I have a parenting hack for a 5 minute break. Last night one of my kids was saying "Dad, dad, can you give me a challenge?". Expecting things like hop around the house on one foot, or that sort of thing.

I said "I bet you can't sit still on a chair for 5 minutes", this being a child who regularly falls off their chair at dinner time. They thought that was a great challenge, so I set a timer and the challenge was on. The look on their face made it look like they were concentrating harder than they had ever concentrated in their life, but they were really determined and managed to do it! And I got to sit down for a 5 min break 😮

After that, the other kids wanted to have a turn too, but one of them decided that they could just pause the timer and do some thing they wanted to do. Of course that defeats the purpose, but they didn't think so, so I think the hack won't work again.

[–] eagleeyedtiger 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sadly I don't think my children would fall for it.. I've tried the "Who can be quiet the longest" and it never worked!

[–] Dave 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Who can be quiet the longest works briefly on my kids, the only problem is their capability is pretty low.

[–] sambrown 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I really like:

Okay kids, we're going to take a nap and then when we wake up we're going to clean the house!

They nap for ages...

[–] flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

Okay, you win. That's brilliant!

[–] Dave 2 points 1 month ago

Oooh, I'm going to have to try that one! Though they might actually want to clean the house since I often use "we can't do until the house is clean", so there might be an expectation of doing fun things!

[–] deadbeef79000 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

On road trips my parents used to get us kinder with:

When you see a horse you can't talk until you see a dog.

I now use it on my child units.

[–] Dave 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Haha does that actually work? I would think you'd see them in quite different places, and depending on the time of day you might not see a dog very often at all!

[–] deadbeef79000 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yup, incredibly variable.

It also tends to trigger debates about whether pictures of said animals count. Which is a good discussion rather than siblings fighting about how ugly the other one is.