IT WAS HIS IDEA!

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How many people get to have a CAESARS PALACE HOTEL Chef, come to their humble abode and cook a world class meal on their BBQ grill? WE DO! So we prepared ourselves to accommodate him.  This was not a catered affair; we had to buy everything that was being prepared right down to the spices. Still, it was a unique experience in more ways than one. 

The Chef arrived with his wife and we attempted to socialize while our just turned 4  year old (the same son of mine in https://steemit.com/story/@knowledge-trust/whisper-discipline ) did everything he could to distract this new male stranger who just took command of his Mom’s kitchen. He was relentless. I had to continuously call to him to distract him away from the Chef so the Chef could make progress!

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I believe I have read every parenting book from everyone who’d ever written one but none of them ever addressed the technique I was about to administer on my toddler. I did not discuss this with my wife before initiating it because I could not get her away from our company long enough to see how she felt about it. I just launched right in.   

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I stooped down to his level and in a quiet voice I said: “Kiddo, do not sit on the stairs”. (That quiet voice was a precursor to the WHISPER)  “Do you understand?” “And if you sit on those stairs, don’t go up them to your room, you understand?”  “K”, he said looking sincere.  “And if you go up to your room, don’t you go in your toy-box, understand?” “Yeah”, he said looking confused. “And if you go in your toy-box, do not get any toys out and play with them, do you understand?”  “And if you start playing with those toys, do it nice and loud so Daddy can hear you and come up and get you ready for bed.”

“NOOO!” he said. “Yesss!”, I retorted, still using my quiet voice.

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A minute later, if that much, there he was sitting on the bottom stair trying not to be noticed. I didn’t notice him. Step by step (inch by inch?) he went up the stairs, one at a time and in maximum stealth mode. Once up the stairs we didn’t hear from him. I waited at the bottom of the stairs and after five minutes, went up to check on him. He was in his room, in the middle of all of his toys, talking to himself ….very . . . . . quietly.  

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I slipped into our bedroom and grabbed the wireless monitor to the camera we used in his room. I snuck back downstairs quietly and hooked up the monitor in the living room. I told the Chef about what I was doing.  I turned around and observed my frowning wife who exclaimed: “you’re setting our son up to be a criminal!” “You’re setting him up to be a rule breaker!” (This was why she was so alarmed when I performed the Whisper Discipline!) I tried to explain to her that it’s human nature to defy authority and I didn’t believe that fact would be lost on our son. I explained to her that what he was exercising was control of his world by initiating that which was his idea.

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When it was time to eat, I went to retrieve him for our meal but he was fast asleep in the middle of his toys. We all ate and enjoyed the meal and then woke him up and socialized with him and as far as I am concerned, he was no worse for the wear, but I did it at the expense of my wife’s trust and soon after the Whisper Discipline, she began to wonder if I was manipulating HER!

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Courtesy Google Images

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