To take DD home from playground because she wouldn't do her coat up

[Toomuchtooyoung01]

DD 3.5yrs refusing to let me do her coat up as she wanted to show everyone in the playground her new dress. (Several people had commented on it on our way in).
After several times telling her that I needed to do her coat up and explaining why (because its cold) and her refusing, I said we were going home (again, explained lots of times we would go home if she wouldnt do her coat up).
DD hysterically crying all the way back to the car and back home.
Am I out of order for taking her home?

My 6 year old still insists on wearing shorts to school. It’s up to him, if he decides he’s cold he’ll ask for trousers.

I'd have left her too it but don't feel guilty op, we all make mistakes, or think after how we should have done it different. I get especially nervous if I feel watched/ judged by others which will then make me act differently, one I can think of very recently at the park. it's done now. she can go to the park tomorrow.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Don't feel bad OP. It's a slightly harsh punishment in this instance but actually I agree with a pp that in principle children need to learn that grownups know best and that they often need to do things they do not want to do.

My DS has form for refusing to dress warmly enough then getting chillblains etc. No, the natural consequence doesnt take effect because he is not old enough to link the appearance of the chillblains much later on with getting cold in the park.

I do have to impose gloves etc for his own good.

Exacty. I know plenty of parents who’d let their 12 month old go outside in a pushchair without socks gloves or even a coat in this weather to make their lives easier. I’m not one of them. If that makes me harsh and stupid like a lot of posters are suggesting OP is then so be it.

ITA with bridgetjonesmassivepants.

Pick your battles. DS wouldn't wear a coat to secondary school. He always had a winter coat of his choice, which I ended up giving away unworn to a friend with boys. On a school trip to Russia in February, the teachers had to tell him he could not go out of the hotel, dressed in a t shirt and jeans when it was minus 14! (I had bought him a woollen coat, balaclava, gloves and scarf especially for the trip).

Even now, he prefers there to be no central heating on in the winter, although he does agree to it for the sake of his wife and small children.

I don't think it's up to anyone but the child to decide whether their coat is done up, assuming that they are over three years and NT. It's the same with whether to wear a jumper or socks in the house.

Some children would feel hot and uncomfortable running around with their coat done up in even very cold weather. Others find the feeling of being restricted frustrating. I know one child who just doesn't like being in that many layers and would choose cold over a coat any day.

If the child leaves their coat open and gets cold, they can ask for it to be done up then or the adult might notice, offer and, when it's done up, they feel more comfortable. That natural consequence teaches them and contibutes to their future decision-making. Either way they learn to listen to their own body and make the decisions that help them feel comfortable.

Of course, as you'd said she had to go home if she wouldn't have it done up, you had to follow through but I hope you'll let her make that decision for herself in the future.

Sleep deprivation contributed to a difficult situation but, if it prompts you to work out that she should be allowed to control whether her coat is done up in the future, something good will have come of it.

YABU - she doesn't do her coat = she gets cold. Natural consequences. Not worth your worrying imo

Maybe. But there might also come a point where they do as you say because they understand that it is because you said it. What I am teaching my child is that I am the parent, she is the child. She isn’t the one who decides what’s petty.

My parents parented like that as well. We had to do what they said regardless of whether it made sense or not. And if we didn't do as we were told (this being the 70s) we got smacked. It made me into a compliant child (to avoid getting smacked) but it didn't endear me to my parents with whom I no longer have a close relationship and left me with issues as an adult (I was scared to make a decision in case it was the wrong one).

I do think before you tell a child to do something you need to think "why"? If you're telling them to do something because it's the way you think they should behave but there's not actually a reason for it, then perhaps you should question why you want them to do it?

It would hardly of killed her to have her coat undone for the short time she was in the playground. Kids usually run around a lot and feel the cold less than us anyway but the cold is not what makes us ill unless below freezing.

You could have told her people would have seen her new dress after she took her coat off indoors anyway. Best to persuade her that having a new dress is not a big deal and drawing attention to things is showing off. However she's only little.

It was a bit OTT to take her home!

Autocorrect in first sentence. I would never have put 'of' instead of 'have' and am furious.

Surely if she's cold she'll do up her coat? Why worry?

Probably not a battle worth having in future, but YANBU for following through with what you said and taking her home this time.

Well done Op. You gave her several chances and she didn't comply so you took action. Most importantly you followed through. After the fact these issues may seem small but you were asking her to do something for her own health and safety. Even if it was a minor thing. As a pp has said already as parents children depend on us to give them what they need. I don't think you should beat yourself up over this. I think you made the right call.

