Give Your Kids Advance Notice

Hi,

This is a very good parenting tip that my brother taught me, give some advance notice to your kids so as to better manage their expectations.

What do I mean by that?

This is best illustrated by a few examples.

When you take your kids to the playground and it is time to leave, tell your kids that they have another 10 minutes to play.

When your kids are playing at home and you want to take them out for a meal or some appointments like visiting relataives, shopping, etc..... tell them that we are leaving in 15 minutes time.

By doing so, we have founnd that the children are more prepared to stop what they are doing and follow us eventhough they may be reluctant to do so.

Though when they are young and may not even understand how long is 5 or 10 minutes, it seems to work for our kids. There was one or two occassion when I forgot to give ample notice; ie. I was rushing for time so I said that we have to leave in 10 minutes but I actually left after a few minutes instead. They would usually protest and said 'So fast already...?' or 'Can we have another 5 minutes?'.

I still give Jason advance notice today but of course, I cannot cheat him with the timing though...ha..ha... He may negotiate for more time though if he is playing some computer game and cannot complete it in good time.

So try it out on your kids.....give them some advance notice.

BTW, I think it works on adults as well too.

Happy parenting..!

David