Raising Made Simple

Picture our house around 8:12 p.m. The 5-year-old is turning her stuffed animal into a motivational speaker, the 4-year-old is auditioning for a parkour league from the couch, the 11-year-old is remembering a homework question that apparently didn’t exist until this very minute, the 13-year-old would prefer to discuss philosophies of friendship, and the 18-year-old is sipping cereal with earbuds in and tuned out to the world.  This used to be the time when my wife and I braced for battle. Then we learned a deceptively simple truth: your child’s bedroom can whisper “sleep” long before you ever say “bedtime.” Tonight’s post is about crafting that whisper. Not Pinterest perfection— predictable signals . When the room, routine, and your presence all say the same thing, kids stop fighting the message. You’ll still have human moments (we do!), but the tug-of-war becomes a glide path. Think “airport landing lights,” not “emotional traffic jam.” ...

You know that moment at 7:11 a.m. when someone can’t find a shoe, someone else is negotiating the terms of a sock contract, and the 4-year-old is asking deeply philosophical questions about whether waffles have feelings? That used to be our daily soundtrack. With an 18-year-old son, 13-year-old daughter, 11-year-old son, 5-year-old daughter, and 4-year-old daughter, mornings in our house felt like a live episode of “Survivor: Kitchen Island.” Then we discovered something delightfully boring: when you build a couple of small routines, mornings stop feeling like a game show and start feeling like… Tuesday. This post is your blueprint. I’ll walk you through the three routines that turned our mornings from chaos to cruise control, with scripts you can swipe, checklists you can print, and a few hard-won lessons. Think of this as a conversation with a friend who’s tried everything, failed publicly, and taken notes. Want the full pla...

Let me confess something that may shock exactly zero parents: kids do not wake up in the morning thinking, “You know what would be awesome? Effortless compliance with all parental requests.” Mine don’t, anyway. Between my 18-year-old son, 13-year-old daughter, 11-year-old son, 5-year-old daughter, and 4-year-old daughter, our house can feel like a startup, a zoo, and a jazz band improvisation—all before 7:30 a.m. And yet, over the years, my wife and I have learned a quiet, powerful truth that has changed the temperature of our home: If you want cooperation, reach for connection first. I call it Connection Before Direction. It’s not about being a pushover or negotiating every boundary. It’s about priming the relationship so instructions can actually land. When kids feel seen and safe, they don’t have to burn energy defending themselves. That energy becomes available for following directions, solving problems, and yes— even brushing teeth w...

If bedtime at your house feels like running a nightly marathon, complete with pit stops for “just one more drink of water,” last-minute homework panic, or sibling squabbles, you’re not alone. My wife and I have been there, rubbing our eyes at 10:30 p.m. while our kids somehow still have enough energy to build a pillow fort. Over the past few years we’ve learned that calmer nights begin long before bedtime. They start with structure; predictable rhythms and gentle guardrails that guide the evening instead of letting it spiral. Below I’ll share the hard-earned lessons that shaped my book, Sleep Easy Kids , and how these ideas transformed chaos into peace for our family. Why Structure Matters More Than Willpower Before we embraced structure, we thought bedtime battles were about “discipline” or “being firm.” But science—and our own exhaustion—proved otherwise. Predictability lowers anxiety . Child development research shows that routines cue the brain to release melatonin earlier and redu...

Most parents know the feeling: You wake up early, determined to start the day smoothly, and within minutes the house erupts into a whirlwind. Shoes vanish. Homework hides. Cereal spills. Someone suddenly remembers a permission slip that absolutely must be signed right now. For years, this was the soundtrack of my mornings. No matter how early I set the alarm, chaos always seemed to win. I’d bark out orders while pouring coffee, trying to keep everyone moving while silently wishing I could crawl back into bed. Then, almost by accident, I discovered the secret to calmer mornings wasn’t in the morning at all. It was in the night before. The Eye-Opening Experiment My turning point came after a particularly rough Tuesday. We were late for school, I was late for work, and everyone left the house frustrated. That night, instead of collapsing on the couch, I decided to spend fifteen minutes doing what I usually saved for the morning—packing lunches, signing forms, and setting out clothes. The ...

  For years I thought I had mastered the art of giving clear instructions. Five kids, five different personalities, and a dad voice that could be heard across a baseball field—I figured listening shouldn’t be that hard. Yet most evenings sounded like this: “Shoes on, guys.” “Time to brush your teeth.” “Dinner’s ready—let’s go!” And the response? Crickets. Sometimes I’d repeat myself until my throat felt dry. Sometimes I’d threaten consequences. Other times I just gave up and did the job myself. Like a lot of dads, I blamed the kids. They were distracted. They were testing limits. They were just being kids. But slowly—and sometimes painfully—I began to realize the real issue wasn’t that my children couldn’t hear me. It was that they didn’t feel connected enough to want to respond. The Myth of the Magic Dad Voice I used to believe there was a perfect way to deliver a command. Say it calmly, but firmly.  Keep it short. Stand tall and sound confident. Plenty of parenting article...