Imagine you could ask a fish what it wanted to eat today. No sonar, no guessing — just a direct answer: “It’s dark down here, we want nightcrawlers.” Fishing would be a lot simpler. Parenting can work the same way, if you’re willing to ask instead of guess.

Choosing the Right Bait is the third of the Seven Superpowers, and it starts with a single idea: behavior is communication. When you replace the phrase “inappropriate behavior” with “struggle for attention,” a meltdown stops looking like defiance and starts looking like a message you haven’t decoded yet.

Dr. Maria Gilmour tells a story in her book about her young nephew, Chad, who threw a tantrum over food at a family party. Instead of reacting to stop the behavior, she took him to a quiet room, waited for him to settle, and asked a simple question: “What would make you feel better?” He said, “I want cake.” Maybe it really was about cake. But what he needed, underneath the request, was someone to stop and truly see him.

This is the core mechanic of the superpower: the “bait” isn’t usually the thing being asked for. It’s the attention underneath it. Children — like all of us — are drawn toward whatever gets them a genuine response: warmth, engagement, eye contact, presence. When a child doesn’t get that attention through calm, connected moments, they’ll often find it through behavior that’s harder to ignore.

This isn’t manipulation, even though it can look that way from the outside. It’s simply how humans, especially young ones, get their needs met. And once you see it this way, the question shifts from “How do I stop this behavior?” to “What does my child actually need from me right now?” Sometimes it’s physical closeness. Sometimes it’s a sensory break. Sometimes, like with Chad, it’s simply being heard before anything gets resolved.

The practical skill here is pausing before reacting, and asking rather than assuming. It sounds almost too simple to work, and yet it consistently defuses moments that escalation and bargaining only make worse.

Try this today:

The next time your child is struggling, pause before offering a solution and ask directly: “What would help right now?” Listen to the answer before deciding what to do with it.

See this superpower in action with real families at watchitknowit.com.