One of the most important aspects of parenting Crawford found was that a parent is in charge and needs to be obeyed. No questions asked. "French kids know that their business involves obeying adults," she wrote. "Ever since this was explained to me, I have been dropping it on my own daughters. It is kind of fun to say things like, 'You will get in the car now and put on your seat belt, because I am the chief and I said so." The crazy thing? It works. Initially I was afraid that they would become resentful of my new assertions of power and tightened discipline, but that was not the case. They were so used to debating and arguing about everything – because I had raised them to think that their opinion on everything was important – that they seemed almost relieved to have a real chief take charge."
