At age 9, she’s more than old enough to understand the concept that actions have consequences. Sit down with her and explain very clearly - use a checklist if necessary - that this, this, and this are what she needs to do to be ready to leave the house at 0745 (or whatever time you leave to take her to school).
Starting the next day and every day after that, you take her as is at 0745. If she’s in her underwear, you take her in her underwear and she can finish dressing in the car. If she didn’t brush her hair or teeth, too bad. Don’t relent, don’t back down in any way. It won’t take more than a week or so before she straightens up.
As far as teeth go, my orthodontist had tons of humongous poster-sized photos of nasty teeth as a result of not brushing. Scared the jeepers out of me. Maybe a field trip is in order.
A checklist could be tied directly into an allowance or other reward system with tangible results. 80% tasks done results in 80% of agreed upon weekly allowance.
I don’t have kids, but I teach, and so spend a lot of time with them. One thing that is very clear to me is just how different kids are about this sort of thing, and it doesn’t seem to be related to intelligence or other types of maturity at all. It’s a self-awareness thing that seems to develop at its own rate, and where as some kids can get there shit together and take care of things at 5, others don’t reach the point where they can do it inherently until they are 18.
Because of this, kids that are bad at self-regulating time really need a system to help compensate for something that is much harder for them than it looks from the outside. For many kids, it isn’t enough to just give them an incentive to “try harder” because they don’t even know how to try. You have to help them develop a system of external cues (check lists, alarms, whatever) but don’t try to wean them off the system as the next logical step. And most especially, don’t make them feel like they shouldn’t need the system just because many other kids don’t. This is a true temperment difference between kids, not just laziness.
Check lists are great. I have taught school for 20 years, and gotten 3 kids of my own to teenagerhood. In the morning, I check to see that they are up (alarms do malfunction occasionally) and that’s it. When they were small they had charts with their morning chores listed that they could put stickers on when they were accomplished, but now it’s pure habit. I do yell out a countdown when we’re close to leaving (Ten minutes! etc.). They were never allowed to watch TV in the mornings, but I have been known to crank up the radio to a lively station to get the blood flowing. Sing-alongs have been also known to happen. Of course, since they became teenagers, they would rather die than sing along with me.:rolleyes:
I cannot agree more with this. Hallboy is screwing up his freshman year of highschool and internally it’s KILLING ME. I want to nag, punish, scream, etc. ANYTHING to get his to study before tests (that’s what causing him to fail), but guess what? They are his grades and getting crappy grades have consequences for him, and it was quite a shock to to him to get his first progress report. Guess what though–he went to his teachers to find out what he can do to raise his grades, how he can study better and to get moved to the front of the class.
It took everything I had in me to look at the F on his progress report and say, “Wow, dude, an F. That sucks. Let’s hope it gets better before the report card comes out” and that was all. He knew he’d screwed up, and knew there were consequences for it, but he also took responsibility to take care of it.
To play devil’s advocate a bit, though, (these are general remarks, it sounds like your son is fine) sometimes you do have to show kids how to try harder. As a teacher, I’ve literally had to sit down with kids and show them how to use flash cards (look at one side. Try to remember the definition of the word. Flip it over to see if you were correct . . . ). It’s a really fine line, and while I have seen many kids hurt by over-coddling, I’ve also seen kids floundering because they were allowed to sink or swim without any sort of plan. They try, they really do, but they don’t have the perspective to even see what they are doing wrong–it’s like the kid who gets 25 math problems right and 5 wrong can probably go back and figure out what went wrong with the 5. But the kid that gets 25 wrong and 5 right is making so many different errors all at once that they can’t break it down into fixable problems.
When it looks absolutely hopeless, kids often give up and live with the consequences–it’s amazing what you can get used to when you feel like you have no choice. So the parent sees a kid that is putting up with perpetual grounding or whatever because they are lazy and willful, but the kid is living in a world where their parents are giving them an impossible task as a pretext for taking away all their joy. Both sides grow increasingly bitter, and once things reach this stage it is really hard to fix–that bitterness gets in the way of offering constructive advice.
Obviously, this is always a balancing act, and every kid is different–some kids, you can tell them “you can always ask me for help” and they will ask when they need it. But others just aren’t wired that way–it isn’t pride, or laziness, it’s just when they wrestle with a problem, it doesn’t occur to them to go looking for help.
For example, kids also have very different tolerances for frustration. Some–especially when hormones are rising, as all these emotions are linked–get tremendously frustrated at the merest hint of struggle. It’s hard, as an adult, to take that frustration seriously: “You’ve tried working this problem for five minutes, calm down”, but they already know their frustration is irrational, being reminded that they are crazy doesn’t help them. That kind of frustration can make any consequence seem better than dealing with the source of the frustration, so they give up. You have to teach a kid like that “when you feel that way, go walk around the house three times, or play video games for fifteen minutes, because even though it doesn’t feel like it at the time, that weird rage will pass, and then you can start again”. That seems ridiculously obvious to anyone over 21, but I swear it’s something teenagers often need to be taught.
I guess what I am saying is that while “sink or swim” is important, when they start to seriously sink, more intervention is needed. That doesn’t mean you get in there and hold them up, but it does mean you give them some swimming lessons.
We have a chart for our seven year old of things he is expected to do by himself: eat breakfast, get dressed, brush teeth, be out of the bath and dressed, be at the table for dinner…there are about 8 items on the chart. Nothing onerous, but stuff we know he’s old enough to do himself. If there are two crosses on the chart at the end of the day, he knows he gets privileges - usually television - revoked. There’s no fuss, no shouting, just “You were expected to to this, you didn’t, so no TV tonight.” If you impose consequences for their behaviour, kids learn pretty quickly that it’s worth more to them to brush their teeth than forfeit TV. On the other hand, if you yell endlessly but don’t impose consequences, they’ll just tune it out, you’ll get more aggravated, and the situation escalates.
Just wanted to say, Manda JO, that you make an awful lot of sense.
By and large we have no trouble with our kid, but she is getting ready to pubate, and I guess we will have trouble ahead. I think I will bookmark your comments.
I didn’t get my shit together until I was 20 or so. It took living with roommates and my own maturity to get me to have a routine. Parents, don’t fret. It will come.
I still notice (at 29) that I surprise myself with my ability to think ahead. Simple stuff (I now think “put the glass of water down before you try to pick up the trash you just dropped, or you’ll spill it” instead of spilling it and getting mad at myself for not thinking ahead)
My dad has false teeth. The kind that can be removed. I never needed reminding to brush.
Then again, if I skip brushing, I spit blood the next morning, so my body kinda does the nagging for me.
I don’t have kids, but I would seriously have hated my parents if they had dragged me to school in pajamas, underwear or any other sort of dissaray.
Humiliating a child in front of children that child will have to see every day for years is not parenting, it is evil. Do you really think those children will ever stop remebering that? How will your child feel when, at fifteen, she is still “that kid who came to school in her undies”? Playground harrassment is usually bad enough for most children - adults and parents do not have to help. You (generic you) might as well rename your kid “Heraclitus Crotchfruit” and be done with it.
No one said anything about sending a kid to school in her undies. She would get put in the car at home in her undies and, assumably, have enough time to get her clothes on before she got to school. That’s how I read that post.
Well, Dumbass McNiece went to school in her pajamas. My mom warned her for a whole week, she didn’t listen, she went to school in her jammies. I think my mom did bring her some clothes about an hour later or so, but the child was old enough to understand consequences. If the other kids make fun of her it ain’t for that, trust me.
