My 3 year old son is really resting his boundaries. They don’t call them three-nagers for nothing. Every time I’m asking him to do something, he has to ponder whether to follow the ask or not. Fun times.

Recently, I’ve been doing the countdown when I really need to. I don’t threaten any type of action afterwards if I ever get to 3 (and I haven’t gotten there yet). I just start counting…slowly. For whatever reason, it works. The other day, I was asking him to go potty before bedtime. He was running around and decided not to pay attention to my ask. Not only was he getting riled up before bedtime, but he was also not listening.

I started the count…1…2…and then in a blaze he ran into the bathroom. It’s pretty shocking that it works and I guess it may be something that is used frequently at daycare (so it triggers a reflex?), but whatever it driving the adjustment towards listening…I’m all for it.