☕️ 6 Lessons Learned from Wrangling 5 Kids

Sometimes you need a trial by fire.

I'm a great dad...to my one kid. (False modesty is weird form of narcissism, I am a great dad.) But how will I do with more kids?

To test myself, and also to spend quality time with my family, I took a five-day trip to visit my sister and her four kids. It was an eventful, calamitous affair. Never a dull moment. Coming back home and drinking coffee as I write this has been the most relaxed I've felt in ages. One kid is a breeze now.

Some of my experiences on the trip were profound, and I'd like to share the lessons I took from them.

1. Retardation Can Strike a Woman at a Moment's Notice

My wife is smart, but when she is with me she likes to "turn her brain off" because she knows I will handle the details.

We touched down at our connection airport and the flight attendant made a strange announcement. "Attention all passengers, make sure to pick up your checked bags, even if this is not your final destination."

"That's weird," I thought. "Is this just a weird flight that didn't check our bags all the way through?"

It was a tight connection. We had 20 minutes to switch terminals before our next flight sealed the doors. But our stroller that we gate-checked was still on the plane.

"Go to the gate and see if there's a baggage claim." I told my wife. "I will stay here with the kid and grab the stroller."

I got the stroller and started making my way out to the gate.

"What kind of airport has a baggage claim post-security?" I thought.

Next to the revolving door under a giant "NO RE-ENTRY" sign, through the plate-glass windows, I found my answer—and my wife.

I watched her through the window as she answered my phone call. She was...upset...when I broke the news to her that she had 15 minutes to make it through security or we'd miss our next flight.

2. Sales Skills Kill

My wife spent the last few years in sales (jewelry) before becoming a stay-at-home mom. And you don't sell $50k a month out of a small, family-owned store without picking up a few skills. She would need those skills to cut the line at a major international airport to reach us in time.

I'd like to say her finesse and closing skills got her through that line, but it was more likely the tears and the fact that she was stranded from her 1-year-old that got her through so fast.

But 90% of sales is just having the balls to ask a stranger for something. Most won't do it.

I don't believe this is a coincidence—earlier this morning I scrolled through Twitter, only for a minute or two, and came across this tweet.

We found ourselves in this exact situation a few hours later. I coached my wife on the phone to aggressively ask every single person in front of her to let her through. Every single person obliged, and if she hadn't asked, we would have surely missed our flight.

3. Be In Shape

The flight started boarding about 15 minutes before she made it through security. So when we were finally reunited, it was on.

We had to make it to a terminal on the other side of the airport, so we sprinted to the train and leapt through the closing doors. I was wearing two bags and pushing a stroller.

When the train doors opened again, we sprinted to the gate and threw our boarding passes on the counter. There were two minutes until the doors were sealed.

If my wife or I were not in good enough shape to do weighted sprints, we wouldn't have made our flight and would have had to rebook.

4. Don't Make Rules You Can't Enforce

After landing, we drove to my sister's house to spend five days with five kids under 10. Again, not sure what I was thinking here, booking this as a vacation.

My sister's kids are always pushing boundaries. All kids do. But they never find those boundaries because they don't exist. Threats of time-outs and early bedtime are never enforced, so their behavior grows more and more extreme. How confusing for a child!

To shape behavior as a parent, you must be an authority. Authority is derived from consistency. Let's take a look at the principles of Operant Conditioning, the science of behavior change:

Positive Reinforcement—A random-schedule reward works best (like a slot machine). Don't reward your kid every time he makes his bed, but if you take him out for ice-cream once every few weeks and mention it's because he keeps his room clean, he'll always keep it clean.

Positive Punishment—Almost everyone incorrectly calls this "Negative Reinforcement." The thing about Positive Punishment is that the stimulus must be scaled to remain effective (e.g., hitting your kid harder and harder). Alternatively, starting with the strongest stimulus (e.g., grounded for a month for not brushing your teeth) solves the scaling issue, but is equally cruel in a parenting context.

Negative Reinforcement—A handy technique when children are old enough to understand. If your kid has been well-behaved, you can let them skip a chore or stay up a little later (avoid their early bedtime). Must be used judiciously, as you also want to instill a sense of responsibility.

Negative Punishment—A much better approach to punishment. Take away toys, time-out (loss of play time), etc. Doesn't need to scale, but needs to be consistent.

Negative Punishment is where you must remain consistent. Make as few rules as you need to (are you telling your kid "no" because they shouldn't do it, or because it annoys you?), but enforce them *every* time. Kids need order and boundaries. Failure to provide this makes them unruly and unlikeable, which is a more cruel and permanent punishment than a simple time-out.

5. Free Yourself From Your Phone

My sister and her husband were always on their phone around their kids. My heart broke watching them try desperately to get their parent's attention, only to walk away disappointed after a minute or two.

Their phone addiction continued in a three-story restaurant, with an open entrance that was 10 feet from a swift river and some deranged homeless beggars. I was able to corrale them all in the gift shop of the restaurant, and only a few dozen toys were stripped from the shelves and thrown on the floor. (If you're reading this, Rainforest Café gift-shop employees, I'm sorry.)

Kids just want your attention. It is one of the most powerful rewards a child ever receives. I am becoming convinced that phones are demonic devices that entice the user with whatever sin best fits their personality—anxiety/doom-scrolling, analysis-paralysis to keep you from greatness, etc. I believe this literally.

6. Raise Your Consciousness Before Worrying About Money

It is very easy, especially on this side of the internet, to become hung up in the pursuit of wealth. But as every rich person warns, greed will be with you every step of the way. You probably do not have an exit number. You will not arrive at $X million dollars as a completed and integrated individual.

So do the work now.

The second night we were there, I heard my wife call down from upstairs. Something sounded off. My brother-in-law was the first one up there. He came out of the bathroom screaming. One of the kids had accidentally left the sink plugged and running, flooding the bathroom. He and my sister raged as they scrambled to clean up the mess in the bathroom and the laundry room below, where the water was leaking.

It's an expensive mistake, to be sure, but he was yelling at the kids about how they were "stupid" and "morons." At one point, he turned around and called two of his kids "fucking retards."

I took the kids to their rooms, reassured them that it wasn't their fault, and read them a bedtime book.

My sister and her husband have money. They live in a $1MM+ house and have other rental properties. Yet they are low consciousness. When something goes wrong, they are reactive and traumatize their kids.

You will not achieve wealth and suddenly become high-consciousness. Start the work now. You may even get there more quickly if you do...

(Bonus) Detox Your Brain

Although I was scrambling every day to keep five small children from backspacing themselves, one good thing came of it—I was never on my phone. Once we left the craziness behind and headed for the airport, I noticed I was far more focused and present with my wife and son.

This is the power of a dopamine detox, which I've written about in detail.