Just about everything I've read and/or been told about parenting is that establishing routines are good for kids. It gives them a sense of consistency and they take comfort in knowing what is going to happen next. When my daughter was younger, I really took that to heart and we still follow a routine each day.
But what happens when the routine turns on you?
Before we moved, each night my daughter would get her dessert, go to the bathroom, brush her teeth, get her PJs on, get a book read to her and then it was lights out. I'd say 90% of the time she did it without much hassle.
Post-move it's been another situation entirely. She fights going to the bathroom. She dawdles picking out her PJs. She mulls over her book selection like her very life may depend on reading "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" instead of "Dear Zoo". And then there's the questions. What's the weather tomorrow? What are we doing? and so on. I went so far as to institute a three question maximum as part of our routine so that she can't suck me in to staying in her room longer than necessary.
I don't know what my next move is. Do I make a new routine and hope that it breaks the bad behavior and risk it upsetting her "comfort"? Do I stick to what we know and suck up her being a pain?
Ah the mundane yet critical decisions of parenting...
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