I am a father of two boys, ages 4 and 21 months. Parenting has been both a tremendous pleasure and a tremendous challenge for me, so I'd like to share the best of what has worked well for me.

Simple Strategy #1

OFFERING CHOICES

This is a strategy that is pretty mainstream and has been around a long time - you may see it in tons of parenting magazines and books. And for good reason...it works! The idea is that, by offering your children a choice, however trivial, you are offering them a sense of control/power, which makes them much more likely to cooperate. In addition, it is simple (and fun) to implement, and you aren't encouraging future bad behavior in exchange for current good behavior. Some examples I use for situations that come up often:

When trying to get them to put on their clothes for the day
"Do you want to wear your shark shirt today or your Superman shirt?"

When trying to get them ready to go out in the morning
"Do you want to have your [mid-morning] snack after you put your shoes on, or after you're sitting the car?"
I find kids will do anything you say after hearing the word "snack".

When trying to get them to wash their hands before dinner
"Do you want to wash your hands in the hall bathroom or at the kitchen sink?"
Works every time.

When trying to get them to eat a few, just a few, vegetables during a meal
"Do you want to try the carrots first, or the kale?"
My 4yr old surprisingly loves cooked kale.

When trying to get them in the tub for a bath
"Do you want to play with your tugboat toy or your floating whale toy during bath today?"
I'm okay even if they request both in this case.

Be careful leaving a question open-ended though. You would only want to do this when you know the list of choices is somewhat small. An example when getting dressed on a warm summer day would be: "Which shorts would you like to wear today?", when you know they only have 3 pairs of shorts total. And it seems like a bad idea to be open-ended on anything involving eating!

SUMMARY

Upsides

• Gets children to cooperate without shouting or bribing
• Teaches children consequences of their actions while the stakes are still low

Downsides

• None (that I can think of)

Would love to hear about any problems that parents have run into using this strategy, and/or any new variations that have worked well.

On the next post, we will explore a strategy with toys that I think is underused, but has completely blown my mind.
Good luck out there!