them.
Quik TipTell your older kids that from now on, getting up and out in the morning is going to
be their responsibility—totally. You will neither supervise nor nag them. At first,
your children will not believe you are serious, but they will believe you are serious
after you’ve let them get burned a few times. What’s your chief job in all this? It’s
keeping quiet.This new system relies on natural consequences. If the kids
dillydally in the morning, they are going to run into trouble
somewhere. The trouble may be with the other kids in the car pool,
who are now afraid that they are going to be late because of your son
or daughter. (Can you stand that?) Or the trouble may come from the
child having to explain to a principal or teacher why he was late and
has no parental note excusing him. Most kids don’t want these kinds
of problems, so we use the threat of these natural consequences to
help shape them up.
Some parents can’t stand this routine. It drives some grown-ups
crazy to watch their kids fooling around when the bus or car-pool ride
is coming in five minutes. These are the moments when extreme
parental self-restraint is called for. You will want to talk, nag, argue,
or scream. I’ve had to ask many parents to take their coffee, retire to
the bedroom, and not watch the impending disaster. One mother told