Hey all you other parents on here. Question for ya. I have a soon to be six year old boy and my daughter just turned four. Like most of you know I'm a stay at home Dad and I'm with the kids all day and am in charge of the discipline etc. I run the house pretty strict and they tend not to get the rope to stray to far from the rules. Lately though the two of them have been sneaking out of their rooms when I put them down for bed and nothing I do (short of blistering their butts) is having much effect on them. I've tried everything I can think of from talking to them, taking things way, raising my voice, locking doors and so on. With the new baby here and the days seeming to get longer I really look forward to that queit time at the end of the night so I can get my homework done and pick up the house.

Any of you run into this stage with your kids before? All I can think of doing involves duct tape at this point. Help!

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I wanna help but Joshua has only ever snuck out of his room twice, and both times I snuck up on him so stealthily that him getting the shit scared out of him has kept him from doing it since

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mechaphil

Hahaha! I've done that and sent them flying into their beds crying and scared shitless but they have the short term memory of a fucking pot head. Five minutes later they sneak out of their rooms like Navy Seals on point.

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Honestly, though, how active are they on a daily basis. Joshua never sneaks out because by the time he's in bed, he's plum fuckin tired.

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mechaphil

They are outside in the yard playing quite a bit most days. They could be doing more though to be honest. With the newborn I haven't had much time to run around in the yard with them or take them hiking like I usually do in the summer.

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Hmm, you may have to just endure the little jailbirds until Coop is ready be slung in the papoose and go hiking with you guys.

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mechaphil

Why are they sneaking out? What is their mission once they're out? It might be easier to stop them if you know what is driving this behavior. Also, I'm just curious. Kids crack me up.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

Go with what works

I generally go in this order:
ask nicely
bribe
ask nicely again
give order
threaten repercussions
make good on repercussions
blister butt

seriously...find out why they're sneaking out and just let them do that in their rooms (unless what they want to do is stay up and watch TV, then show no mercy). If all they want to do is stay up, let them read or play quietly in their rooms. If all they want to do is bother you, again, show no mercy.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

They are probably just rebelling. Strict housing, they probably can't think of anything else "bad" to do.

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"Call a cop he robbed Delmore blind!!!"
Rick Jeanerette after Marty Biron's diving save back in 2000.

"I'm going to go to the spa and have a hot tub and massage and relax," Miller said. "That's it, and it's back to work tomorrow." Ryan Miller after clinching the North East division.

BTW, as a peace-lovin hippie, I still subscribe to the blistered butt treatment as the final straw.

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mechaphil

lil NyQuil should solve all problems...lol... nothing like drugging the kids to sleep... but im just a single guy with no kids, so I probably wouldn't listen to me....

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Yeah, nobody wants 6 year old NyQuil addicts.

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"Call a cop he robbed Delmore blind!!!"
Rick Jeanerette after Marty Biron's diving save back in 2000.

"I'm going to go to the spa and have a hot tub and massage and relax," Miller said. "That's it, and it's back to work tomorrow." Ryan Miller after clinching the North East division.

hey, im also a lunesta sales rep.... but unfortunately lunesta is not approved for kids, lol... that would be off label promotion and could get me in trouble, lol... NyQuil would put 'em down... but your right, no reason to get the kids hooked on the green juice this early in life...lol

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Benadryl and Tylenol start to lose effectiveness as child control agents around 5 years old

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Hold my beer and watch this...

awesome! thats why i went NyQuil ... lil more pop... hahaha... i'm curious what they are going after... i personally like the idea of letting them do what they want in their rooms, read or play a little, if they want to be up.... but no TV and no bothering the Ps... and stay in your rooms... but again, Im just a single guy with no kids, soooo i am no where even close to an expert...

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Their rooms are side by side and both right across from the bathroom. My daughter will sneak over to my son's room just to shoot the shit really or if one gets up to go to the bathroom the other will get out of bed to chit chat with them. It's all about just talking and sometimes playing.

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That's something I thought before I had kids but the problems you find if you let them stay up in their rooms is that if they don't get enough sleep they can be cranky little brats all day. And man at the end of the day with three kids, you REALLY need that down time as a parent when the house is quiet so you can get your brain patterns back to normal. I work out after they go to bed then draw and study so I need them to stay in bed. I haven't gotten a thing drawn for the gallery in three weeks because of this shit.

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Maybe do something to spook them, like say, "if you get out of bed for no reason, the headless horseman will come steal you." or something like that. Kids usually respond well to that stuff.

i don't want to pay for their therapy later on in life.

I think I'm going to camp out in the hall way with a book tonight and play hall monitor

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My ex-wife's family is mostly Albanian and they used the threat of the oikoo (Albanian werewolf S.O.B.) to keep the kids from doing anything bad. Didn't work too well (my ex-wife and her sisters were hellions) but it's a suggestion nonetheless

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mechaphil