Life or Death

Our son refused to put his Sunday shirt under his sweater, so I took the opportunity to apply what my wife has been telling me from her parenting book. I decided getting dressed was a must, so I offered him the following choices:

-"You can either put it on now or go into time-out until you're ready to listen." My son swipes at my hand holding his Sunday shirt, and I say, "Okay. You chose a time-out."

-My son resists sitting in the time-out chair, so I say, "You can either sit here or in your room." He continues to resist, and I take him up to his room and say, "Okay. You chose your room."

-He tries to leave the room, so I say, "You can either have time-out with the door open or closed." He leaves the room again, so I say, "Okay. You chose door closed."

-He tries to open the door, so I say, "You can either have the door locked or unlocked." He tries to open it again, so I lock the door and say, "Okay. You chose locked."

He calmed down, and we went back downstairs to talk and get him dressed. At that point my wife said, "Just let him try it his way and learn for himself." Sure enough, by trying his clothes on the way he wanted he decided to reverse many of his strong opinions. I felt that all of my effort to successfully employ the choices tactic was wasted, and it really turned out to be a miserable failure. I later confessed to my wife that I mostly felt disappointed in myself for getting so easily frustrated. I said, "Sometimes I just don't know which battles to pick." She wisely responded, "Sometimes you should only pick the battles that are life or death, and what our son wears to church isn't life or death." Once I got over my wounded pride, I benefited a lot from her advice.