DD11 not doing chores, WWYD?

[auntie]

If it's my hormones that are causing this then how do you explain DH? He is the one who wanted to pull the plug on soccer. I am the one who argued with him to keep it..

Umm...when mama's not happy..ain't nobody happy.
You, set the tone for the household...

Expectations are wonderful. Just be realistic in your expectations.
I can't help but notice as this thread has progressed, and you've received suggestions or advice that wasn't a reinforcement of what you already believe to be the issue, you've changed several times what the extent of her chores and household obligations are.
To think that she should care that there are items on the steps to be brought upstairs is simply not realistic.
Mind you...this is coming from a person who has a hard time delegating responsibilities...because I am especially particular about the way things are done. It's not easy for me, to ask the kids to do something because I know that realisitically..it's not going to be done exactly the way I want it. Yet...I still realize they need to be responsible and pitch in. So, I do support your desire to have your daughter help out. Just be real about it. If you want something done a particular way..then do it yourself. If you are honestly looking for her to pitch in and be responsible..then realize you are going to have to play a part in that. It's not going to come to her naturally..
You want the child to do something..tell her. "Take this upstairs...do it now please". "pick up your clothes..bring them to the hamper..I'm waiting...do it now please". This means supervision on your part, and being aware that something isn't done. Not waiting for her to screw it up, so you can punish her. Help her out there.
Yes..it's a PITA and yes it's incovenient..and yes, they don't think of these things on their own at ELEVEN...(or 12 or 13..) Appreciate the things she does do well. She's a good student, participates in sports, does her homework. You're a head of the game.
You're just now starting to experience what it's going to be like to parent a preteen and eventually a teenager.
There will be days when you will think aliens have abducted your sweet little girl. Nothing she does will make any sense, and you will have days when you seriously wonder what it was that ever made you contemplate motherhood.
I wish you luck and I'm sure this will all work out.

 

[sbell111]

... Unless your kid has played competitive sports then you don't know how it works. ...

Perhaps the rudest argument ever used.

Just saying.

 

[KiKi Mouse]

re: competitive sports

It's true. Unless you are involved then you don't have a clue how it works. I sure didn't as I never played at this level. It's not something she can play here and there and there is a big difference between rec league and the D league team she plays on. So unless you are in that type of loop then you have no idea what is involved. It takes a big committment from the kids and the parents. We've got that. We just can't get her to do what is asked of her for chores.
We have some ideas and we will be implementing them and see how it goes.
1. list.
2. postive reinforcement, earning the TV back along with other things.
3. getting her to do things "now" instead of being an open ended request.

As for when mama ain't happy then nobody is happy...LOL It's the opposite in my house. DH is a lot less tolerant than I am.

 

[gina2000]

Well you are REALLY going to hate my answer. I have a son who swims competitively. He practices 3 hours per day/6 days per week. Twice a week he practices twice a day. He travels to and from practice which adds another hour or hour and a half per practice.

He has no chores. He has never had any chores and he will not have any chores while he has this commitment. His "job" is to get good grades.


If your daughter is in as competitive environment as my son is, she is tired. She needs some down time and she needs to relax. She needs to focus on schoolwork and needs to focus on her soccer commitment. You may not like that reality but a child that is focussed on a sport has a major commitment not unlike a school commitment. It requires strength, time, effort, and focus to play at a higher level. And guess what? My son's brain is fried when he has little to do. He needs that time to retool. So does your daughter.

I know you won't like this answer. I know most people on this thread won't like this answer. I know there are days when I don't like this answer. But when he's fried, he's fried and no amount of cajoling, nagging, and/or punishing is going to help him remember to do chores.

 

[DisneyMomx7]

As you can see by my Dis name I have 7 kids. Four are grown, the others are 12, 11 and 9. OP I really do think your expectations are a bit much. Believe me almost no 11 year old looks around and thinks - what needs to be done?

Do not take soccer away. I think repeatedly taking the tv away for such a long time is not helpful. It seems to me, and this is only my opinion, that you and your DH are really putting alot of pressure on her. Yes kids should have chores. My girls have to keep their rooms clean and put away their laundry. Believe me I still have to remind them - put away the laundry, pick up your room. Like one pp said sometimes it is better to say go pick your laundry away NOW it has to be done by 5:00. Unlike you I would be a little leary leaving an 11 year old alone in the home. Melting the chocolate in the microwave for strawberries would definitely be something my 11 year old would want to try if I wasn't there.

Please try to talk to you dd and come to some kind of agreement. It just seems like a lot if expected of her - maybe just a little bit too much for an 11 year old.

 

[KiKi Mouse]

Well you are REALLY going to hate my answer. I have a son who swims competitively. He practices 3 hours per day/6 days per week. Twice a week he practices twice a day. He travels to and from practice which adds another hour or hour and a half per practice.

He has no chores. He has never had any chores and he will not have any chores while he has this commitment. His "job" is to get good grades.


If your daughter is in as competitive environment as my son is, she is tired. She needs some down time and she needs to relax. She needs to focus on schoolwork and needs to focus on her soccer commitment. You may not like that reality but a child that is focussed on a sport has a major commitment not unlike a school commitment. It requires strength, time, effort, and focus to play at a higher level. And guess what? My son's brain is fried when he has little to do. He needs that time to retool. So does your daughter.

