DAWDLING (and general misbehaviour) in toddlers - how much do you put up with?

[snowleopard]

This is kind of AIBU as well... I don't like dawdling. I'm happy for DS to explore/mess about if we're not actually headed from A to B - but when we are he knows he has to move it. A bit is OK, I'll let him walk along walls, stop to pick a dandelion clock etc. but not more than a minute or two's delay.

But I have several friends who we do stuff with, who let their kids stop still on the pavement and arse around, run off in the other direction, stop to climb on a wall etc to such a degree that it can literally take half an hour to get along a 200-yard street. It drives me bananas! Just standing there trying to amuse DS, waiting for their child to decide to come along in the right direction, no pressure from the parents whatsoever.

But now I'm starting to wonder if it's me who's too anal and shouldn't be hurrying DS along so much. I'm such a bleeding-heart liberal and I thought my problem with parenting would be that I'd be too namby-pamby and not strict enough. I'm starting to wonder if I'm actually on the stricter end of the spectrum.

(This kind of taps into a whole other thing about people generally not expecting decent behaviour and a reasonable amount of compliance out of their 2/3-yos which I am constantly raising my eyebrows at like a miserable old schoolmarm. Things like letting your child walk into someone else's garden and start kicking the flowers, which happened to my friend recently - parents just would not tell the child no. Or child refusing to get off swing to give someone else a turn, so parent just crumples and lets them have another 10 mins. Aaaarrgh!)

Want to know court of MN's opinion and whether anyone else gets annoyed by this.

Or a I a DM-esque killjoy?

umm

why don't you just agree to meet them there next time and you can go at whatever speed you like

my DS is a terrible dawdler (sp), but that is just his way, i do get stressed when i walk with other people who do not seem as patient. But if he is dawdling loads I will make him hold my hand or put reins on, he would just disappear otherwise.However he sleeps so much better after a good long dawdle that it is a very important part of my day. I used to go for walks with a friend but I have not heard from her for a while so think she is fed up of the dawdling, so I will have to find something else to do with her. My DS is 3 and DD 18mths and now she does some walking too the pace is even slower.

Crikey, I am a hurrier, adn now I feel bad about it. But then if dd2 is allowed on the reins she is sooooooooooo slow, but then she IS only 22 mths old and I am an old shrew but I just resent having to wait for 5 mins while she SITS in hte middle of the street refusing to move, if she were sniffing flowers instead of sitting on someone's old gum maybe I wouldn't mind so much

Buggy if in a rush - otherwise set out early and let them dawdle.

Buggy for major rush.

Dawdle at their pace if possible.

Loads and loads of inbetween situations, I use imagination to get a compromise - we can look at two flowers, then we hvae to walk as far as that tree, for example. Or we are fairies that have to hide from the goblin as quick as we can, or I am a dog and dd1 is walking me, and I'm in a hurry to get to the park to pee. Or I give dd2 (19 mos) an old paper cup and tell her we have to water that next tree, then the next, then the next...

No wonder dd1 got a pre-school report saying she was 'an imaginative storyteller', poor child has been manipulated since about 15 months onwards

Dawdling is annoying, but it's what they do. I guess our rush to get some activity is to them a big adventure with lots of interesting things to look at.

I agree with the others, use a buggy or make a game out of running. My sons like stepping on each other's shadows.

Thank you for this post - I now feel vaguely normal!!!

I have been having the same wrestle with my conscience...I seem to be CONTINUALLY telling my 2.8 dd to hurry up, stop messing about, we're going to be late etc.....and it's been really getting to me - but I know part of it is my fault!

I know I can be extremely impatient - BUT she dawdles and messes about when I'm trying to get out the door - won't put shoes on etc & takes forever to clamber into her carseat and we have to go thro this tedious routine of 'Quick, get in your chair before the policeman comes and tells mummy off cos I can't drive you about unless you're in chair' to which she enquires of the whereabouts of the policeman and I pretend he's round the corner or up the tree or something......it drives me insane!!

I'm really trying to ease up a bit cos I think my impatience is starting to rub off on her as she's started to roll her eyes and say 'Come on, cars' when we are stuck in a traffic jam - chip off the old block, or what!!

I think I'm going to adopt the attitude of easing up when I'm not in too much of a hurry - as some have said, to a toddler the world is there to be explored...but a firm foot will be down when I'm in a hurry! At the end of the day, I know I AM impatient, and I don't want her to be the same....my Dad is terribly impatient and I get it from him as I remember him always hurrying us up as kids...he still does it now to my poor mum - if he needed to be at the end of the road by 3.00, he would leave the house at midday and still be in a rush to get there on time!!!