CHAPTER 6 Make it enjoyable
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
Mary Poppins
As you begin reading this chapter, we feel we should offer a word of warning. You are about to be subjected to a rather shameless product plug. You may find this surprising given you are neither watching television nor reading a magazine, although given our past lives in the world of advertising, perhaps you don’t. Whatever the case, please bear with us as we attempt to explain our reasons for this.
It’s not just girls who want to have fun
Kieran is a proud mum to five-year-old Darcy (not exactly one of the psychotic stage mums we have come to know through reality television shows with titles such as Tantrums and Tiaras, but proud nonetheless).
Like most mothers with young children Kieran dreads a task that seems to come around with disappointing frequency: the brushing of teeth. Twice a day the same drama unfolds as Kieran tries to a) get Darcy to brush her teeth, and then if the aforementioned is successful to b) get Darcy to brush them for a sufficient length of time to technically qualify as ‘cleaning’ her teeth (or at the very least until Kieran feels her parental responsibility has been met).
The problem is that brushing your teeth is ‘sooooo boring’ when you are five and there are so many interesting and new things in life to distract your attention. No matter how frequently the health benefits are recounted before the event takes place, facts fail to impress.
‘The tooth fairy likes ...
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