You’re bluffing, right?

My seven-year old granddaughter did not want to go to bed the night she stayed at my house. The clock and her tired whine said that she needed sleep.
I listened for a moment to her whiny protest, looked at the clock and then at her. “You can cry and whine as loud as you want – for one more minute and then that’s it. If you do not stop at the end of the minute you will lose a privilege. It is your responsibility to go to bed so you can enjoy the privileges and fun tomorrow. If you do not take care of your responsibility, you will lose a privilege.”
Still whining, the child looked at me in disbelief. I ticked off 10, 20, 30 seconds and warned her that she would have 20 more seconds before she lost a privilege – one that she really wanted.
“You really don’t want to find out what privilege you are going to lose,” I assured her.
The pitch of her whine lowered, her rhythm slowed a bit. I counted down the last 10 seconds. She enjoyed her whine until nearly the last second, settled onto the bed and was quiet.
“Okay. You still have all your privileges for tomorrow. Now just lay there and be quiet. That’s all you have to do to keep them.”
I turned out the light, stepped out of the room and went to the kitchen where my husband was sitting at the counter.
“And what would you have done if she had kept on crying?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted with a rueful grin, “but I would have figured it out. A lot of this job is just bluffing one’s way along. I have had my bluff called a couple times before a child realized I meant what I said.”
I went to check on the child. She was asleep.
She is not the only one confronted with a choice in behavior.
I heard recently of an 11 year-old boy who tested his mom’s mandate that he had to turn in all of his homework. Sometimes even homework done at home under his mother’s tutelage failed to reach his teacher’s desk.
Exasperated with her son’s willful forgetfulness, his mother sought to capture his attention. Taking into account that he would post a “No Girlz Allowed” sign outside a clubhouse with his friends, she went to the store and purchased a very feminine pink T-shirt. As her son watched, she decorated it with the message “It’s my choice. I can either hand in my homework, or wear this shirt.”
Fear and trepidation filled his heart. This was one bluff he did NOT want to call. His forgetfulness improved. Homework reached the teacher’s desk – except for one assignment, that he was sure he had turned in.
His mother took the T-shirt off the hangar, anyway.
He pled with his mother to not to make him wear the shirt. She relented – a bit. If his teacher would agree to a make-up assignment, he would not have to wear the shirt. “You have to have a grade reflecting work done,” she insisted.
The kid missed a few meetings of the “Boyz Only” club, skipped a couple recesses and stayed after school to get the grade, but he didn’t have to wear the pink T-shirt.
At the time, he probably thought, as did my tired grandchild, that he had lost. It will take him a few years, to realize that ultimately he wins. He learned to hand-in his work in a timely manner – a skill which will hold him in good stead for a long time.