Today I feel like the worst mom. Ari, Samara and I went to the playground this morning. Ari wanted to take his scooter with him. I told him that was fine by me, but he had to promise that he would ride it or walk with it all the way to the playground and all the way home. He agreed enthusiastically.
When it came time to go home, he did not want to leave the playground, which wasn’t much of a surprise.
“Ari, we have to go home, when we get home, we’re going to see Chesca.” Chesca is Ari’s cousin, and it was true, she is coming over later today.
We started walking home, and that’s when the trouble started. He paused in the middle of the street and stood there unmoving.
“Ari you need to walk or ride your scooter.”
“No.” He whined
“Ari, I’m not in the mood for this right now. We need to go home and you need to walk.”
“NO!” He yelled and started crying. I tried to reason with him:
“Ari, I can’t carry you because I’m carrying Samara. So you need to walk.”
At this point Samara started crying, and I knew she was hungry.
He walked a little bit, and then started crying in the middle of the street.
“Ari, you need to walk.” I repeated.
He just stood there. So I walked ahead of him, figuring he would follow once he saw I wasn’t putting up with his defiant behavior.
My attempt at tough love failed. I walked ahead of him and he did not follow. So I walked back with the baby on my chest crying loudly and got him.
After several more attempts to get him to walk home, reason went out the window and I lost it. I knelt down and yelled at him:
“KNOCK IT OFF!”
He cried louder and still refused to walk.
“Okay,” I said “If you don’t walk home, you can’t see Chesca this afternoon and no playground for the next three days.” That got his attention.
He begrudgingly held my hand and walked home crying all the way.
When we got home, I told him he did a good job walking home and that he would see Chesca and go to the playground after all. But I felt awful, because I lost my cool and yelled at him. I don’t know how people stay calm when their kids are throwing monster tantrums.
What do you do when your kid sits in the middle of the sidewalk and refuses to walk?