Effective Childrearing for Dummies

1. When your 7-year-old can’t find the math homework sheet that you just placed in front of her on the counter, you should respond:

A. Here it is, sweetheart.
B. I just put it on the counter.
C. Clearly you have inherited your father’s inability to see things that are right in front of you.
D. It’s right here, you freak.

2. In response, your 7-year-old begins crowing gleefully, “I’m a freak! I’m a freak!” You should:

A. Apologize sincerely and resolve to watch yourself in the future.
B. Ignore her behavior and assume it (or she) will go away.
C. Pop an extra couple of Zoloft.
D. Tell her that if you hear that word ONE MORE TIME SHE’LL BE SORRY.

3. You and a really good friend – I mean, the kind without whom your sanity levels would be so far below the level at which institutionalization is necessary – have served your collective children ice cream in the sukkah at approximately 4:45 p.m. The children have eaten some of the ice cream and apparently smeared the majority of it across their clothes and body parts. Decorum dictates that you:

A. Wash them.
B. Wipe them down and ask that they change clothes.
C. Send them inside to clean up while you clear the table.
D. Sit and talk to your friend and roll your eyes when your husband suggests that you perhaps clean the children and clear the table and only get up when you are shamed into doing so by the fact that your friend is clearing.

4. Following the ice cream extravaganza, your children ask about an evening repast. Which of the following is an acceptable response?
(Check all that apply.)

o You already had dinner.
o Don’t you have a father?
o I think it’s bedtime.
o Seriously, I have nothing to feed you.

5. When at last the children have cried themselves to sleep with hunger gone to bed, you tiptoe upstairs to check on them and discover your 55-pound almost 3-year-old asleep on the floor with a dirty diaper. What should you do?

A. Change the diaper and replace the child in his bed.
B. Change the diaper and ask your husband to lift the child to his bed.
C. Change the diaper and cover the child on the floor.
D. Tiptoe back downstairs and pretend you don’t know anything about the dirty diaper or the floor sleeping.