Not all incenctives/threats are considered equal...

...among children. For example, our middle daughter is so wonderful. So happy, so loving, so sweet. Except when she's not (like most children).

Anyway, back to the point of this post, there comes a point in a parent's life when you suddenly realize out of nowhere, "Whoa, my child is not a little baby or toddler or whatever anymore - they need to do a little growing up." So this has happened with me and our middle daughter lately.

One of the things I realized she wasn't doing entirely on her own, which thing I know she is entirely capable of doing, is getting dressed. She can do it, she just prefers someone else to do it for her. So this morning she was feeling extra lazy and I was feeling extra stubborn, and I told her she couldn't come out of her room until she dressed herself. She has not screamed, not banged on the door, not yelled, not cried...she has just been dinking around in her room contentedly for the past hour and 15 minutes.

Now if this had been her older sister, a huge fit would have been pitched, but after about 10 minutes of horrific solitutde, she'd have been dressed and out the door. Now with this lovely middle child, I'm sure things like incentice charts with stickers would work great. But the problem is, I just don't feel like going to "all that effort." (I know, probably not such a big deal.) I would really rather that she just realize it is her duty as a big girl to dress herself and do it from now on, every day for the rest of her life.

Anyway, there are several other areas - which I will not disclose because I feel they would reflect poorly on me as a parent ;) - in which our lovely daughter #2 needs to "grow up" some more, so I probably will have to resort to some sort of responsibility chart with stickers and rewards and all that. Sigh! In the meantime, I should probably rethink a strategy for getting her to dress herself today.