I'd heard this advice plenty so felt ready to deploy it when I had a toddler.
I have a toddler now, and have tried this approach a number of times. She just says "no" to the choices....
I have a toddler now, and have tried this approach a number of times. She just says "no" to the choices....
Through persistence and speaking to him calmly, he eventually stopped his petulance. Usually if he wanted something, we would only give in after repeated conversations. We wanted to explore decision making with him and ensure he would not quickly want something else. The main thing I wanted was for him to talk and explain why he wanted something so bad.
I believe he only threw a full tantrum a handful of times. When that happened we followed the advice of pretending to leave without him. When he realized we were not rewarding his tantrum, he stopped.
In short, we wanted to reward him for communicating not for throwing a tantrum.
Yes, "no" can be petulant, but it's also could be deeply beautiful and true.
You can try many other things, and maybe you’ll find something that works some of the time.
“What do you want?” can be “NOTHING!”, can be something. “You want this, but the reality is this and that. How can we deal with that?”
If kid is upset it usually helps to validate their feelings first.
Also, my kids are not yours, so take this with the grain of salt as well.