I have to confess something. As I lay awake listening to my youngest cry at 12:30 AM a few nights ago, I realized something. Crying works. It gets you what you want. I don't think that it would work for me, but for my children certainly. I have little to no resistance to it. It tugs at me. When I here that cry there is a compulsion to do whatever possible to make it better, to make it stop.
Aleah has not been sleeping through the night. She wakes up two or even three times, cries, gets fed, and then goes back to sleep. We have tried inconsistently to grit our teeth and try to get her to fall back to sleep by herself, but by 2:00 AM I am too tired to be tough. I just want to go back to sleep.
We have continually told Emily that tempertantrums are not the way to get what she wants, but that is not true. Of course it is the way. It isn't a good way, but sometimes the desired result is acheived. Crying and tempertantrums, most of the time work. The other thing she does that works is go boneless. She just collapses into an amoebal state. It helps to get out of practicing her violin.
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