Parenting can be very rewarding but also extremely stressful at times. For example, there’s nothing worse than talking to your kids but feeling like they’re not even listening to you, or even worse, having them completely disobey you no matter what you do. For example, say it’s time to leave for school. You tell them to put on their shoes, but they run to another room to do something else or simply complain about not wanting to go. What if there were an easier way?

Sometimes the best parenting advice comes from people who aren’t parents but who are very knowledgable about working with children, such as a teacher or a babysitter. We recently discovered one piece of advice that could make life so much easier for parents.

TikToker @livvykaykay is an au pair, which means she lives with a host family and works for them as a nanny to their children. She has shared multiple videos about her life on TikTok including her life as a travel nanny. One piece of advice she shared is too good not to share.

Say a parent or caregiver tells a child something they need to do. It could be the example of putting on their shoes. Say a parent says, “It’s time to leave. Put on your shoes.” Then the child responds, “No. I don’t want to go.” Now we have the beginning of an argument where the parent is stressed out and the child is being disobedient and argumentative.

There is an easier way, and all it takes is changing the way we tell our children what to do. Instead of phrasing it as a command, try phrasing it as a question and giving the child a choice. The choice in this example is not whether or not to put on their shoes. Instead, the choice would involve what to do first in order to get ready to go.

Watch the video below to see how this parenting hack works in real life.

Do your children argue with you when you tell them to do something? Do you think giving them a choice instead of simply commanding them to do something could help? Are you going to try this parenting advice?