Q: My four-year-old is just plain messy. I expect her to help out around the house, and she does, but she rarely finishes a chore. If I ask her to pick up a room, for example, she will leave things on the floor. Having to constantly bring her back to the scenes of her crimes and finish her chores is driving me crazy. What can I do to get her to be more attentive and conscientious?
A: You need to start over on this project. Your frustration is kneecapping your ability to be an effective teacher, and it sounds to me like this is nothing more complicated than a four-year-old who needs some help organizing her approach to tasks.
Take your daughter into a room and ask, “What needs to be done to straighten and clean this room?” Help her figure that out, then leave. Hovering over a child who is doing a task stimulates either resistance or anxiety, neither of which are conducive to good performance. Tell her to call you when she’s finished.
When she calls you, go back into the room and—assuming she really didn’t finish—ask, “What did you tell me needed to be done that still isn’t done?” Do this diligently, without getting upset, until she’s doing a good job in that room. At that point, move to another area of the house.
There’s a general rule of thumb for teaching a new skill to a child this age: take things one step at a time.
Q: Our 17-year-old son is a perennial underachiever. He’s had up-and-down grades all through school. Other than this one problem, he’s a great kid—respectful, sensitive, helpful, and reasonably well-behaved. With graduation in a little over a year, we’re starting to worry that he may not make it in the world. We’ve tried every carrot and stick we can think of, but nothing works. He’s currently making four F’s! Our current tack is to do nothing, but simply tell him that the consequences of underachievement as an adult are going to be far worse than ours. Are we on the right track?
A: If your son is like his generally nearsighted peers, he has no appreciation for the fact that real life won’t put food on his plate unless he accepts and properly discharges his responsibilities. Talking yourselves blue in the face is not going to correct his myopia. The solution to your problem is to motivate your son to take charge of his life.
I’d simply tell him that the responsibility of doing his best in school is minor compared to the responsibilities involved in driving a car. For example, underachievement puts no one else’s life at risk, but driving a car with no sense of responsibility for others does. Since he can’t deal with the lesser responsibility, you can no longer trust him with the greater responsibility. You’ll let him drive again when his grades come up to par.
To make the point absolutely clear, I’d also take the door off his room, explaining, “You need to start getting used to being homeless, because that’s a distinct possibility in your life. Homeless people have no privacy, so neither will you until your grades come up.”
If my experience serves me well, these two moves will put him in checkmate, and he will slowly begin doing what’s necessary to get out of his predicament.
Family psychologist John Rosemond: johnrosemond.com, parentguru.com.
