Dawdling is the schoolboys' luxury. Think about when you last genuinely had a saunter, feeling under no pressure to be anywhere at any particular time. Small children feel this way on almost any walk unless they're vouchsafed ice cream or chocolate cake at its end. If you're weekending in the sticks or on holiday moving at a child's pace can be wonderfully restorative and an important reminder to notice the world with a child's noticing. If you're trying to get literally anywhere in London it is absolutely infuriating.
All parents will be familiar with the sit-down protest. As all good parents know this is the moment to get on a level with your child, without rancour or ill will, and just be with them until the inclination to rise up and continue moves on them. Yeah, just try doing that in the middle of Park Lane...
I have no compunction about enacting an executive override of my 3 year old's mobile autonomy and carrying him bodily but at 20 kgs that makes him a very irregularly shaped dumb bell and a very noisy one to boot.
There is another way. It requires excellent peripheral vision, some basic spying skills and a tolerance for a very small amount of jeopardy. The sit down protest is a battle of wills. Pleading: pointless. Reasoning: ridiculous. Bribing: basic. Instead the path to success lies, as always, in not caring. Now, because it's your kid, you can't literally not care (that is bad) so you have to affect indifference.
Just walk away - Speed, distance and purpose are important here. If you go too slowly your child won't notice, if you go too far they might run into traffic (this is bad) or, implausibly, but it's every parent's bogeyman fear, get snatched. If you hesitate they know you're faking and your heart's not in it.
On the other hand if you do this properly, and use your peripheral vision, you can stride purposefully and watch your child watching you. Eventually they will realise you're in earnest and come running. Some particularly stubborn children may have not got to their feet before you reach your self-imposed safe distance limit (hint: a kilometre is too far). If this happens you deploy your KGB training. Do NOT turn around. You may as well wave a white flag. Rather use the wing mirror of a parked car to watch your child. Your child won't have had any driving lessons so won't know anything about wing mirrors. Eventually your child will come to you.
The important thing is to make movement their decision. The illusion of choice is child's play.
