Category: Parenting

>>hi avivah! i am wondering if you set certain standards for jobs? for example, whoever does the bathroom must do the floor, toilet, counter, garbage, etc. i found that i needed to make checklists for jobs like that, and nobody did it thoroughly, and although i was willing to supervise once or twice, i ended up feeling like a prison warden. <<

Yes, I do set standards.  At the beginning of the year I explain to all of the kids who will have that chore what is expected.  Then at the beginning of their month (or two weeks, depending what the job is), I give a quick reminder.  I do periodic checks, but not every day.

I let my kids know that it’s worth it to do the job right because if I see it’s done wrong………you guessed it, they get more opportunities to practice doing it right!  If it’s once, I’ll tell them to correct it, but if it’s more than three times that they’re doing things in a shoddy way, they’ve earned themselves an extra amount of time on that chore.  That might mean doing an extra week on this chore after the cycle changes, or it might be an extra job somewhere else. It depends on the specifics and what I sense will be most effective at that time.  I’ve done this on a number of occasions and they know what to expect.

>>also, what are your consequences for a shoddy job? like if one of your older kids decided to just make toast for breakfast every day because they didn’t feel like making anything more? would you step in and correct that? would you encourage in a different direction? or is part of them becoming internally motivated that you stay out of it? thanks, as always, for the great advice! you are the voice in my head that keeps me headed in the right direction!!<<

I post the weekly menu plan on the side of the fridge.  For the person on breakfast duty, I try to show them the recipe I have in mind the night before, so they won’t be held up if I’m not up when they’re ready to start.  Sometimes, usually on Sunday morning (when the complete week’s plan usually hasn’t yet been posted) or the first of the month (when the new person is taking over) there will be a morning where they’ll make what they think they should, because they don’t know what I want.  I’m absolutely fine with that. I can’t remember anyone refusing to do this.  If they did, I’d let them know they’ve earned the privilege of washing the dishes or cooking lunch and dinner for the day (or week, if it was said with disrespect) as well as making breakfast.

So for your question about if I’d step in or not, it would very much depend what the motivation of the child was and what my level of concern about that particular thing getting done.  I’m actually pretty relaxed – I know, I probably sound like a drill sargeant with my extra work motto, don’t I? 🙂  But really, I view my kids as responsible, hard working, and know they want to do the right thing, so I feel there’s plenty of room to give the benefit of the doubt.  If they overslept and wanted to make something faster, it would be okay with me assuming oversleeping wasn’t a habit; things happens and I don’t expect perfection!

But – here’s where I’m not relaxed: if someone is flouting authority  or being disrespectful.  If they simply didn’t feel like doing what I posted, then too bad.  Since when do you have to feel like it to do your job?  Sometimes kids need help developing good habits.  Doing the right thing is often not comfortable or easy, and they need our support and encouragement in overcoming their desire to procrastinate or take the easy way out.

After saying all of that, the real question is what is your goal when having your kids do chores?  Is it to accomplish something specific in terms of character development, cleanliness level, smoothness of home functioning?  Or are you happy to have whatever help they can give you in the way they give it to you?   For me, it wouldn’t flow with my goals to let a child do whatever they wanted in spite of what I said.  But everyone has their own goals and will need to take different steps depending where they want to go.

Avivah

PS- After I write my response, I often read the question to my kids and ask them for what they would do and what they think I would do. Dd13 right away said the child has to make what’s on the menu and should make lunch in addition to breakfast.  Dd15 (she just had a birthday :)) said it depends how much you care if they eat toast every day, and if it’s fine with you, then leave it be.  As you read, I agree with them both. 🙂

>>Since, I am a self-taught homemaker, I am not sure the best time and chore to start with for my children. At what age do you begin to assign chores? Is there a typical first chore you give them?<<

Basically I look for things they can do from the time they are a young toddler (about 15 months) – usually this is a small piece of something someone older is doing.  They can put dirty clothes in a hamper, and carry one item to the laundry room.  They can pick up items from the floor and put them where I tell them. They can put their cup or plate in the sink (if you lift them up or take it from them when they get there).  When they are very little, this means me walking with them to where it should go, but they learn quickly and know that their dirty clothes go in the clothes hamper, so soon they start doing it with minimal prompting.

