Parenting Tips from My Sister-in-Law

Because my parents decided to spend Thanksgiving in Switzerland (without their children or grandchildren), my brother and I decided to get our families together for the first time for the holiday without them. In general, it was a lot of fun. My two and a half year old nephew and my almost one year old son had a great time playing together. However, it is difficult to spend time with people who have such different parenting styles than I do.

Here are some parenting tips my sister-in-law taught me over the weekend. Before you read them, I would like to say in her defense that both she and my brother are highly educated, intelligent people. They really love their son and try to do their best. However, sometimes the common sense isn’t there.

Tip # 1 - Only place a child in time-out if you have given him at least seven warnings to stop a behavior. Let the child decide when he is done with time-out (usually about 20 seconds).

Tip # 2 - If you pour some soap into the tub during a bath, there is no need really to wash the child’s body or hair. You figure that if he splashes around enough in the tub, he will be clean.

Tip # 3 - There is no need to supervise a child in the bathtub once they are fairly steady on their feet, say, at 18 months old.

Tip # 4 - The way to tell when your baby is ready to eat solid food is when he starts eating dry cat food out of the cats’ dishes.

Tip # 5 - It is perfectly acceptable to allow your child to strip naked during Thanksgiving dinner and climb up and down on his booster chair (naked) and sit spread eagle (naked) at the head of the table.

Tip # 6 - If you are in a drug store to shop for one item and your child sees a tube of toothpaste with Thomas the Tank Engine on it and he screams to have it, you should buy it for him. Furthermore, you should let him remove the tube from the box, remove the cap from the tube, throw the cap in the street, and suck half of the toothpaste out of the tube on the way home.

Tip # 7 - If your child throws a stuffed animal on the stove while his aunt is cooking Thanksgiving dinner and his aunt takes the animal away from him, it is very helpful to immediately retrieve the animal and give it to the child.

Tip # 8 - "When my son was a baby, I used to cut up all of his food into small chunks. But then I noticed that he just shoved a handful of chunks into his mouth, so I just gave up and starting giving him the whole piece of food. I figure it all ends up in the same place." Such as hot dogs, grapes, etc. (I might add, it does all end up in the same place. The question is, does it get stuck on the way there?)

Tip # 9 - To help your child go to sleep, send him to bed with the following items - a sippy cup full of orange juice, a sippy cup of milk, and a bowl full of Teddy Grahams. If your child gets out of bed and demands the entire package of Teddy Grahams, give it to him. Then act surprised when he wakes up from his nap covered with sticky Teddy Grahams because he dumped the entire package in his bed. Then pick up all Teddy Grahams and put them back in the package.

Believe it or not, I held my tongue all weekend. It was very hard.