This is easy enough one so no examples for you to relate to. We all know if we are hungry we are hangry. Hence be prepared with snacks all the time, especially when you go to your child’s favorite place like a park.
However the real trick to avoid at all costs using snack as a bribe. NEVER, I repeat, NEVER say, ‘hey if you come now, I will give you a snack’. That is a bribe and trust me, bribe will backfire soon. You will have to keep up-ing your bribe every so often, and bribe stops working soon.
Instead just state the natural sequence of upcoming events. ‘Hey after 10 rounds of slide, we are leaving the park and go have snack in car and then drive home okay?’
Or ‘Hey after 10 rounds of slide, we are leaving the park and go have snack in car and then go get groceries okay?’
Young, newbie toddlers are always hungry – at-least they are hungry every 2-3 hrs. Hence the brief mention of snacks will bring them to quick attention and mostly they will follow you (or after they are done with their 10 rounds sometimes). They have something to look forward to while they leave the park and that makes the transition easier for them.
Having a snack is also really useful when you need to run a quick grocery errand, kid might happily sit in cart snacking while you run around to get necessities in 10 mins or less 😅 Trust me, moms of toddlers can win Olympics hands down 😂
Note that you need to have real balance too. The snack trick is really temporary and use it for newbie toddlers (and sometimes for older toddlers) and use it sparsely- when you really need to get out and nothing else is working.
And every once a while, try to get your toddler to listen, without a snack – otherwise your toddler will get used to the routine of – ‘I will get in car only for snack’ – which is hard to break off once it is formed.
PS:
Try to avoid driving while kid is snacking for safety reasons. Plan your exit time accordingly so that you have time to allow kid to finish snack before driving.
Nice ! good work