Dr. Riley’s Box of Tricks – Solutions for Parenting Problems

Anyone who has had a child (or even just been around one) knows they can be bratty.

They can be annoying.

They talk back.

They whine… should I go on?

My point is that sometimes kids don’t like to listen. They like to be smart little stinkers and try to beat you at your own game of parenting. There are a few things that my kids do that I just can’t break. I’ve tried several different ways of stopping the behavior, with only temporary results. Or none at all.

Dr. Riley’s Box of Tricks

dr. riley box of tricks

I have found a very interesting and promising book by Douglas Riley. Dr. Riley’s Box of Tricks offers 80 uncommon and out of the box solutions and tips for normal, everyday parenting problems. After browsing through the book and reading a few of the sections, some of my ‘favorite’ problems that I am looking forward to correcting include:

When your kids ignore you
Door slammers and stair stompers
Tales of messy rooms
Arguers
Slackers
The complaint and blame department
School days, school daze
Sibling combat
Pesterization
Gross Stuff

These are only a few of the many problems that Dr. Riley touches on in this book. One trick that I had already been using was for door slamming. In this section Dr. Riley advises to tell your door-slamming child that since they obviously do not know how to shut the door correctly, they will need to practice. The practice involves shutting the door correctly 25 times. If 25 times doesn’t do the trick (it may be fun for the child the first time) they will then have to shut the door softly 50 times, increasing by 25 each time until the child gets tired of it and figures out that it’s not a game.

I had been using this one, but not as I should have been. I was only making them shut the door 5-10 times. Not enough practice to get the point across.

My Thoughts

As I said, I’m really excited to use some of the tips in this book. I almost find myself hoping one of the children will do something ‘wrong’ just so I can use these tricks on them. Amazingly none of them have done anything to push my buttons since I got this book.

Maybe just getting the book is the trick…