That said, there's one bit of advice I feel I can safely give because it's neutral from a philosophical standpoint and from what I've seen effective across most situations. This is the act of choice giving. I'm thinking of this today because it's 7 am right now and I am able to be writing this blog post right now. At 6 am my son was calling my name over and over. I went into his room and said, "it's too early to wake up right now. go back to sleep." I got the predicable response of, "no. i don't want to go back to sleep." So, I said, "you have a choice, you can read books in your crib by yourself or you can go back to sleep. it's too early for you to get up right now." this choice took a few re-statements to become clear but after a minute or so, he laid back down and went back to sleep. (he is waking up now, I hear in the background)
Choice-giving as a method has come to be effective for me because a) I give choices from a neutral place, not stressed or emotional; b) when I give choices, I stated them once or twice and then I say, "this is the last chance with this choice then I'm going to make the choice for you." When we first started using this method, he didn't get that a choice was actually going to be made so the key was to actually make the choice. He wouldn't necessarily like the choice and this meant for the beginning period of choice-giving there were some big tears and protests. My responses would be to reply with a calm, "I know it's hard you didn't get the choice you wanted. When mama gives a choice, you need to make it." After a short period of reinforcing what choice making means, it works for me now, most of the time. (and in parenting, most of the time is a very good thing)
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