“Picky Eaters Hate This One Simple Trick”: 50 Parenting Hacks People Wish They Knew Sooner (New Pics)

With siblings, it was always "race you to that tree!" "first person to the crossing gets to push the button!" My parents used to go jogging with us kids on bikes. When we were faster, it was "bike ahead to the end of the street and back." It was 7am, on empty roads, and worked great. They also ran separate routes, intersecting on this long stretch where they were coming from different ends, and we'd swap from one parent to the other, so they each got half their run alone.

She got an actual home?

You also have to have them take 5 minutes and tell you what the book was about.

I don't know if that's a good idea in the long term. I remember reading abt a study where kids were rewarded for drawing (which they already did and enjoyed), and in the end, once they stopped rewarding the kids for it, they didn't want to draw anymore because there was "no point" in it without the reward.

That is 1600 pages of reading each month or roughtly 2 game of thrones books in a month. And OP says the year is not finished yet...

My 7 y.o. reads 3 books of 160pages a day! Op is streching his story.

thankfully, my grandkids LOVE to read--I wonder if there's a genetic predisposition for this?

Creative naming is everything. I read one where they called veggie sticks veggie fries and their kids no longer hated them. (Not frying them, just cut in french fry sized sticks).

My dad made me ketchup soup and called it tomato soup. My mom always left me with pizza money after that.

I made celery with peanut butter as crunchy peanut butter logs, occasionally I would add a couple of crunched up pretzels or make them into little sticks. I raised 3 nieces and 1 nephew and it worked on all of them.

Works for adults too. A company in Queensland was trying to sell locusts as an alternative protein source, no one would buy them. Sales drastically increased when they renamed them "sky prawns"

Fluffy white clouds was mashed potato and then the only way to get me to eat pumpkin was to mash it in with the potato and call it fluffy yellow clouds, to this day the only way I'll eat pumpkin 🤣

I've seen this one before, but with produce. "Today their snack will be Cars apples with peanut butter. Tonight we'll be having pasta with Frozen tomato sauce and Bluey salad."

I tried something similar with my 4 year old granddaughter but she clearly has a refined palate. She drinks Ovaltine and milk every morning with her breakfast. She calls it Chocky Milk. One morning we were out of Ovaltine, so her dad made her chocolate milk with milk and chocolate syrup. She tasted it and said, "I want MY Chocky Milk". He said, "That is Chockey milk". She said, "This is not my Chocky milk. This is b******t". We were shocked, we busted out laughing - we couldn't help it - and then had a discussion about appropriate words.

I actually think there IS a difference between string cheese...

Is she getting paw patrol stickers for free? Because a quick shopping search says she didn't save a lot of money.

Yeah! When I did track in 8th grade, I always wore bright pink shoes so my mom could find me while we were out on the track. Bonus points because they looked REALLY good in pictures :)

Don’t want to dye their hair but still be able to easily locate them? 1. Attach a helium balloon on a string to their trousers. or 2. Insist they wear stilts. Simple really.

Not allowed for most kids, in primary school i couldn't even paint my nails!

Practical, and very pretty !

That’s part of why my mom loves my green hair. It’s hard to find a teen in a crowd of teens until you spot the “green beacon” as they call it

This is genius

Just make sure the containers are food-safe

i know someone who keeps a "s'mores kit" like this...genius!

And when you're out, you can scream 1,2,3. Mommy is glue so they stick by your side.

This might also save a rectangle bannister post. I've probably dented several items trying to get the tension tight enough.

I use wood pieces for my gates so the walls don't get too dinged up by me going thru them. I have dogs, which need gates as much as young children do.

"tell me what hardware store purchase can fix my kid getting sick at daycare all the time" huh. I hope people have a second thought about such things. Smells emotional neglect.

Velcro dots! Yes

I just had to teach my kids to stay away from them. As toddlers, they could pluck those things right out.

Grab some stickers of trees and houses for bonus points!

Some challenging bends there...

Our kids grew up with the nano. All kinds of songs and audio books on there.

that's what I got my 7 year old music loving cousin I babysit for Christmas

beach wagons with big wheels exist.

I used to cup my hands and start exaggeratedly saying wow. They stopped crying because they wanted to see what I had. I would then hold my hands out for them to look and when they leant in I'd shout it's the tickle monster and start tickling them. Worked every time.

I've tried this. And my son got upset, "why aren't you paying attention?! THIS ISN'T FUNNY!"

i've gotten down on the floor and 'cried' or had my own tantrum with my grandkids. the looks on their faces is priceless, and crisis is averted...until the next time

Accurate. Works on some grown-ups including myself! I'll set a timer for 5 min to see how much of the kitchen I can clean. So much!