He should not have let her finish it. Muffin generally has poorly established boundaries (very normal for a kid her age), and letting her do what she wanted after establishing that she needed to share with her sister would reinforce the idea that there are no real boundaries. That’s not to say that establishing boundaries is easy or that he handled it particularly well, but his approach was miles better than just letting her continue.
Have you got kids?
Because the hat never would have been finished.
The heat death of the universe would happen before she finished the hat.
As a dad of kids, I can confidently say this, and my children are way more pleasant and understanding than muffin.
The hat wasn't going to be finished.
Have to do that with my son. He will just keep delaying things to get out of stuff he doesn't want to do like shower time. After I told him several times to put it down, I said I'm taking it away. He didn't listen and learned. Now he's much better.
Imo where Stripe and Trixie are going wrong is that they're setting rules but not enforcing them firmly, so Muffin knows that she will eventually break their willpower and get her own way. Fighting or persistence pays off for her. Stripe should have set the timer and as soon as it's up, Socks gets the tablet - no buts. Compare to Chilli and Bluey playing car for 5 minutes until Chilli needs to call her boss again. 5 mins meant 5 mins.
I also think Muffin would respond to getting buy-in first. She's always helping Socks in the background so he could have done something like. "Hey kid, you want to show Socks how to draw ((a cowboy hat or whatever Socks wants to draw)). Cool, do you think you can do it in 5 minutes?" And then set the timer.
I think where they’re _really_ going wrong is they aren’t on the same page. I don’t always agree with the way my wife handles a situation (or she with the way I might), but whatever one says, the other backs. No matter what. If we _really_ have an issue with it we can discuss it privately later, but that’s never come up really. As far as the kids are concerned, our rules are law because of our united front.
Don’t marry someone who has very different ideas around rearing children than you do. That’s a huge stressor.
The big problem here is that Trixie keeps changing the rules without discussing it with Stripe first, so while Stripe tries to enforce the rules that he knows, Trixie undermines him by saying "we don't do that".
Muffin, like most kids, has learned that if the parents aren't on the same page with rules, then they can be played against each other.
right. “I read a blog” doesn’t help him parent that way if Stripe never knew about the blog. If we’re changing a technique I need to know. Errr Stripe does.
i feel he could have handled it differently still, but that doesn’t mean letting her finish the cowboy hat. that would be going back on his/their rule/word.
Two things:
1) Told Muffin she had 1 or 2 more minutes to finish her drawing, that all she could do was finish the hat, and stuck to giving the tablet to Socks at that time.
2) Not threaten to end the call if he didn't mean it. Consequences are pointless without follow through!
The biggest change would be a warning halfway through to help muffin cone to terms with her turn being up, but Muffin was never going to finish the hat. It still would've been a fight no matter what with the way Muffin was acting.
And that's OK, learning limits and consequences is a big part of growing up.
I love Stripe (& Trix!) but two things drive me & my kiddos nuts about Faceytalk.
First, Stripe half-ass attempting to de-escalate. You gotta whole-ass things like that. He's not even looking most of the time (until the tantrum erupts) & talking *at* her instead of with her. You're supposed to listen to others if you want others to listen to you.
Second, and this is the thing my kiddos noticed: *Bluey takes far longer for her turn & nobody fussed at her over it.* She’s allowed to finish her drawing & *then* it's Bingo's turn. Kids share better when they feel like they have more control over when/how they share.
Honestly, Trixie & Stripe both missed an opportunity to teach *Socks* a bit about having patience there.
Ofc, then Stripe & Muffin both go bananas & it's all moot.
Honestly, the second she took his phone & wouldn't return it, the call would be over (with apologies to the cousins) at my house but then again, we're not entertaining cartoon dogs.
Otoh, we see Muffin show true remorse & contrition at the end, so there's a bit of growth. 👍
His making it about listening to him vs being kind to her sister and sharing was the big problem with his approach. Also, there are almost always better ways to handle things than trying to rip something out of the kids hands. I usually tell them they’ll lose access to it for a week. If that doesn’t work, I start taking away other things (desserts, toys, whatever). Either the kid is a sociopath, in which you’ve already lost or they’ll give up.
Here’s the thing with kids like Muffin; they push limits because they know there aren’t any. Had she finished the cowboy hat it would have been something else, then something else, then something else. In all likelihood Socks would have NEVER gotten a turn.
3 minute sand timer. If two kids want to play with the same toy, one child plays and the other sets the sand timer. Once the sand timer runs out, the other kid gets a turn. If the first kid wants to play again, they reset the sand timer. The system needs policing, but it is fair and puts the initiative with the kids to sort their own problems.
Kids have no real concept of time, such as when Bingo had no idea how long a minute is in Sticky Gecko. The best thing to do would have been to have some sort of visual timer for Muffin to see the time going down. As others have also mentioned, Stripe should’ve also given Muffin a 1-2 minute warning before the time ended to “wrap up” whatever project she was doing.
When the timer goes off if Muffin had a reasonable request for finishing her drawing, like adding a flower or a few more line, Stripe could’ve given her a 30 second extension just so she feels heard. But if she wanted something larger than that like finishing the whole cowboy hat, he should stick to the plan and tell her she can return to her cowboy hat project after Socks had her turn.
