A long-running struggle in my house has been teaching children that if I ask them to relay a message to someone, they should not stand where they are when I’m talking to them and shout across the house. So far I’ve managed to progress to where they will walk several feet in the direction of where they think their sibling is and then yell.

I’ve recently discovered that if I ask them, “please walk over to where [your sibling] is and then tell them [message],” they actually do it.

Sometimes it’s weird what works.