Why threaten consequences that you don't want to give

Tomorrow I am planning on taking the kids to a dinosaur museum. It's a discount day there and those are few and far between. With a gazillion little ones it really does save to wait for days like this. D behaved very well today knowing he wanted to go. T had a good violin lesson because he wanted to go. Then, tonight I told S that she needed to go in and stay in her bed or she wouldn't be going with us to the museum. She got out of her bed and started playing. Now of course I told her that if she didn't get enough sleep she would be cranky and well, I really thought she would obey. She was yawning after all.

So now my quandary. I really don't want to leave her with a sitter. I had chosen to piggyback the museum trip with a trip to the dentist for T. Do you know how much it's going to cost me to leave her with a sitter for five hours. And really, do you know how much fun she would have with a fun teenager for that many hours. Yep, that's right. She would have loads of fun and someone with a smile to listen to incessant chatter. But do I pay even more if I go back on my word.

My thought right now is to take her and not let her do anything. She can sit on the side and watch. But I don't know. I might be making a huge mistake if I do that.

Either way it's not right. Why does she do this? I just can't figure her out. She has to be one of the most noncompliant children I have ever seen. And she's so dang cute as she acts that way. She can fool just about anyone. She knows when to say the right answers. Everything is, "Maybe tomorrow I can try to do better." The problem is that she really just wants you off her case. Well, that, and she wants to keep talking. So then you feel horrible for doing what all the parenting classes tell you to do. You ignore that because she's just trying to get more attention adn all the classes say that to a kid negative attention is better than no attention. So, as the parent, you feel like crap because you are ignoring your kid. And I really think the kid in the case knows it. If I did things my way I would talk and reason with her and just make her see why she wants to be good. In the end, she is like most kids. She knows exactly what she is done wrong. She doesn't need an explanation. And well, she knows that the second she is punished she should start screaming about needing to go potty (because that will make most parents think at least for a second). She still really thinks she is in control. The therapist says it's a really hard cycle to break in kids. He said the fight or flight response starts kids thinking this way and they just have such a difficult time getting out of it.

So what do the parents do to help a kid get out of the cycle. They set limits. They discipline without emotion even when they want to scream (okay, that would be me not my DH).

Speaking of discipline, S got to change into zipper jammies as part of her consequence. I then slipped when talking to DH and said something like, "I guess she can go back to bed now." And then DH reminded me she had to go back to timeout on the paint can. I told her to go back to her can and she said to me, "Actually Mom, it's your paint can."

I walked out of the room and just giggled to myself. She's hilarious and so sharp (and adorable to boot).

How can we get her to make good decisions? UGH! And this is at three. What will we ever do when she is a teen if we can't get her to do the right thing now.