here<\/a>. <\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\nLast night I had a parenting adventure that was both reassuring and sobering. It involved a situation all parents face in exasperation many times in their parenting careers: A toddler wide awake in the middle of the night.\u00a0 You see, a small voice beside my bed woke me up in the middle of the night last night.<\/p>\n
Drink of water. <\/em><\/p>\nSo, I got up and got my daughter a drink.<\/p>\n
Okay, honey, now it\u2019s time to get back in your bed. <\/em><\/p>\nNo. Get in mommy and daddy\u2019s bed!<\/em><\/p>\nWhen my daughter wakes up in the middle of the night we frequently let her get in bed with us, so her request was not out of the ordinary. I put her in bed between my husband and I and tried to go to sleep. But she wiggled. She turned sideways. She accidentally kicked me. Twenty minutes later, neither of us were asleep.<\/p>\n
More drink of water?<\/em><\/p>\nSo up we got and I got my daughter yet another drink of water. But this time I decided she needed to sleep in her own bed. I needed my sleep pretty badly, having been up late studying, and it simply wasn\u2019t going to happen with her in bed with me.<\/p>\n
Honey, this time you need to get in your bed. <\/em><\/p>\nNo! Get in mommy and daddy\u2019s bed!<\/em><\/p>\nNo sweetie, your bed. <\/em><\/p>\nI led her into her room and over to her bed and explained that mommy really needed sleep and that mommy couldn\u2019t sleep with herin bed with her, so she needed to sleep in her own bed now. She yelled when I tried to put her in her bed, and kicked and then went rigid as only a toddler can do and squirmed back off her bed. So I explained it through two or three more times. Still she protested.<\/p>\n
I felt helpless. I had been taught growing up that this sort of incident was a big part of why it was necessary to hit (i.e. \u201cspank\u201d) children. I was told that in a situation like this there were two options: Either threaten a spanking or give in and let the child have her way. I didn\u2019t like either of those options. I knew \u201cget in your bed or I\u2019ll give you a spank\u201d was really no different from \u201d get in your bed or I\u2019ll hit you,\u201d but I also really, really needed my sleep. I knew my daughter wanted to get back in bed with me and I understood that desire, but I had needs too, and a few hours of uninterrupted sleep was one of them.<\/p>\n
In desperation, I put on my \u201clet\u2019s get serious\u201d voice and said,<\/p>\n
Look honey, I\u2019m sorry but you just have to sleep in your bed. You may NOT sleep in mommy and daddy\u2019s bed. Now I\u2019m going back to bed because I am tired and I need to sleep. Goodnight. <\/em><\/p>\nI shut the door to her room behind me, turned off the lights, and got in my bed. And listened. After about a minute, I heard my daughter\u2019s door open and I heard walking through the hall, quietly, slowly, as if on tiptoe. Then I heard a very soft voice, almost a whisper, so quiet I couldn\u2019t make it out at first.<\/p>\n
Have to go potty. <\/em><\/p>\nMy daughter wears diapers at night. She has never before asked to go potty in the middle of the night, even when she wakes up. This was not normal.<\/p>\n
My parents would probably have said that she was trying to manipulate me, trying to find any way possible to stay out of bed. But I ignored the voices in my head and instead hopped out of bed once again and took her to the bathroom. She only went a little, but she did go, and then I put her diaper back on her and praised her up and down as I always do when she potties in the toilet.<\/p>\n
Then, to my surprise, she walked willingly back into her bedroom and climbed into her bed. I followed her and covered her up and gave her a kiss. I then left her room and shut the door and didn\u2019t hear a peep from her until morning.<\/p>\n
This incident taught me two things. First, it is indeed possible to convince a toddler to stay in her bed without hitting her. It\u2019s not always easy, but you\u00a0can <\/em>reason with a toddler, even in a state of exhaustion in the middle of the night.<\/p>\nSecond, though, it taught me that it is possible to be too harsh without ever even mentioning hitting. When my daughter came into my room to ask to go potty, she tiptoed and whispered. She was afraid of getting in trouble, afraid of mommy being stern with her again. Perhaps my \u201cI mean business\u201d voice was just a little to businesslike and not motherly enough.<\/p>\n
But why did she come back in my room and ask to go potty in the first place? It wasn\u2019t because she had to go potty. I think it was because she wanted me to say something nice to her, and the only way she could think of to make that happen was to offer to go potty on the toilet in an effort to please me. Her plan worked, and she went back to bed willingly in a much happier state of mind, knowing that mommy was happy with her and all was well with the world.<\/p>\n
In the future, I\u2019ll continue to reason with my daughter, and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll still have to use my \u201cI really mean business\u201d voice from time to time. But I\u2019ll try harder to remember that even when I\u2019m annoyed, or tired, or when she is simply not doing what I want her to do and I\u2019m at the end of my rope, my daughter still desperately wants my love and wants me to be pleased with her. She\u2019s just a little person trying to figure things out, not a monster out to get me.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is part of a series in which I am re-posting a number of posts I\u2019ve written in the past on issues involving parenting and Michael and Debi Pearl. I think these posts may be of interest to new readers, and if you\u2019re a reader who has been around with me since the beginning, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[144,24,143],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting","tag-authoritarian-parenting","tag-children","tag-positive-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\n
Adventures in Parenting: On Reasoning with Toddlers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is part of a series in which I am re-posting a number of posts I've written in the past on issues involving parenting and Michael and Debi Pearl. I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Adventures in Parenting: On Reasoning with Toddlers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is part of a series in which I am re-posting a number of posts I've written in the past on issues involving parenting and Michael and Debi Pearl. I\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-03-06T21:00:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-08-07T20:33:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html\",\"name\":\"Adventures in Parenting: On Reasoning with Toddlers\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-03-06T21:00:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-08-07T20:33:12+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"This is part of a series in which I am re-posting a number of posts I've written in the past on issues involving parenting and Michael and Debi Pearl. I\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Adventures in Parenting: On Reasoning with Toddlers\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. College turned her world upside down, and she is today an atheist, a feminist, and a progressive. She blogs about leaving religion, her experience with the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements, the detrimental effects of the \\\"purity culture,\\\" the contradictions of conservative politics, and the importance of feminism.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/author\/libby\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Adventures in Parenting: On Reasoning with Toddlers","description":"This is part of a series in which I am re-posting a number of posts I've written in the past on issues involving parenting and Michael and Debi Pearl. I","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Adventures in Parenting: On Reasoning with Toddlers","og_description":"This is part of a series in which I am re-posting a number of posts I've written in the past on issues involving parenting and Michael and Debi Pearl. I","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html","og_site_name":"Love, Joy, Feminism","article_published_time":"2012-03-06T21:00:44+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-08-07T20:33:12+00:00","author":"Libby Anne","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Libby Anne","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html","name":"Adventures in Parenting: On Reasoning with Toddlers","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-03-06T21:00:44+00:00","dateModified":"2012-08-07T20:33:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2"},"description":"This is part of a series in which I am re-posting a number of posts I've written in the past on issues involving parenting and Michael and Debi Pearl. I","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/03\/adventures-in-parenting-on-reasoning-with-toddlers-2.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Adventures in Parenting: On Reasoning with Toddlers"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/","name":"Love, Joy, Feminism","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2","name":"Libby Anne","description":"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. College turned her world upside down, and she is today an atheist, a feminist, and a progressive. She blogs about leaving religion, her experience with the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements, the detrimental effects of the \"purity culture,\" the contradictions of conservative politics, and the importance of feminism.","sameAs":["http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/author\/libby"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/845"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}