Parenting is no big deal.  Any adult basically gets a free hand in bring up their child the way they want to.  (Is it any wonder that there are so many badly behaved kids out there?)  “Good parenting”, however, is a totally different ballgame!

A recent post on one of my favourite dad blogs – Metro Dad – reminds me that I am not alone in my endeavours…

SANTA CLAUS: THE CARROT AND THE STICK

… On the plus side, she learned about Santa at school. She doesn’t know about the elves or the North Pole or any of that shit. However, she gets the gist that if she behaves like a good girl, Santa will bring her presents.

For the past month, whenever she started giving me attitude, I’d just give her the Korean Death Stare (KDS,) reach for my cell phone, and say, “That’s it. I’m calling Santa right now!” Wham! Total obedience.

And now, even though Christmas is over, I’ve got the whole thing down to a science. Whenever the Peanut gets cranky, I just lean over and whisper softly in her ear, “Santa.” It’s awesome.

Needless to add, for the past few weeks, me and the mrs. have also been using the “Santa Claus” card to get our almost-four-year-old to have more vegetables.  Every meal time practically involved a tick mark against a checklist, and a ‘minimum total’ was required for Santa to even consider a visit to our house, this year!

This is also not the first time that we, as parents, have resorted to a ‘trick’ to get our child to do something good.  If you’re a parent of a pre-schooler, by now I’m sure you all have that one DVD your little one loves to watch a million times over (our’s is Finding Nemo) – the one you pop into the DVD player when things really get unmanageable!  Even as children, some of us have grown up to stories of the “old man” and the “wicked witch” designed to turn up at the house at all times that the parents deem fit.  At home, we always refrain from scary stuff, but a little carrot or a stick doesn’t do any harm, right?

On googling some more, I was surprised (or was I?) to find an entire site dedicated to these so-called “parent hacks”.  And, the menu was quite impressive, ranging from “Easy diluted juice ice cubes” to “Taking the temperature of a squirmy toddler”!

Ever so often, I have watched children misbehave at home and in public, while their parents do almost nothing to alleviate the situation.  I’d like to believe that at least some of these parents do so, simply because they don’t know how to do it any better. 

This post is dedicated to all those unfortunate ones. Head over to ParentHacks.com today, and borrow some solutions to the problems you may be facing every day.  For the more fortunate folks, there’s plenty of good advice to last you a lifetime.  So, don’t hesitate to dig in.  And, feel free to contribute to the collective wisdom, should you have a good “hack” of your own… Who knows?  Your advice may just save someone from months of despair!

Here’s to a better world…

P.S. Santa did visit us this year, and brought Pumpkin a lovely whiteboard for Christmas!