That 4 year old girl manipulated me!?

Long story, please read and let me know who you think was at fault:





Last night, girl really wanted to go to the park at the school behind our house. so when girl asked during dinner, it took me a minute to decide what to do. She of course began berating me about it, so I told her, ';Maybe we can go to the park after dinner. I'll think about it.'; It was shortly thereafter that I realized my daughter is a manipulative genius.





The dinner conversation after that,went from talk about the daily grind at work, to who was doing baths and who was doing dishes, to what the kids needed for day-care tomorrow. This week is recycleables week at day-care, so each day the kids need to bring in a different item to recycle by turning it into some art project. Today, they needed to bring in a newspaper. We don't generally read newspapers, so we didn't have any. Wife and I were discussing who/when we would go get a newspaper. Would I run to the store while wife gave the kids baths? Maybe wife would take the kids to the park, and while they were there, I could go get the paper?





There 4 year old girl began her silver-tongued control of the conversation. She started with misdirection. She started asking a million questions, initially rehashing what had already been discussed. ';Daddy, are you going to get the paper?'; ';When are you going?'; ';Miss Colleen has extra stuff so when kids forget, she has stuff for them.'; ';The other day, Marissa didn't have a milk jug, so Miss Colleen gave her one.'; Then, after a brief pause, when our minds were already reeling from the information overload, she blurted out, ';When Mommy takes us to the park, could you just go to the store and get a newspaper then?';





It's subtle, but notice how she took the ';maybe'; that I gave her in the beginning, and matter-of-factly turned it into a definite, when she said ';when';. She also ended the statement with a yes or no question. She was like a lawyer at trial, asking a presumably innocent question, but partnering it with an assumption that she was trying to make everyone else believe. If I had answered ';yes'; that I could do that, I would also have been answering ';yes'; to going to the park. Amazed, I carefully answered, ';We'll see.';





Unfazed, she smoothly, flawlessly shifted her offensive to wife, again relying heavily on the misdirection.





';Mommy took us to the park last time, right Mommy.';





';Uh-huh,'; Wife replied pushing around some food on her plate.





';Remember we played on the swings?';





';Yup,'; Wife replied not looking up from her plate.





';So can we do that again tonight?'





';Uh-huh.';





I was AMAZED. Girl had just pulled the old trick/joke:


';What do you put on your pillow?';


';Head.';


';What do you sleep on at night?';


';Bed.';


';What do you take out of a toaster?';


';Bread.';


';No, toast, silly!';





On hearing Wife's last ';uh-uh';, daughter lit up. She started babbling, all excited. Wife still wasn't quite listening. I called to her, ';woman鈥oman!'; to kind of snap her out of it. She did, and I had to explain to her that she just agreed to take the kids to the park. She quickly corrected daughter, and informed her that she had not realized what she had said.





This is what I think: Adults can get away with giving ambiguous answers like ';maybe'; then follow up with conversation as to what that maybe would be, gettingthe kid's hopes high (it's a 4 year old we are talking about) then turn around and blame the kid for assuming you would do what you said you MAY do. Which I think it's pretty cruel





Not only that, the mom did say yes and then wen't back on her word saying ';she wasn't paying attention'; if you crashed your car and you excuse was that ';you weren't paying attention'; how would that fly?





I think the kid did learn a lesson here and it was not to get her hopes high and not to trust adults.That 4 year old girl manipulated me!?
Kids are good at manipulation. I also believe that when they hear 'maybe' they process it as 'yes'. I try not to give a maybe answer. I try to give a yes or a no, so that there's no arguments later.That 4 year old girl manipulated me!?
You've got yourself a future litigator on your hands. Start saving up for Law school now.
Haha damn smart kid i think she got the best of ya ';mom'; don't feel bad i think its a good thing for a kid to show a bit of manipulation it will help him/her in the Future ya know when life stabs you in the back and you got to chest your way to the top. im only 16 life has not done that to me yet but i am expecting it to hehe
My daughter surprised me one day. She asked if we could get some treat or other when we went shopping. I said ';We'll see.'; She replied ';That always means no.'; Kids are smarter than we give them credit for being.





I have since explained to her that I don't always know if I can honour her requests. I don't want to say no, and disappoint her, and I don't want to say yes, and find out I can't, and then disappoint her, and also be branded as a liar. We'll see means exactly that.





I think your girl's parents need to listen when she is talking. The parents were at fault.





Also, buying a newspaper just so your child can take it for a craft project seems to defeat the purpose of recycling, don't ya think!
I did read the entire thing....I have dealt with kids just like that while babysitting, and all I can say is that you need to (kind of) break their spirit at times (not their spirit as in their happiness...just their willingness to manipulate. You need to nip it in the bud). For your daughter's sake, be more firm with her and remind her who the parent is, or it will become a life-long thing. You are here to mold her into an accepting person. She needs to be more accepting and less manipulative or life is going to suck for her- but you have plenty of time to change this behavior because she is so young. Good luck, I'm sure she will be fine!
It sounds like your daughter is destined to be a lawyer and make her mommy proud.