Tip #5 - Use your environment to your advantage

There are a lot of things around us ( both man-made and natural ) that kids don't understand. A good parent will know how to exploit that lack of understanding and use it for the better good of the home.

Example:
We have deer that regularly walk around the neighborhood. They even come into the yard and eat our bushes. Well one day the kids were misbehaving and the deer where in the yard. Seeing an opportunity to exploit our kids lack of knowledge about Santa Claus, we told them that the deer were Santa's deer. We said that they were here checking on the kid and they were going to go back and tell Santa that Hyrum and Ella were not being good kids. Well, it worked like a charm. Whatever they were doing wrong stop immediately. This exploit still works today. Any time the kids see the deer in the yard (which is all year long) the kids act like angels. We have even been able to extend it to times when we haven't seen the deer. We just mention that we saw the deer in the yard this morning and it still works.