Chocolate Chip Cookie Parenting...that is the name that my wife and I have given our philosophy and strategy for raising healthy, happy, obedient, resilient, imaginitive, etc. children. The name itself comes from the practice of serving chocolate chip cookies to the kids, and this theory really only works if you time it just right so that the cookies are coming out of the oven just as the kids are coming home from school. The real messages behind this action are that 1) Mom is home and waiting for the kids to get home; 2) Mom cares about the kids and shows it by demonstrating an act of love (the chocolate chip cookies are not integral to the theory, but a comforting act of love IS); 3) Mom is not so busy that the children's lives are unimportant by comparison; 4) Mom is happy in her role as "mom" and is fully complicit in the perpetuation of the "traditional" family role. These messages, we believe, go miles for establishing an important relationship with the children which will form that "traditional" deep trust all families should enjoy. That relationship is the foundation for all things that may come later, it allows further building and fortification of principles and expectations. If a parent has failed to develop this foundation, they have no right to ask their children to do anything, as they themselves have failed to comply with their end of the Parent-Child bargain.