Reasoning with children - possible or impossible?

I tried this new approach with Clarissa and Christa last night. We had a short discussion after dinner after which I had a 2 minute 'sharing'. Usually it would be quite difficult to get the elder girl (Clarissa) to get out of bed in the morning. She would also refuse to finish her milk as she 'hated' the taste of it after being exposed to 'adult' foods. After telling her the reasons why we wanted her to comply, she seemed to understand. Christa nodded her head in agreement just to rub salt into the wound.

It seemed to have worked as Clarissa was the first to get out of bed and the first to put on her shoes and head to the car. As usual, Christa would take the front seats and we had to move Clarissa back. She didn't throw up a fuss. Was it the reasoning which worked or the movie we had last night?