The Poky Little Puppy Gave Us All The Parenting Advice We’ll Ever Need

The Poky Little Puppy is a classic Little Golden book that probably made an appearance either in your childhood library, or on your own kids’ bookshelves. But did you realize this literary triumph is also a treasure trove of brilliant parenting advice? Let’s take a look at the wealth of wisdom this book has to offer.

1. You should probably just remain totally calm and carry on with business as usual when one of your children goes missing.

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When four of your five kids return from their day of truancy, don’t get upset about the fifth one who is still out there somewhere. Sure, they could be dying on the side of the road somewhere, but 80% of your kids got home safely and that’s still a B-minus! Great parenting work!

2. Punish your children differently for doing the exactly same thing.

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By this I mean both that you should punish one child differently from another for the same offense, and that you should punish the same child differently (or not at all!) each time he screws up. When one kid sneaks out of the house, send him to bed without supper. When another ones does the exact same thing, turn your back while he eats an entire cake!

This technique handily pits your children against one another to compete for your affections, and drives them toward what psychologists refer to “learned helplessness”, as they’re unable to anticipate your reactions to their behavior. Now you’ve really got them crushed under your thumb! Hooray!

3. Not feeding your kids dinner for two or three straight days is a good disciplinary technique.

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What better way to foster a healthy relationship with food than to take it away as a consequence for misbehavior, and reward kids with it when they do what you want?

4. Don’t actually monitor your kids when you know they can’t be trusted alone.

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Take free-range parenting to the absolute extreme by failing to provide even a modicum of supervision to your young children who have already proved that they’re going to act like idiots when your back is turned. It’s survival of the fittest! This is another good reason to start with a litter of five puppies set of quintuplets if at all possible.

5. Never speak directly to your children about their behavior when you can leave passive-aggressive notes instead.

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You could have a reasoned conversation with your children about why you’re asking them to do certain things, about the potential fallout of their actions if they don’t listen to you, and about the disciplinary consequences of their disobedience. Or, you could just stick up a sign in the house that says “IF YOU MISBEHAVE YOU’LL NEVER SEE ANOTHER CHOCOLATE CAKE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE”. Up to you, really.

(Feature image: Amazon)

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