High-level parenting guideline: never do anything you don't want to have to keep doing basically forever. Like giving your kids snacks or a phone or whatever wh

High-level parenting guideline: never do anything you don't want to have to keep doing basically forever. Like giving your kids snacks or a phone or whatever when you're out, to keep them quiet. Now you have to give them a phone and carry crackers everywhere, forever, or else deal with a period of much worse outburst & behavior problems than before, when you fail to produce them. Addendum: if there's something you must do that you don't want to keep doing forever, aggressively cut it out as soon as possible. Or you're just deferring and increasing the eventual pain.