare I interrupt her with so trivial a thing as feeding the dogs.
Because I’m practiced at dealing with these things, she was in the corner almost as quickly as her attitude flared up. One second, I’d asked her to feed the dogs, the next moment I told her to go to the corner and stand there awhile. She complained the whole way, stomped a bit for good measure, then folded her arms across her chest with a “HARUMPHH!”
I waited a few seconds, then I mosied on over to the corner, fixed her with a good stare and gave her The Speech:
“You, have no right to complain about being asked to feed the dogs. Your Mother and I feed you, give you rides to school, buy you clothes, take you to dance lessons, wash your clothes, clean up after you, pick you up after school, take you to Girl Scouts, help you with school work and that’s just what I can come up with off the top of my head. I’m sure if I actually thought about it for a bit, the list would get much longer. So I will not stand here and listen to you complain about being asked to do something so simple as feeding the dogs. Do I make myself clear?”
She broke eye contact with me about half-way through the list. She didn’t break down and cry (nor was that the object) but her demeanor changed noticeably. Humbled, is the word I would use- she appeared humbled. As I walked away, she muttered an “OK, I’ll feed the dogs.”
And that was it. It was all done.
Somehow, I think I’ll be using variants of this speech for awhile.