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.

Tip #9 - Kids are a great cover for us to act like kids

As adults we are not supposed to do childish things like running around playing tag or making pinewood derby cars. Having children provides the perfect cover for these childish behaviors we all want to do. Doing these childish things make it look like we are being good parents because we are "spending time with our kids" but really I just want to act like a kid.

Example:
Halloween is fast approaching and the kids wanted to carve pumpkins. The kids are a little to young to be handling sharp objects so Arin and I "helped" them carve their pumpkins. The kids picked out the designs they wanted and helped clean out the guts. Then they went and played while Arin and I carved the pumpkins. It was a lot of fun and my pumpkin, sorry I mean "Hyrum's" pumpkin looks totally awesome.

Tip #8 - Remember to collect incriminating evidence

Kids are always doing things that will be embarrassing to them later in life. As a parent it is your job and duty to always have a camera handy to document such moments in your child's life. These pictures and videos can be used later in life to black mail your kids into doing their chores or to scare off an unwanted boyfriend or girlfriend.

Example:
The other day Hyrum came out of Ella's room dressed up as Mrs. Nesbitt (Toy Story, when Buzz is at the tea party). As a responsible parent I had to pull out the camera and document this for later use.

Tip #7 - Let your kids listen to 80's music

Have you ever had one of those evenings where there's nothing on tv and there nothing to do? If you need some entertainment on those boring evenings, let your kids listen to some 80's songs. Listening to them sing the chorus over and over again is all the entertainment you will need.

Example:

Tip #6 - Fruit snacks are your best friend

Kids will do anything for fruit snacks. Every parent should have a cupboard dedicated to fruit snacks. When you have a new baby, instead of the hospital giving you a diaper bag with formula samples it should be a diaper bag filled with fruit snack samples.

Example:
When ever the kids are bugging us we usually try to send them downstairs to play or watch TV. Most of the time they refuse to go. They know they are bugging us and want to continue torturing us. Why would they leave? This usually means we need to sweeten the deal with some fruit snacks. The conversation usually goes like this:

Us: Go downstairs and play. You're bothering us.
Them: No.
Us: Go downstairs.
Them: No.
Us: Go downstairs.
Them: No.
Us: If you go downstairs we'll give you some fruit snacks.
Them: FRUIT SNACKS!!!! (as they run down the stairs)

It works every time. And for those parents who are worried about the sugar content or the artificial coloring, just remember, they have "fruit" in their name so they can't be that bad, right?

Parenting Tip of the Day?

Maybe I shouldn't have called my blog "Parenting Tip of the Day". Maybe I should have went with "Occasional Parenting Tip". It's been a crazy couple of weeks. You can check out all the details on my wife's blog. I have a whole list of tips just waiting to be posted. I'll get back on track, I promise.