If you have younger kids, you're familiar with the struggle to get them to follow directions.

Our 4 year old is no exception. He's a particularly obstinate child (I say he gets it from his mom, she says he gets it from me, which I guess proves we're both right).

His default is to basically do the opposite of what we ask.

But years ago I read about the power of stories when it comes to getting kids to follow directions.

Seems obvious in hindsight, but telling or reading stories to your kids that show a good example of behavior...

Leads to your kids emulating that behavior.

That's one of the reasons I created my kids' podcast Froggy the Gator (you can listen to 130+ episodes of Froggy the Gator on our new kids' streaming platform Sherwood).

I wanted to create short stories that showcased good behavior.

And it worked.

I made one episode in particular about the importance of following your parent's directions (to be distinguished from following directions from any other random authority).

I listened to it over and over again with our son. He loves the show, and asks for it all the time, so it was easy to get him to listen with me.

And the other night, as we were finishing our bedtime routine, I said, "Ok it's time to get in bed and go to sleep."

And what did he do?

He walked right over to bed, pulled up his covers and said,

"See dad, I'm following directions, just like Froggy the Gator."

So my humble advice is to spend lots of time reading stories to your kids. Make sure the stories show examples of the behaviors you want to see in your kids (luckily for you that's one of the things we screened for in the content on Sherwood...so the work is done for you).

And of course, make sure you're modeling those same behaviors yourself.

-Harrison

PS: Here's another reminder about our kids' streaming platform Sherwood. We made Sherwood because our kids deserve better than the over-stimulating, politicized garbage in the mainstream (goodbye forever, cocomelon). That's what we're building with Sherwood.

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