I am writing about an example this week which I succeeded in because I was totally amazed. My husband told my kids that we could all go for a bicycle ride in the road – they spent 5 minutes getting dressed with jackets and shoes etc.

Eventually when they stepped out into the road it started bucketing down with rain. My 2 year old son was devastated and really started crying a lot. I started telling him it was raining and he could not go out into rain and ride and get wet. But he was NOT going to stop crying as I could see as he was REALLY disappointed.

So I tried the whole fantasy thing! I said to him, Robert, if you did go riding outside now, would you go up the hill or down the hill first (as we live on middle of hill) – he immediately answered me, “up the hill,” he paused and said, “then Susan and I would race down the hill, and daddy would not know which of us to catch first”……by now he had totally stopped crying and was so interested in telling me about the ride he was going to have!

And that was that – the crying stopped immediately and the incident was over! I was absolutely stunned and delighted !