Manipulation works....But......

Franki says no to pretty much everything these days and we’ve discovered a way to “coerce” her into saying yes.  That’s right, you’ve got it!  We’re manipulating our child into doing what we want, and we know it.   And we love it! ;) We discovered it innocently, you know, just like you discover any other way to manipulate people to get what you want… ;0  .  Her bedtime routine includes reading books and the other night, she was saying “no” to every book we presented.  So I picked one up and said, “you don’t want to read this book, do you”?  Her first response was a definite, “no”.  I asked her again, this time she replied with a very clear “yes”!  So Jack and I sort of chuckled to each other and he went ahead and read the book.  When it came to reading another book, I once again addressed Franki with, “you don’t want to read this book do you”?  And of course, she said, “yes”!  When it came to the third book, the same thing happened.   So seeing that I had accidentally sprung onto something, I decided to apply my new-found guile the next morning when it was time to get dressed.  Rather than my usual, “what do you want to wear today”, or “let’s wear this!”, I was instead inspired to, “Franki, you don’t want to wear this, do you”?  And it worked!  It worked like magic…she said yes to everything I presented her with.   So now what?!?  Do I continue to ask her questions in a way that I know she’ll agree with what I want?  If I do, am I “training” her into being contradictory to everyone and everything?  I don’t really know the answer to that, and our little “experiment” was fun and it really showed me once again that this little girl wants to feel like she is making the decisions in her life; and it also confirmed to me that in no way do I want to manipulate her or anyone, into pleasing me.  She already knows she has a choice and she already knows that she wasn’t born to please me and I’m going to continually encourage her to follow her own inspiration to what feels best and what is desirable to her.