How long should a chore take? 4 Hours?

[5ft Diva]

This was sent to me in an e-mail. Didn't know if it would help anyone.

“I read your post about the Dawdler getting in the way of family routines, but what do I do with a dawdler when it comes to accepting consequences. Here is the situation:

My 10 yo daughter Chose to dawdle for 4 hours and not do her chore (clean the entertainment room). The consequence was that she got leftovers for dinner instead of pizza. So as not to punish the whole family, the other kids decided to all work together and do her zone so we could all watch a movie together. The 10yo daughter decided to join, but in the process took 10 DVDs and shoved them into the bottom of a toy box and then lied about it. Our family has a rule that each item shoved where it does not belong earns an extra job. However, she had already racked up 6 other extra jobs, and after 10 extra jobs, it converts to a major maintenance. So the next day it is time to do her major maintenance, but she says she feels sick and goes in her room where she is caught reading a leisure book–twice. This is not accepting a consequence, so the major maintenance is now the big whammy, since she was dishonest and uncooperative. The next day we had
planned out of town guests, so her big whammy is postponed until today. So, today she has dawdled, complained, argued, etc, etc. In 6 hours she has only completed sorting laundry, wiping a counter, sweeping the floor, and two sodas. She is now saying that she has a headache and needs to go lay down. She insists that she has been punished enough, and should be done with her consequence. How do you deal with a child like this?”

My first response is WOW! This sounds draining to the whole family. I don’t know if my children have ever made a list of consequences this long. Also, 10 year old girls do have a tendency to get pretty distracted.

I think your tolerances might be too high. Four hours is a really long time to have to complete a chore like cleaning a room.

Without really knowing your daughter, I am left to guess on a few things. These are some thoughts I have. Does she get overwhelmed easily? Could many short, specific chores be more effective than a large broad one? I know a 10 year old should be able to be given an area to clean independently, but not every 10 year old is the same.

I had a foster youth once who had a problem similar to what you describe. I realized she could not keep track of more than one or two instructions at a time. She also didn’t know how to look at a mess and ‘problem solve’ it. Since she had both of these problems, she would distract herself with other things. I also knew she had honesty problems, so she would never want to tell me she didn’t feel like she knew how to do a job.

I took this youth back to square one. I gave her a chore. Then I mentored her in how to do the chore properly. Then I watched her do the chore until she was able to do the chore as well as I could. After this process I told her that she had mastered the chore and could then move on to learning another chore. Sometimes it really takes teaching every chore to a child until they have mastered it.

Sometimes children become so overwhelmed by a chore, they tell themselves they can’t do it before they even start. This makes them not start. In order to help them learn to master their minds and movements, we have to show them they CAN do the chore by teaching





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Warmly,

Nicholeen

[Big_Sissy]

Very insightful. Thanks for sharing.

[Erudite]

Interesting! And good insights too.

We have found this to be true with our 12yods. He gets overwhelmed easily at very large jobs. This is especially true with homework, which he can not do more than about an hour. He still needs help to break it down. What I have to work on is getting HIM to do the breakdown, instead of me.

It's also good to be reminded that kids don't have the "problem solving" ability to clean a whole room. It's frustrating when it is so obvious to me that you just start with the bed...or start at the door...or start in the middle...and they just don't start at all. But, we just have to keep at it, right? They'll get it eventually. My 12yods DOES clean his own room without being pestered now....hurrrrayyyy!

[5ft Diva]

Too true, E. You have my mind going off on another tangent. I'll start it in another thread....

Love your insight!