None of this practically speaking makes your life any easier.  In fact, it will take more effort than not involving them- and that’s why most parents don’t have kids who help out in the house!  Be that as may, this is how I help my kids develop an understanding and a positive feeling about participating in the home tasks that need to be done.  I’m not so official around here that I assign very little children with chores.  What I try to do is make helping out an integral part of their lives.  When I see something they can do – and this is usually something very small – I give it to them with a big smile and an attitude of “oh, lucky you, you get to help!”  (And since I know some of you are wondering, if they refuse, I give them another big smile and say, “Yes, Mommy!”  This gives them a model of the response I want to see.)

Kids will copy you, so sometimes they end up doing jobs that I wouldn’t have thought of giving them, and doing it well. Recently, for example, ds2 was watching me clean the walls.  He ran to get a rag from the rag drawer, went to the bathroom to wet it, and started vigorously wiping the area that I was cleaning.  So I let him do it by himself, and he did a great job.

I don’t expect much until they are much older in terms of the final result.  What is important to me is them feeling good about helping out and getting the message that their help matters and is appreciated.

Avivah

A few weeks ago we had a family over for lunch, when towards the beginning of the meal the 11 year old girl looked at her mother and said, “Don’t get any ideas!” Nothing unusual or remarkable was happening and I was a little mystified at to what she could be referring to, so I asked and her mother said they noticed that several of my kids got up to serve the meal.  The daughter adamantly said she didn’t want her mother to start expecting them to bring the food to the table.

A little later in the meal, the mother was describing her chore schedule to me, and her daughter grimaced and indicated that she felt she had to do too much.  I smiled at her and told her that she would feel very lucky if she knew the chores my kids do, and then told her.  There was some kind of response at how much my kids had to do, but then my dd14 who was sitting right there corrected her and said our kids don’t have many chores at all.  It’s all about perspective, isn’t it?

I do expect my kids to help out, and to do it fairly willingly, and it was good for me to hear the response of the visiting eleven year old, to increase my appreciation of what my children do and how they do it.  I’m grateful that my kids find what’s expected of them fair and reasonable, since I try to be balanced in my expectations.  But the truth is that they do a lot more than most kids their ages.  Then again, they have a lot more freedom and flexibility in their schedules than most kids their ages, so I guess it all evens out!

A big part of why they do what they do is determined by my feelings about teaching kids basic living skills.  That included cooking, baking, cleaning, laundry, child care, and general home organization.  There are other important skills, too, like money management, home repair, etc, that I consciously help them to learn while living at home (my post on teaching money management was one of those lost when the blogged was hacked a couple of months ago).  These aren’t gender specific skills – boys and girls will benefit by knowing them regardless of what roles they end up in later in life.

All of these are skills you develop by doing them – you can’t just read a book!  By the time they are twelve, I want each of them to have the skills to basically be able to run a home.  That doesn’t mean that they do run my house, but that they can do it if they needed to.  I feel it’s a true kindness to teach a child these skills when they’re at home instead of sending them into the adult world without basic competencies.  That’s probably why I don’t suffer from guilt when asking my kids to help  – I appreciate their help and it obviously makes our home life run more smoothly, but I also know that they’re becoming well prepared for life.  I bet all of you know adults who are still struggling to learn basic skills – wouldn’t it have been so much easier for them have learned it when young?

I’ll try to share our current chore chart next week for those of you who are wondering how the work in our house is divvied up.

Avivah

>>… more about jumping on the couch as an example.  When you take the toddler off the couch, don’t they just get right back on? How many times do you do that? What do you do next, if they won’t stop? Or if they then switch toward some other destructive behavior?<<

I do it as many times as necessary; when I decide they need to do what I said, that means being 100% ready to outlast my child.  As I said, I won’t make a request that is likely to be ignored if I know I am not able right then to enforce it.

Okay, about the couch.  I take him off. He climbs back on.  As soon as he starts to climb on, I matter of factly whisk him off.  The ideal is to watch for him to climb back on and stop him as soon as he begins, not after he’s already in the middle of it.  If you can’t get to him until he’s already jumping up and down, that’s okay, but not as effective.  It’s very important to stay calm and unemotional about this – what helps me is remembering it’s not about me and my ego, it’s about helping my child learn, it’s for his benefit.

Do this as many times as necessary.  Are you imagining this will be fifty times?  It won’t, unless you give him a good emotional reaction.  But you won’t be, since you’re staying detached and matter of fact.  You’re too boring in your response for him to enjoy getting a rise out of you, and you’re too consistent in your response for him to think he’s going to get away with it if he holds out long enough.  Feeling confident that you know how to handle a situation and that your response is going to be effective makes it pretty easy to stay cheerful and not turn this into a hugely emotional power struggle. It’s when we feel powerless that we get overwhelmed and frustrated.

