Dead Weight

Trying to get a two year old child to pick up toys is a lot like trying to pull a 300lb bag of dead weight. First you approach the bleak job with joy and optimism. If you have high spirits and a can-do attitude anything can be accomplished! After trying and trying again and again with no such luck and not even a hint of a smidgen of movement you think to yourself, "OK, no luck and try another approach, bargaining. So you stand there looking at the 300lb bag offering a plethora of opportunities you know the bag would enjoy. If the bag would only move you would not throw it away, or maybe you would move it to a really cool spot where it could dance and play all day, YAY! The bag does not budge. "Fine! you think to yourself, "if you wont move them I'll take your favorite thing in the whole world away! HA! Take that!" It looks at you all smug and arrogant, even smiling at you! That smile, ARRG! "I'll give that bag something to smile about in a second" you think to your self. But wait, you pull your self back take a breath and offer a bribe. Ah, the bribe, this will do it for sure! If the bag moves then you will give the bag back it's favorite toy you just took way a second ago. But still, the bag does not move. Your blood starts to boil. You can feel your temperature rising, your lip starts to quiver with anger, "FINE!" you scream, "TIME OUT!" HA take that bag, I'll show you who's boss! Time out does nothing, the bad just looks at you in relief that the bag doesn't have to move anymore.

Whats left?? Giving up?? Jump up and down screaming and flailing your arms around, then throw yourself on the floor and through a hissy fit??

A battle that is so hard to win, moving a 300lb bag. Just like the battle of getting a two year old child to pick up toys! IMPOSSIBLE! Yet, we do it anyways and you never give up, at least some parents don't. I don't. Sometimes parents do give up, "It'll be easier and quicker if I do it." Or they don't even pick up at all, "Whats the point the mess will be back in two seconds anyways". Is that really the point? Is that really what we want to teach our kids?? That all they have to do is give up, wait us out and we will do it for them, we will give up?? HELL NO! We are parents, we are adults, we do not stoop to their level (even though we would like to sometimes).Those of us that stick to it will and do eventually persevere! We win! VICTORY! In the end the battle was worth it. It teaches then a valuable lesson, it teaches us parents a value lesson:

Giving up never got anybody anywhere!