About a month ago my friend Maureen came to see me with her little girl, who is 3 years old.  They were a bit late, which didn’t bother me, I never expect anyone with kids to arrive on-time!  When Maureen arrived she apologised for being late and said that her little girl had refused to get in the car – “She just wouldn’t get in the car Jill, No matter what I said!” I looked at Maureen, 33 years old and 5ft8, then I looked at the little girl, barely bigger than her Barbie!  How was it, that a fully grown adult couldn’t control a tiny child? When I asked how Maureen had finally managed to get her little sprog in the car, she told me that it took 2 marshmallows, a hug and a wooden pig ornament from the kitchen…

The Hubster witnessed the scene as he got ready to go out, he looked amused and simply said “This is going to be interesting.”  I knew exactly what he meant.  When a parent gives in to a child’s ridiculous demands things can escalate pretty quickly and get completely out of hand!

The parents who really leave me gobsmacked are the prats who initiate this sort of horror story themselves!  It later turned out that Maureen had once rewarded her darling sproglet with a marshmallow for getting in the car.  She thought it was really cute that they had a ‘thing’.  So, every time they went out anywhere the kid got a marshmallow…until the time when Maureen had no marshmallows.  The little angel turned in to a fire spitting devil-child.

Maureen had to make sure that she always had marshmallows to hand, without them her daughter would throw a tantrum and refuse to do anything.  If this wasn’t bad enough, the problem spread to other areas.  She wouldn’t have a bath without a reward, she wouldn’t go to bed without a reward and she wouldn’t go to the Childminder without a reward!

Cut to a few weeks later when an exhausted Maureen and the little dictator turned up at my house.  She told me what had happened and realised that she had given in time and time again to her daughter, reinforcing the bad habits she had instilled in her.

The thing which Maureen found amazing was that the no-nonsense Childminder, who she had given a bag of emergency marshmallows to, had not even opened the packet.  Evidently the child knew she wouldn’t be given an inch and didn’t even try to play up.  That honour was reserved for soft-as-shit Mummy.

It is really fucking simple.  If you get your child in to bad habits, as benign and harmless as they might seem, they will come back to bite you on the arse.  If it’s not marshmallows it might be a snack before bedtime (that they never eat), it might be a toy (that they don’t actually want).  What the little darlings REALLY want is power.  Power and control.

Maureen’s situation had escalated dramatically and had to be sorted.  Like any bad habit, the best way to deal with it is to go cold turkey.  I told her as much and she agreed.

So, later that evening, with a little bit of schadenfreude, I watched as Maureen and her screaming sproglet left.  As you may have guessed, there were no marshmallows involved.

When The Hubster returned he rolled around laughing as I recounted how I had waved goodbye to a terrified Maureen and a kicking shrieking three year old.  Although, when he had finished cackling, he admitted he felt sorry for poor Maureen and thought that I had given her the right advice.

I thought of my own kids and thought how easy it would be to pile rewards and gifts on to them, I love them so much.  The problem is, as much as its important for children to be shown love, within each of them is a little control freak ready to pounce!

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