When it comes to raising our kids, less may be more. Way more.

In fact, learning to selectively ignore our kids not only relieves parents from the joyless cycle of nagging, but helps our kids to learn.

That’s the premise behind a new book:Ignore It! How Selectively Looking the Other Way Can Decrease Behavioral Problems and Increase Parenting Satisfaction.

Author Catherine Pearlman, a family coach and assistant professor of social work at Brandman University in California, encourages parents to respond less often to petty everyday transgressions and save their energy — and breath — for the stuff that really matters.

The things we should pay less attention to: whining, complaining, negotiating, wiggling, nudging, fidgeting, annoying sounds and age-appropriate tantrums (that’s just what 2 and 3-year-old kids do, Pearlman says).

“Any attention we provide is just going to reinforce it and it’s just going to happen more often,” she says.

If, instead, we don’t enter into a negotiation about how many carrots get eaten at dinner or about delivering a forgotten science book, our kids learn both appropriate boundaries and natural consequences.

Plus, all the monitoring and managing we do these days isn’t exactly adding to the enjoyment of raising kids, Pearlman says.

“This society has created this very intense over-parenting and I honestly think it’s creating a situation where we’re not having a lot of fun. We’re just so busy on the job that we’re forgetting to actually enjoy our kids.”

I asked around and learned that quite a few of my parenting peers have learned to pick their battles.

That’s certainly the case for Ajax dad Eric Novak.

“With four kids in the house, it would be impossible to exist without a fair amount of give and take,” he says.

“Three boys ages 13, 13 and 15 in a smaller space can leave plenty of messes. We used to harp on making beds, putting everything away. While we still expect certain levels of cleanliness, we have loosened the reins to a degree.”

Lisa Canning, an interior designer and mom of six kids under age 8, has also learned that happiness relies on her willingness to let stuff go.

“I am basically an expert at choosing my battles because honestly, if I did not, life would not be much fun for me or my kids,” Canning says.

With so many little ones in her charge, she’s had to shift her thinking on tantrums especially.

“Earlier in my parenting career, I thought tantrums were the end of the world and a sign of inadequate parenting. Now, I understand that tantrums are a normal part of kids expressing frustration,” she says. So instead of trying to turn every tantrum into a big life lesson, instead, she tries to ignore the drama or redirect attention elsewhere.

The dinner table is another common scene for power struggles, Pearlman says. “Kids know that we want them to eat, so they don’t. Or they complain.” And while we have a tendency to look upon their subpar table manners with horror (“What would the Queen have to say about this?!”), a lot of times, kids eat with their fingers because that’s just natural for them, Pearlman says.

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“Probably if you’re out to dinner or at a fancy party, your kids will know that they should use silverware, or that’s when you can let them know that, ‘Hey guys, no fingers. This is a fancy place.’ ”

And if they don’t catch on, well, you can try what Toronto mom of two Corinne McDermott did. “I couldn’t bear my kids’ table manners — nor my nagging — any longer, so I outsourced to etiquette classes. Money well spent!” McDermott says.

“Now, instead of nagging to sit up or use their fork, etc., we can joke, ‘Is that what Ms. M taught you?’ or similar and it seems to get the message across without me non-stop nagging.”