Dana Obleman: Hi. I’m Dana. Today, I’m going to ask you a question. I want to know, “What’s the best piece of parenting advice you’ve gotten thus far?” Please go ahead and write it down in the comment section here today. I would love to hear it.

There’s always something somebody says to you in somewhere in the early years of parenting that clicks for you. It changes your whole philosophy around your parenting style. I’m going to share with you today the best piece of advice that I ever got.

It came when my son was around one, my first son. I took him to the dentist for a check up, because I was told that that’s what you do. I went to the dentist. We started talking about his oral care, and what I should be doing, and how to keep an eye on things.

I said to the dentist, “You know what? He hates getting his teeth brushed. He cries. It’s always a huge fight. I don’t know what to do about it.” I went on for a good few minutes about this issue we were having around him brushing his teeth.

The whole time the dentist sat there, stone faced, listening to my dilemma. When I was done, he looked at me and he said, “So what?” [laughs]

Those two words, “So what,” changed everything for me.

He went on to say, “So what if he’s upset? Brushing your teeth is not negotiable. You have to brush your teeth. If he has a fit around it, then he has a fit around it and so what?” That was the best piece of advice I ever got.

I want to explain why that changed everything for me. As a new parent, and I see it all the time with new parents that I worked with, there’s a lot of pressure around being the best parent. Obviously, everyone wants that.

What tends to happen then is that there’s this idea that I can’t upset this little person. I can’t traumatize them. I can’t ever have them be upset. If he doesn’t want to brush his teeth, then maybe, I shouldn’t force him to.

This all place into our thinking that what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? For the dentist to say to me, “You know what? It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t like it,” gave me the permission to go ahead and be the person I’m supposed to be, which is, his parent.

He’s a baby. He doesn’t know. I’m the one who knows. If I say, “You need to brush your teeth, then guess what? You need to brush your teeth. That’s happening whether you like it or you don’t.”

I feel the same around sleep as you all know. Also, sunscreen, my kids always hated to get sunscreen on. “But guess what? Not negotiable. You have to get sunscreen on. We can either do it the easy way. You cooperate. We get it done quickly.

Or, you do it the hard way. You have a crying fit. I’ve to hold on to you. It takes twice as long.” I had the similar experience with teeth brushing, “You could pick the easy way. You do it and mommy helps. We get it done quickly.

Or, we do it the hard way. You cry. I have to hold your mouth open. I’ve to stick the toothbrush in. It’s unpleasant for both of us.”

That’s a parenting tip that I want to share with you today. Saying to your child “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” and you do that enough. Guess what? They start picking the easy way. A one year old, I could say, “We do it the easy way or hard way?”

He’d hand me the toothbrush, and open his mouth, and off I’d go. That didn’t happen the first time, but the more we did this and the more clearly it came to him that this was something that was not negotiable.

It was happening one way or the other, he came around.

Best piece of advice I ever got. I want you to share yours here today, too, so we can have a discussion about great pieces of advice we’ve collected over the years.

Thanks so much for watching today. Sleep well.

Transcription by CastingWords