Lilacs4Me
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2015
I KNOW! He gets away from us for a couple of minutes, usually when one of is bathing and the other is cooking. But it's awesome you can follow your kids so well. Another failure on my part.
Don't worry about the snarky comments. f I paid *that* much attention to my kids when they were that age, I would have never gotten anything done. We set boundaries and watched them, of course, but we had an open floor plan when they were toddlers...they would be in sight of me while I was cooking and cleaning, and there was still ample opportunity for them to hide things if they wanted to. No way was I the type of parent to hover and follow my kids around 24/7!
To answer the question, we didn't have a hider but actually had a "finder" in DD when she was little...that girl knew where EVERYTHING was, from lost keys to her little brother's sippy cup - all we had to do was ask her where it was and she would know exactly where to find it.
Which is why we didn't believe her AT ALL when she was about 11 and mad at me one morning. I was trying to leave for work and my cell phone was missing. I knew the last place I saw it was in the bathroom we shared with her, but it was not in there. She "claimed" she had no idea even though she went in there after me. I knew she was lying because she ALWAYS knew where everything in the house was. Turns out I was right...she hid it on the side of the vanity between the sink and tub because she was mad. That little scheme got her grounded for a week AND she had to clean the bathroom which I think bothered her more than being grounded lol!
Another time that year, she got mad at DH and hid his key-less entry fob in the cup holder drop-down in the backseat and pushed it back up, then got out of the car at school. He panicked because once he shut off the car he would need to fob to turn it back on. He was pretty sure it was IN the car somewhere because the warning dings didn't go off, but with a 45 minute commute, he couldn't take the chance. I had to go up to the school and pull her out of class to come out to the car and find it for us because DH was so livid that he couldn't even talk to her. Boy did she get in trouble for that one!!
So, even with our best parenting intentions and watchfulness, kids have a way of doing what they want anyway. Someone will always be there to tell you you should have/could have done it better. Ignore them. Toddler and apparently 6th grade girls have almost no impulse-control, as we learned the hard way.
ETA: As for the hiding, even 2 year olds know how to follow rules. Set them, tell him no and it's not funny when you catch him hiding something, and otherwise discourage it. I never really played games with my kids in order for them to follow the rules; I found that setting clear expectations and following through worked better. Clearly not perfect lol based on the above, but kids are not perfect either, so as long as you can get them to be respectful and kind and honest the majority of the time, you can work with the rest as it comes.
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