Bravery and bribery, a winning combination

• By Alison
• 11 April, 2010
• 4 Comments

My oldest daughter is no spawn of my loins when it comes to fun parks. She can’t be – there is just no way I can have given birth to a complete wimp who is afraid of the swinging pirate ship.

Somehow – that’s exactly what’s happened. Miss Comic Relief (see right –>) is game for any type of stomach losing, buttock clenching, fear inducing ride, but Miss Trouble Pants would rather eat her own head.

So picture the happy family, queueing up for the flume ride at Paulton’s park with their 8 year old telling them – through tears – that she’s too afraid to get on. The nice family shrug, and abandon the boat, leaving through the exit without having taken the ride.

Erm, no. 

That wasn’t us! 

We tucked her into the boat with us, sandwiched between two large adults, and told her it would be fine. And it was – until we got to the top of the second slide, at which point all hell broke loose. She started screaming that she wanted to get off. I momentarily contemplated trying to get out onto the platform as we went past it, but seconds later we were shooting down the flume, and splashing through the pool, totally drenched.

She was hysterical.

There might be therapy in later life for her, I fear.

I felt contrite. I felt like an awful parent. I vowed to be more considerate of her opinions and fears. I swore that her delicate constitution must come first. 

And then we headed off to the biggest roller coaster ride in the park.

Did I mention a need for future therapy?

This time I told her that she did not have to ride it. I said that she and I would stand in the queue, but when we got to the point of getting on, if she didn’t want to ride we’d just go straight out. That made her happier.

Then I spent 20 minutes talking her into riding it!

As we neared the loading point, she still wasn’t convinced, so I resorted to bribery.

Yep, I flat out bribed my daughter with money to spend at the giftshop if she’d ride the roller coaster with me.

And do you know – the power of bribery knows no end – she got on the ride.

And even more amazing, she enjoyed it. And that made the rest of the day easier, since she also decided she’d like to go on half a dozen of the other rides she’d declared too scary to go on.

Plus a hell of a lot of “little ones”. I guess that’s what eight year olds like to do. Huh.

At the end of a long day she was dragging us off to the gift shop before they closed in order to spend the £15 I’d promised her (this was no paltry bribe!!). And my baby – bless her – used her £10 (I reassessed the bribe’s value!) to buy a soft toy for herself as well as another for her sister so that she wouldn’t feel left out.

Makes me feel somewhat guilty for having stuffed her on a flume ride in the first place!