parentwithpassion.com

It can be a battle to get kids to do chores at the best of times. I have a daily list of chores for my kids to do. The technique that I use is letting my kids choose from a list what they would like to do to contribute. I never use the word jobs, or chores. I always say responsibilities. This gives them the impression that it is a requirement, not just an optional extra. When I need stuff to be done around the house I usually write a list and call the kids to the kitchen table. I show them the list and tell them to write down their name beside a responsibility they would like to do. Now I have four kids  I don’t know if that makes it easier or harder for this technique. Some would say easier but there are more kids to argue with one another.  

Often there are ten or twelve responsibilities on the list and each child is only allowed to write their name down once, until they have completed that particular task. This saves one child from writing down and grabbing all their favourite chores at once while others miss out. When the child has finished one thing, they get me to check that they have done it correctly, then they can tick off their task as being completed and go on to the next task. This seems to work well for me as the kids love to be the ones to choose what to do. Sometimes, even after they have chosen something, they end up trading tasks with a sibling if they think that they chose the wrong thing. It’s quite funny to watch them sometimes. When you give them some control over what they can and can’t do, they tend to be happier to oblige. 

There are times when I need to ask more of my kids. When we have a complete house tidy and spring clean, I always give my kids plenty of warning. I believe this is a great secret. Always let your kids know well in advance what is expected of them. Imagine if your child had arranged to play with his friend one day, and all of a sudden you said to him, OK, you are cleaning for three hours this afternoon. You would not get a positive response from that child. But if you told him a week prior things might be different. So I prime my kids well in advance for big tasks. I will usually tell them a few days in advance to put aside a certain day to be extra helpful. I will give them some indication of what needs to be done, and I will also tell them that they will have choices as usual. I will remind them again the day before, and again that morning.  When you give kids this common courtesy they will not only appreciate it but will be more cooperative for you. 

These are just little things but they have had a huge impact on my children. If you find something that works, keep on doing it.

Kim Patrick

http://www.parentwithpassion.com/main.html

My nine year old daughter Rebekah decided that she wouldn’t tidy her room. All she had to do was put away a few piles of neatly folded clothes. But she decided that she wasn’t going to do it. OK. Where to from here? I thought about it for a few minutes and devised a plan.  “Beck”, I said to her, “come for a walk with me and have a look at something”. We walked out to the kitchen together. “OK”, I said, “I am prepared to keep your room tidy this week, if you will do these dishes for a whole week”. “OK”, she said, but a few seconds later she changed her mind. “Hang on”, she said, looking at the big pile of dishes and thinking intently. The she said something that was music to my ears, “No deal, Mum. I’m happy to tidy my own room”. And with that, off she went to put her clothes away. I was happy to offer her a choice here to make her feel in control just a little bit. Rebekah thought long and hard about which option to choose before deciding that perhaps she already had the easiest option. Do you think that perhaps this might help her to learn that everyone has to do some kind of responsibilities? I reckon if she had actually swapped with me I would have been ecstatic as I don’t really enjoy doing the washing up. However Beck made the decision that she would prefer to keep her room tidy than wash up. She made a choice and now has to stick with that choice. We must remember that the very things we are teaching our children to do, they must see us doing that very same thing, with a good attitude. You cannot expect a child to keep their room tidy if your room is always untidy. Children will pick up double standards very quickly. So just be aware of that. Children do what they see you do, NOT what you tell them to do. If you don’t believe me, test it out and see for yourself.  I went back in to Beck’s room a few minutes later and Rebekah was mucking around, staring at herself in the mirror, doing everything but putting her clothes away. So I said to her, “Rebekah, you have three minutes to start putting your clothes away, otherwise I am going to take your clothes and put them up in the cupboard for the whole week so you cannot wear them at all”. 

Three minutes later Beck was still standing doing nothing so I proceeded to pack up her clothes and put them all away in a bag in the top of my cupboard. Beck cried and whinged and threw an almighty tantrum but I continued to pack up the clothes until nothing was left. Tough? You bet. Did it teach her a lesson? Absolutely.  She had to do without most of her clothes for the whole week, which meant re-wearing school clothes and being very careful to keep things clean instead of chucking them on the floor each day.  But at the end of the week she got her precious clothes back again and was very grateful.

The thing to learn here is that we have to work with a strong willed child and give them some options. Sometimes it is to our benefit to humour them just a little. If we can have them thinking that they have had their own choice it really does help the child. The fewer outright demands we make of our strong willed child, the better it will be for the both of you.

Kim Patrick

 http://www.parentwithpassion.com/main.html 

My fifteen year old never keeps his room tidy and it drives me crazy. I’m sure many of you can relate to that with teenagers. One particular day David had asked for a sleepover at a friend’s house. He had been well behaved and I saw no reason to stop him from going, so I said “yes”.

Unfortunately for me, I should have looked in his room before I said “yes”. But I guess that was my mistake. After David left for the sleepover I realised that he had left behind an absolute tornado of destruction on his bedroom floor. Honestly, I don’t know how one teenager can make so much mess in a such a small area.

Nevertheless, he was gone so there was nothing I could do about it. I thought about what I should say when he arrived home such as, “David, how dare you run off and leave such a pig sty in your room. Haven’t I taught you better than that? What were you thinking”?

And then a funny thing happended. I remembered something I had heard on a tape a while back about relationships with your teen. It suggested that instead of always coming down on your teen for the not so good things that they do, try ignoring those things and concentrating instead on communicating with them. The guy speaking on the tape said that it can pay big dividends and have the desired result anyhow.

So I did just that. when David arrived home I never mentioned his untidy room. And by the way, he bought his friend back for the night and was accutely embarrassed by the mess that his friend walked into his room to see.  But I still never said a word. Instead, I waited until his friend had gone home the next day and took David out for ice cream.

Did we talk about his room? No. I never bought it up. Did David bring it up? Yes. He talked about how he should have tidied his room before going off in the first place. The desired result - David did tidy his room, but not because I wanted him to. He tidied it because HE wanted it to be tidy. And this is what we want for our kids. They need to develop an internal motivation to do things, not just because mum or dad told them to.

Perhaps if parents would spend a little more time building a relationship with their children and teenagers instead of growling so much, there would be fewer problems between children and parents. try it and see - it really works.

Kim Patrick

http://www.parentwithpassion.com 

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