10 Surefire Ways to Get Your Kids to Come Running

Children love playing games. Whether playing hide ‘n seek, or engaged in an entertaining round of “chase-me-around-the-kitchen-table- before-you-force-me-to-put-on-pants,” there is little more frustrating than trying to physically locate and/or contain a child in your own home. And, as many parents have learned, it is extremely difficult to apprehend a child that does not want to be caught. Years of experience have shown that the best way to gather children is to play by a different set of rules—you must get the child to come to you. So the next time you need to get ready for church, or the doctor’s office, or even if you’re just checking up after extended periods of suspicious silence, try these surefire tactics to make even the most stubborn child magically appear:

1. Tiptoe into the kitchen, open the pantry, and try to extract one potato chip from the bag as quietly as humanly possible. There he is.

2. Go to the bathroom. *For this to work, you must really commit. Sitting fully-clothed on top of the toilet seat only has a 22% response rate. To increase your rate of success, bring a magazine.

3. In fact, opening a book of any type will usually yield the desired response. Something about the sound of pages opening must activate a child’s natural and instinctive desire to learn.

4. Go into any room or closet with a door, close and lock it. This also works on dogs.

5. Call a customer service line. *The child will only appear once you’ve been taken off of hold, so if you called your home warranty or cell phone provider, this method could take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours.

6. Try ringing the doorbell to the house. As long as the children didn’t hear you exit the home, they should all come running from every corner of the house. *This does not work on husbands.

7. Brew a pot of coffee. Take your sweet time making it to your exact specifications. Breathe in and fill your lungs with the warm aroma. Now…put your lips to the mug and take one satisfying gulp. If your child hasn’t appeared directly, by this point you should be able to hear the faint cries from some distant bathroom of a child needing to be wiped.

8. For this next one you will need access to a streaming television network. Take all the time you need to carefully select a show you would be interested in--seriously, the longer you consider, the better this will work. In order to have the desired effect, try to choose something kids will not like, that you REALLY want to watch, or that is extremely not kid appropriate. The effect will compound depending on how many of these criteria you can hit in a single show. Now...push play. At least one child should appear before the credits have finished.

9. Have you tried yelling the word “cake” or “pizza”? This method even has a high level of success on children with strict gluten-free diets.

10. Finally, lean back in your chair and lift your feet into an elevated position. This one might take a little time, as the child really needs to feel you are totally comfortable before appearing. Hurry it along by closing your eyes, or, throw a comfy blanket over your legs. You’re soon to hear the sounds of footsteps in the distance.

Hopefully one of these methods will provide a useful and consistent method for you to wrangle your children. You might find that different strategies work better on different kids, so make sure to mix it up a bit, and try multiple techniques to see what works best for you.

Good luck!