My Newest Parenting Tool

The timer.

I can't remember who suggested it or if I read it somewhere, but somewhere I heard that if you find yourself constantly nagging your kids to do a requested task, that you should set a timer to give them an incentive. It was less about keeping track of time and more about putting the burden of time keeping on a third-party, namely, the timer itself. Hey, I didn't tell you it's time to get out of the bath, the timer said it.

Two examples happened in the last 24 hours.

Last night, Marissa was in the tub, one of her favorite places. She loves playing in water, I think she's half mermaid. Wayne had given her a five-minute warning but hadn't set the timer. About five minutes later I come in and say, "Okay kiddo! Five minutes is up, time to get out." At which she says, "Five more minutes!" I say, "No, but I'll give you one more minute, okay?" and I set the timer for one minute.

One minute later I hear the timer go off and head back to the bathroom. By the time I get there she has taken the toys out of the tub, pulled the drain and has already reached over and turned the timer off. Wow! Well now, that worked...on to example number two.

This morning we were all getting ready to leave the house. In typical Lindsey fashion, Lindsey got distracted by her fabulous parasol she bought at Valley Fair yesterday and was singing songs and telling stories involving this parasol. It was sweet and cute and I hated to end it by reminding her for the fourth time that what I actually needed her to do was get dressed. So instead I walked into her room with the timer in hand and said, "Lindsey, you seem to be having a hard time focusing on what I've asked you to do. I'm going to set the timer for five minutes and I would like you to be dressed by the time the timer goes off."

She didn't panic or freak out, she simply started getting dressed. By the time the timer went off she was already dressed and back at playing her little game. No nagging, no threatening of taking away privileges, no cries of protest. Hey, the timer said it was time to get dressed, not me.

I may be jinxing myself by writing this post of how well this is working for us right now, but hopefully not.

Well, my lunch is over, I'd better get back to work -- my timer just went off.