Originally Posted by nannyde:
I would beat him to the punch... as soon as you have to manually move him look at him and say “you hurt me" over and over again as you are moving him. THEN give him the directive of “sit and stay". If he keeps it up I would nickname him “you hurt me" and would call him that every day all day long. I would pray the kids join in and refer to him as "you-hurt-me" too. That phrase would be the number one phrase at my house until it completely lost it's meaning.
It's a powerful phrase so I would leash the power of it and use it to my advantage. Two can play that game.
Thank you so much Nanny De!
I have a little one who just turned 3 yo. Every time he gets redirected or has to do anything he doesn't want he starts crying "mommy, mommy" and does a little fit for about 30 sec to a minute, then does whatever I want. - It happens at least 20 times every day! Today when he started it I said "mommy, mommy, mommy" (not in a teasing way or anything, just saying the word) and he looked at me like I was crazy, then just did what I asked!
Every time he started it up again I started saying or singing the word. He only tired it a handful of times, then he just started doing what I wanted happily without having to do the cry/mommy thing first.
_ Edit_ I just read through the comments after nanny de's original one (I read that this morning and just posted my response w/o reading the comments after.)
I didn't take what she said as teasing, mocking, making fun of, or anything like that! I took it as "taking the power out of the word"- as in he is getting a lot of inappropriate attention for saying "you hurt me" (or "mommy, mommy" in my case) when the TRUTH is that no one hurt him, and mine doesn't want his mommy at all! They both just want out of what they don't want to do and for whatever reason that specific phrase has worked to get them out of trouble and into a discussion. Just like all the parents we talk about on these threads who will say anything they need to so you will not term them, but then go right back to the bad behaviors- kids find out what "words" work for what they want and use them.
I am not sure of the exact way that Nanny De does it since I am reading it instead of hearing it- but what I did was say in a silly/ sing song voice the word after he started using it and guided him to do what I wanted him to do. It worked great- he didn't seem embarrassed, mad, sad, or anything- it really just set him back on the tracks from his mommy, mommy dis-railing and he went about doing what he was supposed to w/o having to throw the fit first. The other kids didn't even seem to notice me doing it, didn't question me about it, stop what they were doing, or really pay any attention at all. I sing silly things all the time
