But I don't WANNA have healthcare!!

There is an art to getting what you want. Children are masters of it intuitively, and invoke a special set of rules when faced with parents asking them to do something they don’t want to do (like bathing). First there’s the bargaining, seeing if maybe we can wait a little longer…delay, delay, delay. That’s not working, so then we escalate to simple refusal. This usually takes the form of saying “NONONONONONO” as a sort of prayer of warding.  Not working…Mommy still wants to make me eat my vegetables!  Now the child escalates to screaming, crying, and other general noise-making (protests?) in the hopes that maybe the parent will be persuaded to just appease the child to shut them up. These may take the form of hyperbole about how the parent is oppressing them (“you hate me”, “you’re ruining my life”, “you’re killing America”). This doesn’t work either, for the resolute parent, they know that eventually, children must take their medicine for their own good, and persist despite their angry cries. What is the final tantrum tactic? Combine all of the above with plain old body weight. Drop to the ground, and make the parent either carry or drag you to where they want you to go. Continue reading »