anonymous / August 19, 2014
I’m a Navy veteran so I have been around a military view of accomplishing goals which tends to be meeting force head on. It was not until becoming a parent that I altered, out of necessity, my view. I have 2 daughters, 17 and 13 yrs old and they were not, of course, always that age. When younger, I could get them to do things like help clear the table simply because I was bigger then them and could say things like “don’t tug on Superman’s cape” and “just do it”. However, as their language skills developed they became aware that the superman’s cape thing was from a song which resulted in the balance of power shifting to a point that getting the daughters to do anything like chores became a chore for me.
One evening, while again watching The Godfather, it dawned on me…how would Don Corelone get his kids to clean their room? The answer was of course, he’d make them an offer they couldn’t refuse! Along with watching the Godfather, I was reading about Guerrilla tactics and not confronting an opposing force head on, instead retreat to the hills, disappear into the mist and then in stealth come back and achieve whatever the current goal might be, like getting daughters to empty the dishwasher.
During a recent dinner, the girls were not keen on eating broccoli and although I was tempted to say “you better eat it or I will put it under your pillow for the Broccoli Fairy” I thought about Don Corelone and Guerrilla tactics and simply getting the broccoli from Point A to Point B. In a moment of enlightenment, I said “I’ll pay you $5.00 to eat your broccoli”. They ate their broccoli, nobody got stressed and I retreated back into the hills to consider a new parenting style.