Husband asked me the other day, “Why do children respect their parents’ authority at all? They don’t have to do what we say.” After giving it some thought, I answered that children are just like any other citizens: as long as they have it relatively good, they’re not going to try to topple the current regime unless they have something tremendous to gain or absolutely nothing to lose. Sure, they’ll challenge authority a bit, but they’ll be more reassured than otherwise when authority responds to their challenge with swift and decisive punitive action.

It’s psychological insights like these that have allowed me to perfect a technique I call the Mommy Jedi Mind Trick. (You remember: “These are not the ‘droids you’re looking for.” “These are not the ‘droids I’m looking for.”) It goes like this: whenever your child is misbehaving, or (better yet) about to misbehave, you calmly and rationally tell him what to think and do. There are two caveats: First, you must frame the behavior in a positive way; second, you must really, truly believe in your heart that the child will obey you.

For example, if your son is holding his dinner plate in the air, about to dump it on the floor, you don’t say, “Don’t dump that plate!” Your child can only process so many lexical and syntactical elements at a time. What gets through is, “Dump that plate…what a marvelous idea!” Instead, you say with sincerity and convinction, “You will put that plate on the table.” Suddenly, the dumping impulse is interrupted, and before the kid knows what is what, he’s executing your command.

In our recurring battle to get Aitch to sleep through the night, I’ve had to resort to the Mommy Jedi Mind Trick quite a bit. “You’re going to put your head down…you’re going to take a deep breath and calm down…you’re going to go back to sleep and stay asleep until morning.” The effect lasts for a few nights of uninterrupted sleep, but then he tests us again and we have to repeat the whole performance.

Last night, Aitch woke up yelling, and Husband was kind enough to volunteer as first responder. I was grateful for the opportunity to stay in bed, but a bit trepidatious, because Husband has a history of being lax with the no-Aitch-out-of-bed-unless-covered-in-hives-or-vomit rule.

“Be strong,” I said.

“I will,” he said.

“No, really. Don’t let that kid out of bed.”

“I won’t,” he said.

“BE STRONG,” I implored.

“I will be strong. I’m being strong,” he replied.

Then he thoughtfully turned off the baby monitor so I wouldn’t be bothered by the noise, which means I couldn’t hear exactly what transpired, but from the cadence and tenor of the voices, plus other sound effects, I was able to glean this much:

Aitch: DADDY UPPY DADDY UPPY DADDY UPPYYYYYY!

Husband (calm, reasonable tone): Aitch, it’s time to sleep. Put your head down and go back to sleep.

Aitch: NO DADDY UPPY DADDY JUUUUUUUICE!!!

Husband (soothing, steady tone): Aitch, you’re not a baby anymore. You had milk before you went to bed last night and you don’t need anything to drink in the middle of the night.

Aitch (sotto voce): You really believe that crap?

Husband (bewildered): What?

Aitch: That’s what she told you to say, isn’t it? What, you think I can’t occasionally get thirsty in the middle of the night? Like you never get up at 2 a.m. to get a drink? What do you think wakes me up half the time?

Husband: Well…I guess…

Aitch: You’re going to take me out of this crib, walk me downstairs, and get me some juice.

Husband: I’m going to take you out of the crib, walk you downstairs, and get you some juice.

SOUNDS OF DOOR OPENING, FOOTSTEPS, REFRIGERATOR OPENING AND CLOSING.

Later, as Husband is finally climbing into bed after getting Aitch back to sleep:

Husband (muttering): He didn’t even drink any of that juice.

Me: That’s because he didn’t want it. HE WAS MANIPULATING YOU.

Husband: What? What did I do?

I can’t believe he fell for the Baby Jedi Mind Trick.