I think children need to have boundaries and know that you will follow through. Next time you tell her to do something she will listen and next time it could be something like not to run into a road or not to touch something dangerous.

She's old enough to understand about clothes and hot and cold and that.

I was and still am a radiator. My mum feels the cold. She always made me wear layers and have it all done up and I can remember from really small just being too too hot all the time. It's a horrible feeling.

Once my children were old enough I let them decide - I'd say it's cold wear a coat/ do it up. No I get too hot. Ok fine.

One likes to have layers and be snuggled, she feels the cold a bit. The other is a radiator. She wore socks to school through winter from when I thought she was definitely old enough to decide- about 8 maybe. I felt uncomfortable thinking God people will think I've not dressed her properly esp in proper winter. But my feeling like that is less uncomfortable than being trapped in over hot uncomfy clothes all day, a feeling I remember well.

So you ABU. she is a person she was running about i mean really?

I saved it for brushing teeth/ not running off etc ie the important things.

I can remember a battle to get my DD into her pushchair - she wanted to walk I wanted her to sit in it. So in the middle of WH Smith’s we had the mother of all battles with her kicking off and going rigid and me sweating cobs trying to get her in. I can remember my DH turning up and me flouncing off going “ here you do it”. Next time I see them my DH is pushing the pushchair and she is walking beautifully next to him holding on nicely. I was annoyed I can tell you. God alone knows what was going through my head. I have no idea why I subjected both of us and the good people of WH Smith’s to that. You probably overreacted OP - mostly kids are impervious to the kind of cold we get in the U.K. We’ve probably all done something that we look back on with some befuddlement but we’re all human.

Sorry, just read your update we all overreact at times. Others chatting about kids not feeling the cold, DS never did. Wouldn't wear a coat, t-shirt in the cold weather out playing etc until he was a teenager. Now, any draughts, cold breezes he's like an elderly woman with the amount of layers he wants on! Quite amusing really.

It probably doesn't matter if it was cold, what matters is you told her what would happen and you followed through. Was it the right battle? Who knows, I pick stupid battles each day, it's hard to pick a threat you want to follow through! Whatever some may say!

@WitchFindersAreEverywhere

You gave her a choice, hopefully calmly and clearly. You gave her a reason for you wanting her to do up her coat. You followed through.

What do you think will happen next time you want her to do something she doesn’t want to, and you go through the same steps?

Sounds like reasonable parenting to me.

Yep I think it’s fine. I pick and choose my moments with my 3.5 year old but sometimes you just have to go through with the threat or they don’t learn.

It’s more than the actual situation (ie the coat)....it’s about teaching them they sometimes do in fact need to do as they’re told

You let her wear her new dress. How unkind and silly to make this a cattle. Children often don't feel the cold.

RedskyAtnight

I don’t smack my child. She has to do as I say because I am the adult and have better judgement about what is safe and healthy and kind. As she gets older, my explanations will become more lengthy and she will have more leeway. For the moment, she does as she is told because I said so.

Sometimes they just have to do as they're told and once you've said it you have to mean it, but this isn't a battle I'd have picked. If she was cold she have done it up.

Don't feel bad op. Parenting isn’t always easy.
Just remember that when your dc are grown up you’ll never regret being too soft but you will regret being too hard.
Your dd will have forgotten all about it by tomorrow.

@Toomuchtooyoung01

I feel bloody awful now. She hasn't been listening to a word I say recently and everything is negotiation and multiple requests/explanations and thsi coupled with sleep deprivation of her baby brother who is up all night every night and I think in hindsight I lost it a bit when I shouldn't have done.

Pick your battles. Let the rest go. She won't freeze and if she did, she'd let you do up her coat.

You’re not being unreasonable. Never threaten something you’re not prepared to carry out, ie, if you don’t fasten your coat, we’re going home. We once went to the seaside and ended up coming home after about ten minutes as child was being a knobhead.

Honestly, give yourself a break. You’ve got a non sleeper and a threenager - that is a testing combo.

I issued warnings/ultimatums I then had to see through. I think it’s best to be consistent - everyone knows kids who run riot while their mum weakly bleats at them to stop and issued threats that the kids knows they won’t carry through. Don’t be that mum. Eventually you start to think ‘is this the hill I want to die on? Or will I just put the heater on when we get back in the car/offer to race them home to warm them up’ Tomorrow’s a new day, start over.