\n<\/span><\/p>\nUnfortunately, we as parents also tend to remind our children they are still little, while we are encouraging them to be more independent through declaring them \u201cbig\u201d.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell Sugarplum how big she is when she uses the potty without me reminding her then\u00a0 when she asks why she can\u2019t help with the hot pans on the stove I\u2019ll tell her she\u2019s too little.\u00a0 This can all become very confusing for a young child and will often cause defensive (\u201cI\u2019m not little, I\u2019m big!\u201d) reactions which can quickly escalate to power struggles (now there\u2019s a post for another day!).<\/p>\n
While I haven\u2019t been able to make \u201cbig girl\u201d references extinct from my parenting vocabulary, I have adopted a new way to address the \u201clittle\u201d side of things.\u00a0 When Honeybun\u00a0was going through this phase, I started by telling her she was indeed a big girl, but a \u201clittle big girl.\u201d\u00a0 This sort of worked but was still confusing to her.\u00a0 The answer that\u2019s really worked finally came to me one day while we were out walking in Dublin. \u00a0She was a pretty good listener and would usually hold my hand when crossing roads and driveways but occasionally she would fight me on it (and still does).<\/p>\n
One day as we were walking, crossing a row of driveways, I requested she hold my hand and she responded she was a big girl and didn\u2019t need to.\u00a0 The response that naturally came out of me is the one I still use (generally) in place of little today:\u00a0 I stopped, got down on her level and explained \u201cHoneybun, I know you\u2019re a big girl.\u00a0 There are so many things you can do by yourself but even though you\u2019re big now, you\u2019re still short.\u00a0 If a car is coming, they won\u2019t see you if you\u2019re not close to mommy because you\u2019re not tall enough for the driver to see.\u00a0 This is why it\u2019s so important for you to be close to mommy at all times when we\u2019re walking by cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShort\u201d has become my new little and has nearly stopped the arguing and \u201cI\u2019m a BIG girl\u201d declarations.\u00a0 Little is the opposite of big so leaves space for confusion and arguing, but short is of a different realm, my girls can\u2019t argue about it.\u00a0 They\u2019re too short to be seen by cars, they\u2019re too short to reach the stove safely, Sugarplum is too short to ride some of the rides at Disney.\u00a0 It\u2019s a matter of fact, not perception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sugarplum has recently become obsessed with being \u201cbig\u201d.\u00a0 Just this morning at the breakfast table she declared: \u201cMommy, I\u2019m so big now!\u00a0 Now the baby can come out.\u201d\u00a0 Then followed up with \u201cAnd can I go to outer space now?\u201d\u00a0 (Presumably she\u2019s talking about Mission: Space at Disney.\u00a0 She\u2019s also quite obsessed with getting big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2336,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions\/2336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}