Page 105 - The Intentional Parent

“Mom. Pleeeeeeeeeeeease. I can’t walk, I want to ride. I neeeeeeed a ride.”
“Nancy Margaret McBride, you cannot have a ride, and that is my final answer.”
Then Mom successfully ignored the rest of the onslaught without saying a single word.
I was pulling for the mother, really. I thought she had it in the bag. I was about to offer to pay for ten chiropractic adjustments just for sticking it out. But no, the rest of the scene unfolded right before my eyes in super slow motion.
Nancy became a bag of dirty laundry and dropped to the pavement (cement I might add). There was wailing, chattering of teeth, out of body experiences, and all of those things happened before the child hit the ground.
Seconds later, in super fast motion, Nancy was draped around her mother’s neck like one of those fox stoles where the fox bites its own tail to stay wrung around it’s wearers neck.
In the minute it took to watch this scene play out I could imagine the machinations that led up to this and could only conclude that this child had more staying power than the mother. Her fault right? Who carries a seven year old on their back? Someone who has been outlasted, that’s who.
So, the moral of the story is you have to learn how to “mean business,” and employ that along with shutting yourself off to
The Intentional Parent by Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. 105