Or what would you have done, rather ... I know it's trivial in the scheme of things, but had a horrible situation with DD (7) yesterday. We were getting in the car to drive to a country park, she wouldn't put her wellies on as her siblings had done, but insisted on wearing her trainers. Recently she's been finding excuses not to wear her wellies, and wearing her trainers instead in all sorts of unsuitable muddy places and bringing them home a filthy wreck. I've had enough of this - she's not the one who has to clean them.
I said she could wear her trainers in the car but we needed to bring her wellies to wear in the park as it would be muddy. I don't think she really responded at this point, which was probably where the whole thing went wrong - I didn't get express agreement from her beforehand ... Anyway, cue arriving in the park, damp muddy day, and she refused point blank to put on the wellies. I explained that I wasn't prepared to wash muddy trainers yet again, shortening their life, when she has perfectly good wellies. We all wanted to get out of the car and into the park, including her, and I was urging her to think about it and do the right thing. I know she knew that by taking the wellies with us, that meant I expected her to wear them in the park. I tried to establish why she didn't want to wear them - made her legs uncomfortable, apparently, so I suggested getting long thick knee socks to avoid this, but she wouldn't agree to this either. In the end we turned round and drove home. I was calm with her and didn't shout, but made it clear what I expected her to do. But the day obviously didn't end well.
So I think I messed up, and I'm just looking for opinions/advice thrown into the ring here, really, on what I should have done instead without using bribes, punishments, rewards etc. Also, do you lovely UP people know of any dedicated forums for UP/AP parents? Thank you!! 
For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.
Parenting
Unconditional parenting peeps - WWYD in this situation?
substitutemycokeforgin · 11/02/2013 16:21
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
Hang on, here you go, clearly why you bought your son a new coat! 
"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."
Hello, I made the mistake of going out to the gym earlier this evening and the thread seems to have continued a little bit in my absence 
How remiss of me.
Hm, I didn't really want a debate about the virtues or otherwise of UP and apologise for posting something a tad inflammatory back in the far reaches of the thread, if that may have contributed to things kicking off. But they probably would have, anyway!
I'm not thrilled that we came home from the park and definitely feel I could have handled it better. Although we were in the middle of a big car park I guess I could've moved the car next to a patch of green and turfed the other DC out to play on it for 5 mins, in the hope that DD would catch up with herself and decide to do the welly thing. That's the kind of idea I didn't think of in the moment.
But whoever said that she won ... how is it winning, turning around and heading home from the park she was looking forward to playing in?! Nobody "won" yesterday. Lesson learned, will store it all up for next time.
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