Julie Stauffer

My Zach is a world champion arguer, persistence personified, gonna do it my
way or die trying kind of kid. I love him truly and deeply but could pinch
his head off about half the time. Something that has helped is to get him
to brainstorm ideas. Example from yesterday:

I am taking Zach and Adriane to meet their grandparents half-way between our
homes so they can spend the week with them. Two older cousins are also
meeting so 6 people and their luggage will be riding for over 5 hours
crammed into my parents' car to get back to the Texas panhandle. Zach
wanted to take all kinds of stuff with him, baseball bat, raquetball stuff,
scooter, his own blanket and pillow, etc.. I pointed out about space
considerations and said he would need to leave stuff behind. He argued and
argued, huffed around, I got mad. Finally, I caught myself and pointing out
the problem, asked him how he would solve it. He suggested using the
suitcase as a limit....after he had packed his clothes, he could fill the
remaining room with his choice of stuff but could only take what could fit
in the suitcase.

Made perfect sense to me and worked like a charm. He was happy...I was
happy...hopefully, nobody was too crowded on the ride to Granny's house.

Julie