Dear Mom tickling is a motivator

Dear Mom tickling is a motivator.

Claire went through a stage where she decided to stop using words. Ummm. Ughhh. Ahhh ahhh ahhh. And a finger pointing at something was all I got. I had seen other parents go through this and there were lots of responses, like “use your words.” Or “tell me what you want.” It has always been obvious to me this is not the issue at all. The kid knows how to say it they just don’t want to. This is a battle of wills you either give in or beat your head against the wall while you kid teases you with guttural noises. So when Claire started doing this I would say, “Oh you want to be tickled?” Then started tickling her frantically. No matter what the unintelligible word was, to me it always meant “Tickle me!” She would be forced to either resign the fact she was going to be tickled incessantly or she would say “NO, NO, I meant give me that!” Worked like a charm. Not that it did not come with an occasional gratuitous grunt for the express purpose of getting a little tickling, as a general rule it worked, and it worked far better than the head to head confrontations I saw other parents going through.

This morning Claire was sitting on my lap before school. I was waiting for the time to leave and we were going over colors.

“How do you make green?” I asked.
“Blue and yellow!” she exclaimed.
“Very good, now how do you make aquamarine?”
“I don’t know.” She offered.
“What do you mean you don’t know, of course you know what colors go together to make aquamarine?”
“Give me a hint?” she said.
“Okay what color to do you add to green to get aquamarine.”
“Yellow?”
“No that’s not it.” I said as I tickled her and she giggled uncontrollably.
“Red?”
“No, that’s not it.” I said again, and again tickling her as she giggled.
“Orange?”
“No, you know what color it takes, what is it?” I did not tickle her this time, I felt it was time to actually verify she knew what color I was looking for.

She did not answer, “DAD you are supposed to tickle me.” She demanded.
And there was her game. I started tickling her, “What color do you add to green to make aquamarine?” She was giggling uncontrollably. I tickled more , “What color do you add to green to make aquamarine?” She was still giggling and moving into that territory where it was almost too much laughter. “Stop, Dad stop.” She pleaded. “Tell me what color!” I said. She was not giving up yet, “just stop dad stop!” her laughter had now moved into a running laugh, squeal that she could not control, every part of her body was a trigger to bring more laughter. “BLUE,” she shouted, “BLUE AND GREEN MAKE AQUAMARINE!” I stopped tickling her. As she sat beside me squeezed into the office chair I asked her, “What does green and yellow make?” She giggled a bit either left over from the previous assault or anticipation for the next one. I dangled my hand menacingly in front of her. She giggled uncontrollably holding her hands in front of her guardedly. “Chartreuse!” she shouted “Green and yellow make chartreuse!”

The rest of the color wheel proceeded without incident.

Love Mike