Reply #64: I thought of an example of this as it's a bit of a sore spot for me

[gollygee]

when I was a kid, my dad promised us a zillion things that never happened. Disneyworld. Going out west to see the mountains. Not everything was that big but just tons of things, big and small, that never happened. It made me very hurt and angry, to the point where this is a big issue for me as a parent.

Last summer, we went to a very small amusement park with my parents (big mistake) and it wasn't really preschool-age-kid-oriented, but my daughter (who was just turning 5) tagged along all day and was a really good sport about it, especially for a little kid. Then, right at the end, my parents showed us this area for young kids, that was basically a wading pool with fountains, but it was done up well and looked like great fun for the preschool crowd. My daughter was THRILLED and ran in and was having a great time. You should have seen her eyes light up when she saw this place. It was like she KNEW something there had to be for kids, and she finally found it. But she wasn't in there for 10 minutes before my parents DEMANDED that we leave that second, and then when my daughter was hurt and cried about it, yelled at her for being undisciplined.

My husband and I thought it was really unfair, and promised that at some point we'd go back and let her spend as much time there as she wanted. I'm not sure if we used the word "promise" but we all understood it as a promise. Sadly, circumstances have changed, and we aren't in a position to pay the airfare right now. We don't know how long it'll be before we can go back, and she might be too old to enjoy that area by the time we can. So, we told her that we couldn't go back THERE any time soon, but we will do something special, and we researched water parks with her that are within driving distance, and together found one that looks like it'll be a ton of fun and that has a huge children's museum close by, and we've now booked the trip. She is very happy with that substitution.

I would certainly give an adult the same level of consideration, and if I weren't able to do specifically what I said I'd do, I'd try to do the best I could and make up for it in some way.

My point is that if you can't follow through, you really need to make amends in some other way unless it's truly not possible. But even then you should try. If someone isn't even acknowledging the problem, and on top of that it's happening over and over again, then that's really sad.