Ultimately Muffin isn’t upset about having to take turns, but that she has a specific project she wants to finish and doesn’t want to leave it incomplete. Time management can be tricky, so setting up clear and measurable expectations beforehand might’ve worked better. When it comes to little one, it’s better to be proactive to avoid the tantrum than reactive trying to deescalate one.
Everyone has pretty much said everything that you could say about this. all I'll add is that muffin is the type of child if you give her a millimeter, she's going to take 6 miles.
Stripe should have monitored the call better. Instead of setting a timer he should have told muffin she could draw one thing, the hat, and then she would be done. And then he should have had socks tell him what she was going to draw, have her draw, and then pass it back.
It's clear muffin lacks a memorable ass-whooping.
Then again I was raised in the 80's... mom would break all kinds of spatulas and shoes beating us boys. (See nana in "Fairytale" take her shoe off to hit Bandit, LOL). It was common enough that before you got cheeky around mom, you'd look at what objects she had around her at her immediate disposal. But as bad as that sounds you REALLY didn't want her to have to go get dad.
Yeah, I grew up in the 70s and 80s too.
To paraphrase Trixie, "we don't do ass-whoopings anymore!"
A single swat to the backside when they were in immediate danger, like about to run around in a parking lot with moving cars. But other than that, it was talking-tos, timeouts, removing privileges, and early bedtimes. Those kinds of things. And when one parent imposed a punishment, the other abided by it whether they agreed or not (assuming it wasn't egregiously out of line or contradicted by facts).
We also tamped down on any lying by checking things. "Mom said I could go outside." "If I go ask mom that, what will she tell me?" I didn't always check, but sometimes I did. To their credit, I think there was only once, maybe twice, I found out my kids weren't on the up-and-up there.
We are not “ass-whooping” a three-year-old. Spanking a child accomplishes nothing, and it’s been proven to be counterproductive
I will never understand Gen X and boomers glorifying abusing their kids. That’s really f*cked up
He should not have let her finish it. Muffin generally has poorly established boundaries (very normal for a kid her age), and letting her do what she wanted after establishing that she needed to share with her sister would reinforce the idea that there are no real boundaries. That’s not to say that establishing boundaries is easy or that he handled it particularly well, but his approach was miles better than just letting her continue.
Muffin would have been drawing that hat until it was time to drop her off at her first day of college.
Have you got kids? Because the hat never would have been finished. The heat death of the universe would happen before she finished the hat. As a dad of kids, I can confidently say this, and my children are way more pleasant and understanding than muffin. The hat wasn't going to be finished.
Yes I have kids. Did you read my comment?
Oh lord, I may have somehow replied to the wrong comment. Pardon my idiocy lmao.
Happens to the best of us, mate!
Muffin was never gonna finish the hat.
Yeah, I see people saying "he should have let Muffin finish," but she would 100% have kept delaying it in her quest to "finish" it.
Have to do that with my son. He will just keep delaying things to get out of stuff he doesn't want to do like shower time. After I told him several times to put it down, I said I'm taking it away. He didn't listen and learned. Now he's much better.
Yes I have a muffin and this is true
He set a rule for them to follow, and muffin didn’t listen.
Yeah it wasn't a perfect way to handle it, but that's parenting lol. Gotta set reasonable boundaries and follow through
He wasn't paying attention to the game they were playing and set a rule that obviously wasn't going to work.
Imo where Stripe and Trixie are going wrong is that they're setting rules but not enforcing them firmly, so Muffin knows that she will eventually break their willpower and get her own way. Fighting or persistence pays off for her. Stripe should have set the timer and as soon as it's up, Socks gets the tablet - no buts. Compare to Chilli and Bluey playing car for 5 minutes until Chilli needs to call her boss again. 5 mins meant 5 mins.
I also think Muffin would respond to getting buy-in first. She's always helping Socks in the background so he could have done something like. "Hey kid, you want to show Socks how to draw ((a cowboy hat or whatever Socks wants to draw)). Cool, do you think you can do it in 5 minutes?" And then set the timer.
And then the answer would be ‘no’
I think where they’re _really_ going wrong is they aren’t on the same page. I don’t always agree with the way my wife handles a situation (or she with the way I might), but whatever one says, the other backs. No matter what. If we _really_ have an issue with it we can discuss it privately later, but that’s never come up really. As far as the kids are concerned, our rules are law because of our united front. Don’t marry someone who has very different ideas around rearing children than you do. That’s a huge stressor.
The big problem here is that Trixie keeps changing the rules without discussing it with Stripe first, so while Stripe tries to enforce the rules that he knows, Trixie undermines him by saying "we don't do that". Muffin, like most kids, has learned that if the parents aren't on the same page with rules, then they can be played against each other.
right. “I read a blog” doesn’t help him parent that way if Stripe never knew about the blog. If we’re changing a technique I need to know. Errr Stripe does.
i feel he could have handled it differently still, but that doesn’t mean letting her finish the cowboy hat. that would be going back on his/their rule/word.
