Davin, our youngest, is 20 months old, and we’ve got a gate up at the entrance to the kitchen so he doesn’t ransack the pantry. A few weeks ago we were getting ready for dinner and Davin comes up to the gate and yells. We figured he wanted to get over the gate, but he’s a smart kid and is capable of asking for what he wants in pleasant terms.
So, I told him to ask. “Say ‘over please’, Davin.” He just looked at me and didn’t say a word. Lianne tried to get him to say it, and the other kids even pitched in to help. Jaron got on the other side of the gate and asked nicely to be lifted over. I lifted him over as an example for Davin, but he wouldn’t budge.
A half hour later we had finished our dinner and Davin was still standing on the other side of the gate, refusing to say anything except to let out the occassional yell/cry. We tried ignoring him, then we tried spanking him. He still met our requests with purposeful silence.
At the one hour mark we were all in the living room, feeling kind of bad because Davin hadn’t eaten dinner yet. I realized that maybe dinner wasn’t the best thing to use to teach him a lesson, but we were too far into the confrontation to back down now. He was still sitting or standing over by the gate, but refusing to say “please” or “over” or “eat” or anything that we asked him to say. We even tried to get him to sign it, which he often does, but he wouldn’t budge.
90 minutes in, and he whispered “please” to Lianne in the softest voice. How clever is that!?!? He wanted to be let into the kitchen, but he didn’t want to give in completely. We decided to make him say it out loud.
It took another 30 minutes for him to finally say “please”. Two hours of outright rebellion! I’ve heard stories of kids doing stuff like that, but a 20 month old with such a strong will was something we had never seen before. The good news is that the parents won this battle of wills, and I really believe that we won’t face anything like that again with Davin for the rest of his life.