Tip #11 - Remember to exercise

Exercise is extremely important as a parent. Some people may say the reason to stay in shape is so you can live to see your grand kids or have more energy to play with your kids, but they're wrong. The reason parents need to exercise is so they can maintain their physical superiority over their children. Children continually grow and get stronger and parents need to make sure they stay one step ahead of them.

In the animal kingdom older weaker adults are killed off by the younger stronger animals. Same with a family. If the parents become weaker than the kids the children will soon rule the house.

Being stronger then your children will come in handy in situation like when you have to take your kid to timeout. Most parents have to give up on timeout when there kids are still young, but if you maintain your physical stature you can keep sending your kids to timeout well into their teens.

Being larger than your kids also has the added bonus of intimidation. This can come in handy when using threats. Intimidation will give more validity to your threats. Please refer to Tip #10 for more information on effective threats.

Bonus tip: If you feed your kids less food it will slow their growth, which means you won't have to exercise as hard to maintain your lead.

Tip #10 - The key to parenting is finding the best threat

Effective parenting requires the use of threats. Anyone who says otherwise has never had a kid push them to the edge. The edge is the point when reasoning and games fly out the window and threats are the only option. But threats are tricky. If it's not the right threat then your heading over the edge. If you get it right then you'll buy yourself a few minutes to regain you sanity. The trick is to find each kids key threat. All kids have a key and they are different for every kid.

Example:
Hyrum's key is his blanket. Here is a daily dialog in our house:
Dad: Hyrum get dressed
Hyrum: (ignores Dad)
Dad: HYRUM get dressed
Hyrum: (ignores Dad)
Dad: HYRUM GET DRESSED
Hyrum: (ignores Dad)
Dad: HYRUM GET DRESSED OR I'M TAKING YOUR BLANKET AWAY!
Hyrum: (Screams at Dad, then gets dressed)

It ain't pretty but he was dressed in time for school.

If you don't know your kids key here are a few helpful tips and steps on how to figure it out.
Tips:
1. Try to figure it out before your kid pushes you to the edge. If your at the edge when you start you won't be rational enough to figure it out
2. Come prepared with a few ideas of what the key may be
3. The key will most likely be a favorite activity or a favorite toy

Steps on how to figure it out:
1. When your kid is being definent, threaten with the #1 item on your list.
2. Check your kid's response to the threat. If they are doing what you asked, you were right. If they are still defient, repeats steps 1-2 with the next item on your list until you find the one that works.

Hopefully, learning how to more effectively threaten our children will help us all become better parents.