Yesterday my two year old decided she wasn't getting enough attention and dumped raisins all over the floor. My parenting philosophy is to have natural consequences. If they throw a toy out of anger, the toy is taken away. If they won't put the crayons away so we can have dinner, they don't get the crayons back until tomorrow. If they dump raisins all over the floor, they pick them up and can't have any for snack. Natural consequences.
I explain to her that she needs to pick them up and throw them in the garbage--that way she can't eat them and let's be honest, it had probably been a few days since I last swept the floor, who knows what else would have been going in her mouth if I did let her eat them.
She starts to pick them up and then gets distracted, I refocus her and then lose her again. This happened for an hour! Finally I told her, you can either pick them up and then get to play or you can go to your room and stay there until I pick them up. So I asked her, "Pick up raisins or go to your room?" She responded, "Raisins." Good choice; her room is boring since I took all the toys out of it after a major mommy-meltdown a month ago.
I really thought we had made a breakthrough. Then, she walked over to pile of raisins, analyzed it for a minute, turned to me, said "Room" and off she ran to her room! What?
I had to stifle a half-laugh, half-growl as she trotted past me to go sit on her bed and read a book. Did I pick up those raisins? Yep, but you better believe I also enjoyed a cookie to myself and an uninterrupted trip to the bathroom before I told her I was done.
Mom fail for my daughter leaving me to clean up her mess or mom win for teaching her to make intelligent choices and being a bookworm? 