As far as how to stop them, you’re asking about stopping a very young child, right?  A three year old is very small and you’re very big.  🙂  You don’t have to smack kids around or scare them to get them to understand you mean what you say and they need to listen.  A twelve year old who is the same size as you is a lot more challenging, but strong parental authority works just as well  with twelve year olds.

Switching to another destructive habit: Why would a child switch from one negative behavior to another? That’s the question I would ask myself, and then deal with the root cause (usually boredom, wanting attention, or testing boundaries).  Generally kids want our positive attention.  I’m not suggesting turning yourself into the police and making your child feel you have your eagle eye on him every minute – not at all!  You should be spending lots of time interacting with him, which makes keeping an eye on things pretty natural.  And kids really love this.

Remember, it’s not about punishing them, but about building your relationship and creating a pleasant environment to spend time in together.  Spending lots of relaxed and focused time with young children, together with setting clearly defined and reinforced limits is really all it takes for them to stop the behavior.   Their needs are already being met without them needing to misbehave for it.

Avivah

A week and a half ago I posted about stopping negative behavior, and the following was asked:

>>What about when you are really busy? mentally? Your hands are covered in red beet juice? You are nursing a baby? your surrounded by carefully folded laundry and 3YO is jumping on the sofa? Do you drop everything else? Because that is my conundrum… I have other obligations than just spending time disciplining the 3YO.<<

Being busy with other things is a real challenge that we face every day!  Keeping your littles close by and in sight is very, very helpful in preempting problematic behaviors, and it’s a big first step.  But realistically, you can’t preempt everything, every single time – at least I can’t!

How I respond depends on what stage my child is at.  If they’re in what I consider the active training phase, then I make responding to situations that need my attention a top priority.  While raising a child is ongoing, the intensive stage of teaching them what is acceptable and what isn’t is pretty finite.   During this stage they’re learning that you mean what you say, every single time.

This isn’t convenient or easy for the parent.  That’s part of the power of your unspoken message to them, that helping them to learn proper behavior is your top priority and they’re not going to get away with something because you’re on the phone, in a store, or in the middle of something.  So if I’m nursing the baby and a child jumps on the couch, what to do when telling them to stop doesn’t produce results?  I stop nursing the baby and help the jumping child to stop (as I wrote about in the above mentioned post).  If I know that I won’t be able to follow up, I won’t make the request.  Better to ignore something than to tell them something you have no ability to follow up on, which teaches them that you can be ignored.

Practically, it means saving certain activities for when they’re not in need of supervision – when they’re napping, in bed for the night, or when they’re visiting a grandparent.  Cut down on what needs to be done – during the initial learning phase, drop your standards of your house, outside commitments, and anything else that will take away from your kids to the absolute minimum.  A number of tips I shared regarding making the postpartum period easier would be useful at this time.   Make super simple meals, use paper plates, and get to sleep early – it takes a lot of emotional energy.

I know how daunting it sounds to have to make supervising, preempting, and responding a top priority.  It sounds impossible, doesn’t it?!  But what you’ll find is that it really won’t require nearly as much effort after the initial time investment (how much that will be depends on your children and how much time they’ll need to get the message).   You’ll quickly find your kids’ behavior improving, since a) you’re not waiting for situations to escalate so they aren’t becoming the huge deal they may have been before (thus require huge amounts of emotional energy), and b) you’re consistently dealing with it right away so your kids are making a clear connection between their behavior and your response.  Very soon, you’ll find you’re spending much less time disciplining and much more time enjoying them.  The time investment is relatively small, but the payoffs are huge!

Avivah

>>What do you do in the opposite situation – when a young child is actively doing something you want them to stop doing (as opposed to them not doing something you want them to do, about which I found your explanations very helpful.)<<

You mean like a two year old who is jumping over his 5 month sibling, or a 3 year old who is pushing his seven year old brother off the couch by pushing him with his feet?  (This morning’s examples in my house. :))

I’m pretty straightforward in this.  I tell whoever it is to stop.  Parental authority is the most important tool a parent has.  It’s not about your words, your tone of voice, or technique (that’s why I don’t get excited about books like How To Talk So Kids Will Listen).  It’s about your kids knowing that they have to take what you say seriously.  So telling them to stop is usually enough.