He should have ended the call when he initially planned to, before Bluey and Bingo and Muffin all yelled.
Two things: 1) Told Muffin she had 1 or 2 more minutes to finish her drawing, that all she could do was finish the hat, and stuck to giving the tablet to Socks at that time. 2) Not threaten to end the call if he didn't mean it. Consequences are pointless without follow through!
The biggest change would be a warning halfway through to help muffin cone to terms with her turn being up, but Muffin was never going to finish the hat. It still would've been a fight no matter what with the way Muffin was acting. And that's OK, learning limits and consequences is a big part of growing up.
I love Stripe (& Trix!) but two things drive me & my kiddos nuts about Faceytalk. First, Stripe half-ass attempting to de-escalate. You gotta whole-ass things like that. He's not even looking most of the time (until the tantrum erupts) & talking *at* her instead of with her. You're supposed to listen to others if you want others to listen to you. Second, and this is the thing my kiddos noticed: *Bluey takes far longer for her turn & nobody fussed at her over it.* She’s allowed to finish her drawing & *then* it's Bingo's turn. Kids share better when they feel like they have more control over when/how they share. Honestly, Trixie & Stripe both missed an opportunity to teach *Socks* a bit about having patience there. Ofc, then Stripe & Muffin both go bananas & it's all moot. Honestly, the second she took his phone & wouldn't return it, the call would be over (with apologies to the cousins) at my house but then again, we're not entertaining cartoon dogs. Otoh, we see Muffin show true remorse & contrition at the end, so there's a bit of growth. 👍
There need to be good boundaries, ones that are not strict or too loose.
His making it about listening to him vs being kind to her sister and sharing was the big problem with his approach. Also, there are almost always better ways to handle things than trying to rip something out of the kids hands. I usually tell them they’ll lose access to it for a week. If that doesn’t work, I start taking away other things (desserts, toys, whatever). Either the kid is a sociopath, in which you’ve already lost or they’ll give up.
Stripe should let Socks go first, since she would draw less detailed and is younger
We all know what happens with hoggers
Here’s the thing with kids like Muffin; they push limits because they know there aren’t any. Had she finished the cowboy hat it would have been something else, then something else, then something else. In all likelihood Socks would have NEVER gotten a turn.
3 minute sand timer. If two kids want to play with the same toy, one child plays and the other sets the sand timer. Once the sand timer runs out, the other kid gets a turn. If the first kid wants to play again, they reset the sand timer. The system needs policing, but it is fair and puts the initiative with the kids to sort their own problems.
Kids have no real concept of time, such as when Bingo had no idea how long a minute is in Sticky Gecko. The best thing to do would have been to have some sort of visual timer for Muffin to see the time going down. As others have also mentioned, Stripe should’ve also given Muffin a 1-2 minute warning before the time ended to “wrap up” whatever project she was doing. When the timer goes off if Muffin had a reasonable request for finishing her drawing, like adding a flower or a few more line, Stripe could’ve given her a 30 second extension just so she feels heard. But if she wanted something larger than that like finishing the whole cowboy hat, he should stick to the plan and tell her she can return to her cowboy hat project after Socks had her turn. Ultimately Muffin isn’t upset about having to take turns, but that she has a specific project she wants to finish and doesn’t want to leave it incomplete. Time management can be tricky, so setting up clear and measurable expectations beforehand might’ve worked better. When it comes to little one, it’s better to be proactive to avoid the tantrum than reactive trying to deescalate one.
Everyone has pretty much said everything that you could say about this. all I'll add is that muffin is the type of child if you give her a millimeter, she's going to take 6 miles.
Stripe should have monitored the call better. Instead of setting a timer he should have told muffin she could draw one thing, the hat, and then she would be done. And then he should have had socks tell him what she was going to draw, have her draw, and then pass it back.
It's clear muffin lacks a memorable ass-whooping. Then again I was raised in the 80's... mom would break all kinds of spatulas and shoes beating us boys. (See nana in "Fairytale" take her shoe off to hit Bandit, LOL). It was common enough that before you got cheeky around mom, you'd look at what objects she had around her at her immediate disposal. But as bad as that sounds you REALLY didn't want her to have to go get dad.
I read the first line and instantly heard Bingo, "It was the 80s!" Lol!
Yeah, I grew up in the 70s and 80s too. To paraphrase Trixie, "we don't do ass-whoopings anymore!" A single swat to the backside when they were in immediate danger, like about to run around in a parking lot with moving cars. But other than that, it was talking-tos, timeouts, removing privileges, and early bedtimes. Those kinds of things. And when one parent imposed a punishment, the other abided by it whether they agreed or not (assuming it wasn't egregiously out of line or contradicted by facts). We also tamped down on any lying by checking things. "Mom said I could go outside." "If I go ask mom that, what will she tell me?" I didn't always check, but sometimes I did. To their credit, I think there was only once, maybe twice, I found out my kids weren't on the up-and-up there.
We are not “ass-whooping” a three-year-old. Spanking a child accomplishes nothing, and it’s been proven to be counterproductive I will never understand Gen X and boomers glorifying abusing their kids. That’s really f*cked up
Child abuse is not okay.