The Water Of Love Method

My kids inherited my dislike of getting up in the morning. When they were little getting them out of bed for school was a daily battle. It started with me opening their bedroom doors and telling them to get out of bed. It usually ended with everyone yelling at each other.

Then I accidentally created the Water Of Love Method which left me amused and them merely annoyed. And out of bed. And slightly moist.

One morning, after asking them to get up failed, I took a glass of water into one of their rooms. I dipped my fingers in it and sprinkled water on my daughter while singing Dire Straits’ “Water Of Love.” She reacted as if I was flinging acid on her. I just dipped and flipped, dipped and flipped, while singing and telling her I’d stop as soon as she was standing up. She put her feet on the floor and said “I’m up.”

“Nope,” I said as I administered another sprinkle. “You have to be standing.” She stood up and I stopped immediately, then went to her sister’s room and repeated the process.

On the first day it took about two minutes each for them to get out of bed, which was quite an improvement over fifteen minutes of yelling and threats. The second day it took about a minute.

Five days into the experiment I started walking up the stairs with my glass of water, singing “Water of Love.” They were at the top of the stairs before I was, both saying “daaaaaaaaaad!”

From then on all I had to do was sing that song, often from the bottom of the stairs, and they’d be out of bed in seconds.

When I shared this with some other parents they said they tried it and it didn’t work. It turned out they were just dumping an entire glass of water on their kid. That left them out of ammo, and the kid knew it. The result was a drenched kid who was still curled up under the covers.

The sprinkling method works much better, is more fun to do, and you end up with a kid who is merely damp.