If they don’t stop, I take action to help them stop.  If the child jumping over his baby brother wouldn’t have stopped, I would have picked him up and plopped him on the couch.  If the child pushing his brother wouldn’t have stopped, I would have told him that feet are a gift that needs to be used well, and told him he couldn’t use his feet for a few minutes and would have to sit right where he was.  If they’ve hurt someone, they have to make restitution by being asking forgiveness and then being extra nice to the person they did something to.

If it doesn’t involve a person – like ds2 peeling all the  new crayons and systematically breaking them into pieces (yesterday afternoon :)), they just have to stop.  If a child was doing something like coloring on the wall, then I’d have him stop coloring on the wall, give him a damp rag to wipe the wall, then give him a coloring book or paper to color on.

Sometimes a child doesn’t listen the first time.  I’d like to say that after the first time, I don’t ever repeat myself, but sometimes I do.  I do believe that taking action after the first time is very important to teaching kids that you mean what you say.  Anyway, if someone doesn’t do what I say the first time, how I respond varies.  It really depends on what they’ve done.

Generally I try not to make a big deal about small things, but in our house purposely ignoring a parent isn’t a small thing.  If they heard me but are just having a hard time listening, I either remove them from the situation or give them extra practice situations.  For purposely ignoring me (this would only be a child old enough to know better; little kids are generally just so absorbed by what they’re doing that they don’t realize you’re speaking to them), I’ll give them enough extra work so that they’ll regret not paying attention.  Work is great for older kids.  🙂

If I didn’t answer the question you were asking, please clarify!

Avivah

>>Ds is driving.me.crazy. I can’t handle him anymore. He’s 3. A couple of months ago, we finally cut his nap. It was becoming a nightmare. We also have a 10 month old, and ds3 will not go down easily, he never has. For a while, I would wear him on my back in an Ergo to put him down for a nap – not such a big deal when he was smaller, but it became really impossible after the baby was born. 
So, I figured, cut the nap. I can’t wear him to sleep anymore, I just can’t. The thing is, without the nap, ds turns into a different person. He’s Mr. Hyde, or whatever it is. Just a complete terror. His whole personality changes when he doesn’t get that nap. So, we moved his bedtime up an hour to make up for it, from 8:30 to 7/7:30ish. 
By the time 7 comes, he’s completely exhausted, and is pulling his Mr. Hyde routine. I know, I know, he’s 3, come will say he’s acting like a three-year-old. But.. I know my boy, and I know when something’s.. off. Screaming, tantrums over nothing.. I just know him, and I know this isn’t him.  I don’t know what else to do. I feel like he still needs a nap but I simply can’t force him to sleep. I regret that I put him to sleep in the Ergo for so long, I guess he doesn’t know how to fall asleep on his own at all now (what do I do about ds10mo so I don’t repeat this horrible pattern?). I feel like he could go to bed at 5 in the afternoon, and he’ll fall asleep. But I don’t really want to wake up at 5am. Please help me figure this out. I really don’t know what to do anymore.<<

Though I’ve gotten questions relating to sleep issue in the past, this is the first time I’m touching on this issue on the blog.  I generally prefer to answer this directly so that I’m not publicly misunderstood, and I’ve significantly delayed answering this because of that reluctance.  But the sleep of young children is a very important issue that really affects the functioning of the parents and the children, physically and emotionally.  There are a lot of things to touch on, but I’ll try to tackle it here because it really is too important to ignore.

It’s very important to realize that you’re doing your child a favor to help him learn healthy sleep habits, because a well rested child is a happy child. Whenever my ds3 starts to whine or act like an obnoxious brat, I don’t bother with any discipline – he goes straight into bed and wakes up a pleasant child again.  Making sure he gets the proper amount of sleep deals with the root of his behavior – it’s very hard to moderate your emotions (even as an adult!) when you haven’t gotten enough rest.  Crankiness can become chronic if a child day after day isn’t getting enough sleep, and a cranky child becomes a difficult child, and a difficult child and parent generally have to work a lot harder than a happy child and parent to bond and get along.

I’m concerned about a trend I’ve noticed – because ‘crying it out’ is considered child abuse, parents are doing anything to keep their kids from crying at night or at naptime.  This leads to a lot of sleep issues for the kids because they aren’t given a chance to learn to fall asleep independently – and it is a learned skill.  Of greatest concern to me are moms who are bouncing off the walls emotionally due to severe and ongoing sleep deprivation – sometimes a little grumpy, but often filled with rage and frustration, overreacting to any little thing, screaming at their young children or wanting to hurt them – far from loving behavior, and usually in the name of  attachment parenting.  I see this expressed online all the time.  I think if the only choice were letting a child cry for a while for a couple of nights or having a parent who is often filled with hostility towards him as a result of her exhaustion, letting them cry is much, much better.

