Journeywoman has been talking about that recent case on the news where a family was asked to leave a flight because their three year old wouldn't sit in her seat for takeoff. Today, she has a great post about when to bend, and her own story of enforcing what she felt was the correct thing to do in a situation. After I posted a comment to her site today, I realized how lengthy it was (sorry! that's kinda when someone says, get your own blog!, right?) and since she brings up a great topic, I'm posting my comment here. At what point do you as parents bend the rules, or acquiesce to your child's demands?

I totally agree with what you did that day. [you'll have to go to her blog to read the full story] Where the boy was concerned, there was direct malice and ill intent involved. Where the three year old was concerned on the plane, well, we've established that we weren't there to see what unfolded.

When do I bend? I play pick your battles. When I go places with my kid, I am prepared to leave everything if I have to if she's not behaving. If she starts throwing a tantrum while I'm in the supermarket, I'll give her one warning, telling her that if she continues I will take her out - and then if she's still not behaving I will actually leave my food and take her out. Usually the threat or the kid seeing you just start to carry out your threat is enough to make it work. I think I've only had to leave a supermarket once, but I'd do it again if I had to. Teaching my kid a lesson in how to behave in public is far more important than picking up groceries I can do later that evening.

In a restaurant - same thing. I give a warning, and then it's just a matter of how fast they can pack up the food. Or if my husband is with us, I will have him take her out and sit in the car with her - this works for many siltations - have one parent take the kid out, sit in the car, and explain why they were removed from the situation. My daughter generally agrees that she's not having fun removed from the situation and will agree to behave, earning herself re-admittance to wherever we were.

And on the whole, she's generally well behaved in public now that she's approaching four. But removing her from the situation works really well.

When do I bend? When it doesn't matter. When I've asked her to clean up the playroom before bedtime, she's already tired and on the verge of throwing a fit, I'd rather not push it at the moment making bedtime harder and just tell her that she'll have to clean up tomorrow before she plays with anything. And then I follow through with it. I'll bend into giving her 'one more' animal cracker even though I really shouldn't. I try not to have fights over food - it's so not worth it to me. I bend when she refuses to wear gloves outside. I will suffer the comments and scowls from people who think I'm a horrible mom for letting my otherwise fully bundled up kid out without gloves when it's 30 degrees for 10 minutes, but my kid will not die because of it, maybe she'll eventually learn that it's freezing outside and will ask me for her gloves that I've taken along with me - just in case that lesson is learned while we are out and about.