Other People's Kids

A New Discovery

Beth noticed my earlier post, and expands on some truly excellent tips for parenting teens. Her first point immediately struck me as not only a wonderful point but immediately relevant to my current situation:

First: rescue code. Our kids know that if they want to be rescued from a situtation they should call and say, "I don't want to come now. Can I stay? I really want to stay." The cool thing about this is that it works even when we are stupid, which is not seldom. Trusting our kids we are likely to say, "Sure...You can stay a while." The kids are instructed to reply, "Oh come on! Don't make me go. I want to stay." They are to repeat on this theme until we wake up and say, "Oh! Where are you? I will be right there." They can then hang up, tell their friends how horrible their parents are and wait for the ride home.

Delightful. I love playing the evil troll when I'm not really being an evil adult troll. I've already had a chance to share it with The Wife and I've already talked to "Josie" about it.

She laughed at first, but then I saw a flicker of seriousness. I think she took the point...I suppose I'll know how well she took it if she ever uses that escape hatch, which, as Beth indicates in her post, may never happen. It's an excellent tool all the same.

posted by Dan @ 9:14 PM