We have to stop being so afraid that if our children cry they’re going to have hangups and feel abandoned and unloved.   (If a child grows up never having his cries responded to, yes, he will develop issues and shut down. But that’s almost never the issue.)  Let’s say my ds3 sees a chocolate in the store and asks for it.  Knowing it’s not good for him, I say ‘no’ and he starts to cry.  Does the chocolate become good for him because he is crying for it?  No.  Should I give him the chocolate because he cries?  No.  If you’ve determined your child needs to go to sleep (and sufficient sleep is a serious need), you can’t let him go without it just because he doesn’t want it or it’s hard for him.  Crying before bedtime and naptime doesn’t mean that he isn’t tired enough or shouldn’t go to sleep; it means he wants to stay up later and is going to try to convince you with crying that he should get what he wants.  Just like the chocolate.

I’m not saying that letting a child cry is the only or best option – it’s not and it’s not generally what I do.  I just want to be clear that I think that it’s not the big hairy deal that moms are making it out to be.  I think the easiest method is preventing sleep issues in the first place.  My babies sleep in my bed for the first 6 – 8 weeks after they’re born.  Then I move them to a bassinet right next to my bed.  This is close enough that as soon as the baby wakes up (not every time he stirs – often they stir and fall back asleep if left alone), I wake up and can nurse him, and we both sleep more soundly like this – babies tend to wake up much more frequently because of the movement of their parents.  And every time they wake up, they end up being nursed back to sleep. Before you know it, you’ve created a cycle of repeated night wakings.  Generally my babies wake up once in the night to be nursed, and start sleeping through the night on their own without much conscious effort on my part.

Here’s a tip that is counter intuitive, but this is crucial.  Put your child to sleep before he is showing signs of being tired.  This is true for a child of any age.  A few weeks ago, my baby was being super cranky.  Crying all day, sleeping about five minutes after being put down and then waking up.  All day long.  After a week of this, I realized what was happening (remember, there are other people besides me putting him to sleep and picking him up when he cries).  He wasn’t being put down until he was overtired, and because he was overtired, he couldn’t easily fall asleep.   What I immediately did was start putting him to sleep before he looked like he needed it and explained to my kids what I was doing and why, as well as showing them the signs of when it was the right time for him to go in for a nap.  The first day he slept a huge amount – it was literally like he slept all day long except for very short waking periods when he would nurse and then go back to sleep.  He had a week long sleep deficit to make up for!  Since then, he hardly cries at all – we put him down for a nap when he starts to look relaxed and mellow (vs alert and bright eyed), and he falls asleep without whimpering.

I’ve shared my general thoughts on the importance of sleep, of preventing sleep issues in the first place, and told you when the best time to put your child in bed is.  Now, to the specific question – you’re right, your son is acting exactly like a seriously overtired child.  So the question is how to help him get more sleep.  First of all, I would try to go back to a nap during the day. He clearly can’t handle the long day without it.  In the earlier half of the day, around 12 or so, I’d suggest you have a nice long story session to get him feeling mellow.  Being in one place snuggled next to you is going to naturally relax him.  When he’s looking drowsy, or even just very relaxed, it’s time for a nap. He may suddenly pop up and start insisting he’s not tired and doesn’t want to take a nap.  That’s okay.  Tell him he doesn’t have to sleep, just rest in his bed for a little bit.  Let him get up after a half hour if he doesn’t fall asleep.  Then do the same thing the next day, but let him stay in bed a little longer.  Do this for at least a week or two.  Soon he should start relaxing enough to fall asleep.  What you’re doing is setting up the situation to help him learn to fall asleep without being carried (I have no idea how you did this for so long – it’s amazing the things mothers do for their children!).   Remember, falling asleep independently is a learned skill and it’s going to take him some time to learn how to do it – but you have to give him the chance to learn.

Until he starts sleeping during the day again, he needs to go to bed earlier.  I don’t know when he wakes up, but since he’s already overwound by 7 pm, I’d suggest trying for 6 pm.  Remember, don’t wait for a child to show signs of being tired to put them to bed.  I understand the concern about him waking up early – go to sleep early yourself just in case he does so you have the energy to deal with it.  But it’s more likely that because you put him to sleep earlier, he’ll sleep longer- the irony is the more rested a child is, the more they sleep.

Good luck, and don’t give up!

Avivah