Negotiations

At some point in her development, Raina learned to negotiate. It is completely a consequence of how we interact with her. For instance, she may want cheese but we'll counter with a banana and, if she eats that, then she can have cheese. We used this process to get her to do what we wanted her to do: eat her green beans, pick up her toys, poop in the potty, etc. Unfortunately, she has learned that every interaction is a possible negotiation, and she is a willing initiator of proceedings. We may say "go put on your shoes," and she'll immediately counter with "I'm playing with these toys and THEN I'll put on my shoes." Our demands of "NOW, Raina!" don't speed up the process at all, unless she gets something as well. Okay, so it's not as disastrous as I make it out to be. It could be worse:

A friend of mine has a daughter who informed her preschool classmates, "if you don't get what you want, then you just need to scream louder!" My friend was quite mortified when her daughter's teacher shared the story. Thankfully, Raina's negotiations rarely involve screaming.