The Full Suburban: Parenting is a class we never graduate

Some people call these the dog days of summer, but this year, I’m thinking of them more as the dregs of summer. By this point, my family has done all our fun stuff. We have gotten our allotment of sunburns. We have eaten all the food, made all the messes, gotten in all the quarrels, and watched all the movies. We are circling the summer drain, so to speak.

And yet, we still have a week and a half to go before school starts. Disney+ can only get me so far when it comes to parenting my kids, and I’m getting a little desperate.

Last week, I literally stumbled across a book on our living room floor that had been pulled off the shelf to be used – I’m guessing – as a ramp for a Hot Wheels track. It was a parenting book I had bought when most of my kids were small, and I had still yet to read it (surprise surprise).

Entitled “Do What Is Right” and written by apparently pro-level parents Douglas and Laurie Wilcox, it was filled with ideas for how to encourage kids to do their chores, stop whining, start exercising, get their homework done, etc.

I flipped through it for a few minutes and then put it down, not thinking much about it. A few days later, I needed to run errands that would take me away from the house for a few hours, leaving big brother Henry to babysit little brothers Emmett and Hyrum. I needed a way to keep them from destroying the house and each other, and my mind went back to an idea I’d read about in “Do What Is Right” called “the merry-go-round.”

The basic premise is that you pick several activities for the kids to do, and they rotate through them over and over in 10-minute increments – long enough for them to enjoy themselves, but not so long that they get bored. I thought I’d give it a try.

I told the boys the plan and asked them to pick five activities, only one of which could involve ascreen. They chose Legos, paper airplanes, outside activities, board games, and screen time. I wrote each activity down on a piece of paper, set it next to a kitchen timer, and left.

Four hours later, I returned home to an extremely messy house, but boys who were happy, getting along, and begging to do the merry-go-round for as long as I would let them. Maybe those parenting books are on to something!

This wild success got me thinking about other parenting hacks I’ve learned over the years – none of which I thought of on my own, but that I have adopted from other parents and teachers I’ve observed.

One of my favorites was taught to me by a friend whose son was enrolled in preschool back in our University of Washington student family housing days. Whenever students were having trouble sharing, the preschool teacher would encourage one of them to ask for a turn with the contested toy. The child already playing with the toy would have to agree to share, but could decide if they wanted to share “now or in a few minutes.”

They always chose the “in a few minutes” option, but once those few minutes were up, they usually handed the toy over without a fuss. I have used this trick for at least a decade, and it almost always works like a charm.

Another great tip came from the amazing Mrs. Fuller, who taught three of my kids in kindergarten. One day when I was in the classroom as a volunteer, a child came up to her complaining about something another child had said – nothing major, just the usual “my puppy is cuter than your puppy” kind of kindergarten smack talk.

“I’m sorry he said that,” she told the child. “I would probably just ignore it.”

The kid ran away happily, and my mind was blown. I can just tell a kid to ignore something annoying? I don’t have to bring the other kid over, have a heart-to-heart, come up with a discipline plan, yada yada yada? Amazing!

I’m grateful for all the parenting help I’ve received over the years, whether it be from a book that’s been kicked around my living room floor for a few days, or words of wisdom from a seasoned and well-trained teacher. They make this circling of the summer drain a little less painful.

Julia Ditto shares her life with her husband, six children and a random menagerie of farm animals in Spokane Valley. She can be reached at dittojulia@gmail.com.