One of the most frustrating dilemmas I've faced as a parent isn't the age-old snag of getting your kids to pick up their crap. While I do get all worked up over kid stuff tossed all over the place, the parenting challenge that really churns my butter is less specific. What gets me are those moments when I feel truly helpless in the face of certain behaviors, like my kids not picking up their crap.. Usually, I resort to yelling.

Screaming (with or without obscenities) doesn't do a lick of good, mind you. The Huffington Post's Gretchen Rubin feels my pain and writes about her own strategy, which she borrowed from a self-help writer. I use the 3-2-1 strategy myself, without ever knowing that it had a name and isn't simply what my used to do with me. 

Fancy-pants label or no, Rubin's column hits on one of those fundamental truisms of kids: what works for one probably won't work for all.