Hey, I'm Chris Thompson. I help stressed-out parents deal with toddlers. Grab the free lesson I've prepared for you. You'll love it. Email:

Recently, on a beautiful Sunday morning, I woke up to the sound of my kids playing at the foot of my bed. This is a pretty common Sunday experience for me. They either hop into bed and ask me to turn on the TV, or they just play quietly in the bedroom. My wife heads out early to go swimming on Sundays, so it’s just me and the kids.

Soon after we wake up, it’s breakfast time. My youngest daughter has grown quite fond of Cottage Cheese. On this Sunday morning she asked for Cottage Cheese for breakfast (along with some fruit), and so it was. I gave it to her. Hey, it’s better than Count Chocula, or whatever other crap cereals I always asked for when I was a kid!

My older daughter was digging through the cupboards after finishing her oatmeal. She found these nasty candies that one of our relatives bought for them the week before. They were purple wristbands made from that gummy-worm material. They come neatly wrapped up in individual packaging. There were two left. She grabbed them and said, “Daddy, can we eat these?”.

My youngest stopped eating her Cottage Cheese and agreed with her sister “Yeah, Daddy can we have those right now?”.

My goal was to avoid a fight, while having to explain to my daughter that she needs to finish her breakfast first. My secondary goal was to distract them from the fact that there were two candies … and have them share one. These things were gross, and I really didn’t wanna feed them the sugar.

Here’s what I said to my younger daughter. Notice the way the language is worded? It’s not a proper sentence. This is known as “punctuational ambiguity”. This is done on purpose.

“You can eat that after how many bites of Cottage Cheese are left?”

The second portion of what I said … the question part, is what I emphasized with my tone. The kids heard the first part, so there was no fight. But they *really* heard the second part, which was a direct question.

I got my youngest to guess how many bites she had left. Then I got my oldest to count as she took the remaining bites, turning it into a game that involved both kids. The result? No fight … and she ate her breakfast completely.

Now onto the nasty candy. The first thing I did was present the idea of sharing ONE of the candies rather than opening both. I did this by reframing the meaning of sharing. Normally kids would think, “Well, I only get half the candy”. To avoid this I simply suggested that we put one candy away for later, and that we “cut this one into two pieces … that way you get to eat a piece now and you’ll still have the other candy to eat later”. It worked, but primarily because I was really congruent with my delivery. If I had not been “sold” on it with my body language, they would have seen right through me.

The next thing I did was to use a series of “binds” … or what I refer to as the illusion of choice.

“Do you want me to cut it with scissors, or a knife”

“Do you want a purple half, or a purple half” … this was just a joke to get them to laugh.

“Do you want *this* purple half, or *this* purple half” (getting each daughter to choose her piece).

Having them make these selections creates consistency, and essentially eliminates their ability to change their mind. It’s a simple psychological tactic.

The outcome was exactly what I hoped for. It doesn’t always work as easily as this, but most times it does. I had to be quick on my toes, understand what language patterns to use, and be congruent about them when I delivered them.

Parents: My audio program contains nearly 3 hours of lessons that you can start using right away to reduce your parenting stress. Click here to check out the Talking to Toddlers audio course.

My kids love pizza. My kids love pizza so much, they have been asking me to make it at least once a week for dinner. They have even been asking to eat pizza for lunch.

I’m sure most parents can relate that once kids eat something they enjoy, they tend to want to eat it at every meal. Well - my kids at least. Needless to say, I am tired of pizza.

The other day my kids were complaining about their lunch. They didn’t want to eat it because it was boring. It got me thinking about - pizza.

The next day, I decided it was time to get creative and give in to my kids demand for pizza. I said, “kids ,today for lunch, we are having pizza”. Their faces lit up. Then I said “peanut butter pizza that is”. They stared at me in amazement. I had sparked some curiosity on their end.

I asked my eldest to get out some pita bread, peanut butter and jam from the fridge. We spread a thin layer of peanut butter over the individual portion sized pita bread. I asked them what toppings they wanted on each of their pizzas. The kids put banana slices, dabs of jam and blueberries.

Not only were my kids happy they got to pick out their own toppings, they discovered they could make funny faces on the pizza and get really creative in the process. This was a win-win situation. They picked out their lunch, ate it, and I got to try something new.

You can make almost any meal like pizza. The next time you want to have fun with food, try using cream cheese, cut up cucumbers and tomatoes. No rules, and all fun.

I like to eat healthy. It is very important that my kids eat a balanced diet. It is also important that my kids agree or by into our family eating habits. My kids like to feel apart of the decision making process, especially where food is concerned. Get creative, let the kids lend a hand in the kitchen. Sometimes it is the simple things in life that give the greatest pleasure.

If you’ve got a new spin on an old meal, I’d love to have you throw your comments below.

