How to Get Your Kids to Do Whatever You Want Them to Do
The human allergy to "must," how I got my kids to eat more vegetables, and how you can shift your children's behavior by creating the illusion of choice.
Hello Bar-Setters,
A new school year is upon us. To help you prepare, I want to share a simple parenting hack that I figured out this summer.
Manipulating Your Children 101
Comparable to most five and six-year-olds, my children are fantastic eaters. No lie. They get excited when we tell them we are making salads for dinner.
Still, they are kids and they have a tendency to not eat the vegetables that we pack them in their school lunch. I know. This is your pet peeve too, right?
After a few day of them not eating their vegetables at lunch, Neely tends to just stop packing vegetables. She is sane, after all, and can deal with our kids not having vegetables in one meal.
But I am not sane. I obsess over things like this. And this obsession has borne fruit. Vegetabley-fruit.
I have figured out how to make my kids eat vegetables at lunch every day… and like it!
My Super Genius Plan For Making Kids Eat Vegetables
It’s simple, really. No one likes being forced to do things. So, Neely and I stopped putting the same vegetables in their lunch every day and, instead, asked our kids what they wanted.
To be clear, we had given our kids some choice in the past. We had asked them, for example, if they wanted snap peas or carrots. But we only really gave them these two choices. We didn’t go far enough. We didn’t explain our goals and invite them to help us achieve them.
What made the difference was how we framed the choices for our kids. We told them that they were going to have a sandwich, sweet potato chips (these are the healthiest chips I’ve found and they’re available at Wal-Mart), a fruit option, and a vegetable option for lunch every day. Then we asked them, “what vegetable do you want?”
They were curious. “What vegetables can we have? And what are vegetables?”
Somehow, Neely and I had missed out on this giant opportunity to teach our kids about the different types of foods that we eat and why.
We listed some options:
Cut up bell peppers
Carrots
Broccoli
Cucumbers
Sweet peas
Cherry tomatoes (I know these are a fruit, but come on now)
Jicama
We, also, gave them options for additions that could make the vegetables more fun to eat:
Tzatziki sauce
Hummus
Pesto
Vinegar and olive oil
The whole thing became a fascinating exploration of the vegetable world. Since then, they’ve asked for many different vegetable combinations. It often varies by the week. But we never have to prod them to finish their lunch. In fact, (no lie) they often eat their vegetables first at lunch and ask for their favorite vegetables at dinner.
Humans are Allergic to “Must”
It makes sense. Humans don’t like to be forced to do anything. This reminds me of an excerpt from Dr. Jonathan Haidt’s fantastic book, The Righteous Mind (pp 98-99), where he mentions a similar revelation that he had with his son Max:
When my son, Max, was three years old, I discovered that he’s allergic to ‘must’. When I would tell him that he must get dressed so that we can go to school (and he loved to go to school), he’d scowl and whine. The word must is a little verbal handcuff that triggered in him the desire to squirm free.
The word ‘can’ is so much nicer: “can you get dressed, so that we can go to school?” To be certain that these two words were really night and day, I tried a little experiment. After dinner one night, I said “Max, you must eat ice cream now.”
“But I don’t want to!”
Four seconds later: “Max, you can have ice cream if you want.”
“I want some!”
To be honest, I don’t completely buy this. There is no world where a simple shift in word choice could lead my kids to rebel from ice cream, rather than jump at the opportunity to eat it.
Still, this anecdote brilliantly identifies a psychological truism that parents can benefit from understanding and applying.
You are in charge of your kids and, especially while they’re young, they need to do what you say. Yet, still, it is worth remembering that it is no fun to be told what to do all the time (husbands don’t let your wives see you nodding).
In fact, a lack of control is one of the external conditions that have been found to have the most dramatic negative effects on happiness. As Haidt explains in The Happiness Hypothesis (which is also fantastic!):
In another famous study, Eten Langer and Judith Rodin gave benefits to residents on two floors of a nursing home—for example, plants in their rooms, and a movie screening one night a week. But on one floor, these benefits came with a sense of control: The residents were allowed to choose which plants they wanted, and they were responsible for watering them. They were allowed to choose as a group which night would be movie night. On the other floor, the same benefits were simply doled out: The nurses chose the plants and watered them; the nurses decided which night was movie night.
This small manipulation had big effects: On the floor with increased control, residents were happier, more active, and more alert (as rated by the nurses, not just by the residents), and these benefits were still visible eighteen months later. Most amazingly, at the eighteen-month follow-up, residents of the floor given control had better health and half as many deaths (15 percent versus 30 percent).
So much of our kids lives, at school and at home, consist of them being told what to do.
Don’t run in the hall.
Clean your room.
Get ready for bed.
There are many times when your children need to just listen and do what you say. But, when possible, you can make their lives more enjoyable and increase their compliance simply by giving them a little more choice.
Maybe instead of telling them to do their chores on Saturday, you give them the entire week to check them all off. Maybe instead of telling them to practice their instrument after school every evening, you let them pick which four days of the week they want to practice on.
Give your kids a few more options and they may start doing what you want them to do, without even being asked.
Isn’t that the point of parenting, after all?
Thank you for reading and sharing!
Good luck to all you parents who are getting your kids ready to go back to school. I hope you have a wonderful week.
Carry the fire!
Shane