I got this one, Dad

Please note: This is not my kid, but you get the idea.

Our two-year-old would not stop dropping food on the floor at meal times. Whether she did it because she found that particular piece inedible, or because she enjoyed studying the spatial relation of the food on her tray versus the pile on the carpet below her, the habit seemed unbreakable. Our best effort at correction was to sternly say, “No,” and lightly rap the back of her hand. This method maintained its desired effect for about five minutes, when our daughter, used to this routine and seemingly impervious to pain, decided to

It’s such a simple solution, Mom!

My three-year-old son was playing a little too roughly with his ten-month-old sister. “Stop. You are pushing her!” I told my son.

His response?

Simply a matter of proper terminology

I just suggested to my eight and seven-year-olds that perhaps reading at the breakfast table might be a bit anti-social. “Auntie Social, Mom?” one thinks aloud, “No, we’re

Now that you mention it, I am a little hungry

I got really mad at my five-year-old son who had just hit his little brother. I yelled at him, “Do you want a smack?”

He answered with a smile,

Parental Manipulation, 101

When my two-year-old daughter was throwing a fit, I took hold of her and looked her in the eyes, saying, “You WILL talk to Mommy nicely.”

With no hesitation, she got three inches from my face, tilted her head to the side and said,

“You’re in trouble. Look at his face,”

my friend told me when she first met my newborn son. “He’s already mad. He’s going to be trouble.”

And boy, was she right. Four years later I came home from the store

The power of the “military voice”

A friend of ours, who is a military veteran, once disciplined our daughter for slamming a door in anger at his home. After checking with us, he used his “Military Voice” with her. It left a deep impression, so when she