Reverse Psychology

As a mom I am very familiar with the concept of reverse psychology because it is one of the tools I use every day in dealing with educating my children.  I am sure you are familiar with the scenerio.  As soon as you act as though you don't want your children to do something they are immediately interested in doing it.

Take for example the exchange between S'ghetti girl and I when I wanted her to participate in a summer camp at the local college.

About to throw papers from school in the trash S'ghetti girl says, "This is just junk about a summer camp.  I don't want to do it."

I take the application and it read.  I said, "Oh.  That's good!"

"Why?" S'ghetti asks.

"Because it is 9 to 12 each day.  That's really hard to working moms to coordinate.  Humm.  That explorer day looked interesting."  I said

"Well, I did think that there were three days that looked fun.  Do you think I could go?"  suddenly she seems interested.

We go over the topic for each day and S'ghetti girl now finds each day interesting and even thinks she can teach the teacher on the computer related day.

"I'll call Gram B and see if she could pick you up each day.  Maybe we could work it out."

"Goody goody goody!" she cheers.

Yesterday after my 13 mile run posted on FaceBook I was asked where I find the energy to run so much.  I thought that the same reverse psychology applies to myself.  At the end of my work day or after a less than full night of sleep I often have to remind myself that I have much more energy after my run than I thought I had before it.  It seems that by using energy allows me to create more energy for everything else I need to accomplish.  It is this simple understanding that helps me get started every day and take those first few steps. 

Well it's that and the fact that I want to eat ice cream for dessert!