Obedience Exercises

Children must learn to instantly obey their parents. We tell our kids that we’ll be glad to explain later, but they must obey first and then ask why.

To help instill this in our kids, Rick made up a fun game. We called it obedience exercises. (I know the neighbors must have thought we were crazy for this one.) We’d take the kids out in the yard and have them line up at one end of the yard. Rick would holler out commands such as, “Sit!” “Run!” “Stop!” “Lie down!” “Walk backwards!” “Run!” “Walk like a crab!”, etc., and the kids would follow the command as quickly as possible. It was hilarious to watch, especially as the toddlers tried to join in also, usually one or two commands behind the rest. Everyone laughed and had a good time, and as a consequence, got into the habit of obeying first-time commands. It was enjoyed by everyone and often the kids would beg to do obedience exercises when company would come over and we had “double the kids.”