I’ve always been a lover of juices.  Orange juice has long been my favorite, and I’m a huge fan of grape juice, apple juice, pineapple juice, etc.  When I was a kid I’d guzzle the stuff by the large glassful, and as a teenager and adult I never thought it was “bad”.  I knew it was a bad idea to drink soda, or “fruit drink”, which is fake juice, but I did not think that 100% natural fruit juice could be bad.

It turns out I was wrong.  Not because fruit juice is bad, but because drinking too much of it is bad. Even though the sugar in fruit juice is “natural”, it’s still sugar.  Too much sugar leads to obesity in children.

I’d like to offer you a few simple suggestions to reduce the amount of juice that your kids drink.

1. Keep lots of fresh fruit in the house, and eat fruit instead of drinking juice.  You’ll get more of the natural ingredients from the fruit and less total sugar.  An orange is refreshing.  A glass of orange juice is made from several oranges! Less is more here.
2. When your kids absolutely insist on juice and you can’t seem to talk them down, dilute it with water.  We often dilute our kids’ juice so it’s a 50/50 blend of water and juice.
3. Try this amazing and delicious replacement for juice.  I made this one day for myself and absolutely loved it, so I wanted to share.  Take a large glass and drop in a few ice cubes.  Then add orange juice so the glass is 1/4 full.  Now, squeeze in a good teaspoon of lemon juice.  This jazzes up the flavor a bit.  Finally, fill up the remaining space (3/4 of the glass) with water. Stir and enjoy. Tell your kids you are making them a special treat. You’ll be keeping the sugar away, and they will love it.

I’m not telling you that fruit juice is bad.  Instead, I’m simply saying too much of it is unhealthy.  We limit our kids to one glass of juice per day now, and they can eat an unlimited amount of fruit, drink as much water as they want, and I’ll offer up my own recipe of highly diluted juice (shared above).

That’s all I wanted to say for now.  Reducing sugar consumption is an important part of your family’s health.  Take it seriously.

Enjoy your children!

Do you ever deal with kids that won’t eat well?  The story I’m about to share with you is not conventional.  It might alarm you, and it might not be something that you’re going to want to do.  But it will still teach you something.  I’m not advocating this nor am I saying that I think it’s cruel.  I think it’s best that you decide for yourself.

I recently visited my sister in Vancouver.  Her kids are 6 and 8 years old and they have always been fussy eaters.  The way she describes it, they would constantly complain and pick at their food.  After years of this, it got on her nerves enough to make her take drastic action.

What did my sister do to make her kids eat?  Simply put, she created a world where the alternative was very unappealing to her kids.  One day at dinner time the kids were complaining as usual.  She said to them, “Look - if I hear one more complaint out of either of you, then what I’m going to do is feed you nothing but bread and cheese as your meal for the next 3 days”.

Well, it wasn’t more than a moment before she got another complaint.  She took away the kids’ meals and grabbed a couple of slices of bread and some cheese from the fridge.  The kids ate it.  For breakfast the next morning she brought out the bread and cheese again.  Then for lunch, then for dinner that night, etc.

She did this for three straight days.  She told me that her kids really lost their fondness of bread and cheese quite quickly (no kidding!).  But at the end of this ordeal she was amazed at the transition.  The kids have not complained about any of their meals.  They know that if they are out of line they’ll go back to eating bread and cheese.

Part of me thought this was funny, and part of me thought this was pretty harsh punishment.   But at the end of the day here are the facts:

• There are plenty of people on this planet that would give up a lot just to get 3 square meals of bread and cheese per day.
• Although devoid of many essential nutrients, this is not really unhealthy and it is only for 3 days.
• It most definitely makes your kids appreciate some variety
• It certainly teaches them the cause-effect link between their complaining and the “punishment” of being served only bread and cheese
• It works.

If you think of doing this let me tell you that you must be very consistent.  My sister did not break from the pattern for 3 full days.  Even a single break from the pattern shows your kids that you can be pushed and that you’ll cave.  If you do this for 2 days I bet it will still work, but then say “it is for 2 days”.  Don’t say it is for 3 days and give up after 2 days thinking they’ve had enough.  You have to follow through.  Again - I’m not saying I would do this (I have other tools to use), but it is something that works.

If you have gone through my audio course “Talking to Toddlers”, then you have learned about something called “anchors”.  An anchor is something that triggers a certain state within someone.  In this case, my sister created a very powerful anchor where a food complaint would be strongly connected, in her kids’ minds, to being punished with a boring food menu for 3 days.  There are much faster ways to create anchors using the techniques I teach.

Anchors can be very useful to draw out certain states when you need them.  For example, you might want to anchor a calm state of mind so you can trigger it at bed time.

If you’d like to learn more about using these techniques and how to deal with toddlers, please check out my audio course, Talking to Toddlers.