One shoe at a time!

One day at Home Depot, I had all 4 kids with me. Matthew, #4, who was only 4 at the time, was pitching a very large fit in the store and taking off one of his flip flops and throwing it down towards me. This had been happening for a couple weeks. There had been warnings and stern talking-to's. Now it was time for action. So he threw that shoe for the last time in the garden department at Home Depot. I picked up the shoe he had thrown, walked over to the trash can, threw it in and then we left the store.

That was his only pair of shoes. (It was summer time, we had just moved across country, his feet had grown, I was simplifying...)

I told him that because he threw that shoe, he was stuck with only one shoe for the last week and a half of summer until preschool started. If he behaved, then he could earn a new PAIR of shoes.

That was how "One Shoe Parenting" got it's name.