I know you won't like this answer. I know most people on this thread won't like this answer. I know there are days when I don't like this answer. But when he's fried, he's fried and no amount of cajoling, nagging, and/or punishing is going to help him remember to do chores.

She has good marks. Homework comes first.
On days/evenings where she has soccer there isn't an expectation that she has to do a bunch of stuff on top of that too. I can understand where you are coming from as your son spends a lot of time training and if that works in your house and everybody is happy then that's great.

Thanks everybody for your input, we have some things to try and to discuss as well. Hopefully we find a happy medium that works for everybody in this house. DD is home and said she would rather not have tv for two years if it meant keeping soccer

 

[KiKi Mouse]

Unlike you I would be a little leary leaving an 11 year old alone in the home.

She's alone for 30-40 minutes. Something we started doing this school year. It gives her a bit of peace and quiet to get homework done.
Like I said at 12 they can be alone for extended periods of time, overnight, and look after other kids. Not something I would do but for 30-40 minutes in the afternoon I don't have a problem with it.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

We don't have school soccer teams here. They may play soccer after school but it is an hour after school in a gym...it's not "soccer". Same with the basketball and other school sports.

There is big difficulty getting her back in. Unless your kid has played competitive sports then you don't know how it works. She will be playing premier at 13 y/o and this group of girls is being groome for it. As it is we can't go to every soccer thing that comes up. DD11 is not going to the USA Cup this year as DH doesn't have a week of holidays to spare. There is another tournament in the same state (8 hour drive for us) that we can't take her to. So she does miss out on some of it which upsets her.

I made a post here because we have tried a few different things with her in the past with always the same result. We have tried a list, we have tried positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, talking endlessly, we have tried getting her to repeat what she has to do. Nothing has worked. It may get better for a bit but it slips into the same old "I forgot".

The TV is gone for a month as this has been going on for a long time and nothing else is working. The TV was taken away once before for the same reason and things improved for a bit. When the TV is on she is very sucked into it and doesn't even hear you if you are talking to her. I can sit right next to her and call her name and she doesn't hear me.

I am not overwhelmed by the housework. It is doable and we manage. I went to 8 hour shifts over Christmas and then went on medical leave after the 8th of February so I have been home. DH does tons around the house so there are no issues there. Our frustration is with the "forgetting" and the 'I don't know". It is overwhelming when you have tried so many things and have gotten the same result.

When I say I can't do everything I mean that I can't walk behind somebody and clean their trail of mess. Yeah we can do all these chores we ask her to do but what does that teach her? She wants all these things like iPods etc. but she doesn't want to do anything to earn them.

The analogy about the lame husband was more about the kids. The kids have everything done for them because Mom feels they are incapable of even making their lunch or helping to make their lunch or putting away laundry. Plus seeing their father incapable of taking care of himself sets an example.

Your punishment may not fit the crime.

Instead of taking it away--have her earn it.

Then if she doesn't want to earn it--no biggy.

As for leaving crap out and her not putting it away. Hefty makes wonderful pick up tools called trash bags. I'm not beyond using them if my child refuses to pick up something via failure to remember in the 10 second time period since I told them.

My dd's are on a competitive dance team and at the beginning of the year, parents were specifically instructed to not use the team as "punishment'. They gave alternative suggestions for dealing with kids. But the routine depends on my child and to not have her go isn't[ fair to the rest of the kids.

I have found electronics removal to be effective. But it is only removed for the duration a task is incomplete. It only gets removed longer when the child accesses the electronic after being point blank told "no" that they may not play with it.

Month long restrictions are too--harsh for a pre-teen. Truly they are.

By your latest post--it seems dd doesn't care if she can never watch tv again--so translated--she is telling you the punishment is ineffective.

 

[auntie]

Your punishment may not fit the crime.


I have found electronics removal to be effective. But it is only removed for the duration a task is incomplete. It only gets removed longer when the child accesses the electronic after being point blank told "no" that they may not play with it.

Month long restrictions are too--harsh for a pre-teen. Truly they are.

By your latest post--it seems dd doesn't care if she can never watch tv again--so translated--she is telling you the punishment is ineffective.

The OP has indicated that her daughter has no electronic devices.(no iPod..no phone, no video games)...they feel she hasn't earned them.


_____________________

 

[golfgal]

re: competitive sports

It's true. Unless you are involved then you don't have a clue how it works. I sure didn't as I never played at this level. It's not something she can play here and there and there is a big difference between rec league and the D league team she plays on. So unless you are in that type of loop then you have no idea what is involved. It takes a big committment from the kids and the parents. We've got that. We just can't get her to do what is asked of her for chores.
We have some ideas and we will be implementing them and see how it goes.
1. list.
2. postive reinforcement, earning the TV back along with other things.
3. getting her to do things "now" instead of being an open ended request.

As for when mama ain't happy then nobody is happy...LOL It's the opposite in my house. DH is a lot less tolerant than I am.

I think those in competitive sports don't know how it works either but I will leave it at that.

I think you will find if you spend a week teaching her new habits you will get results--it is more work for you for a week though. I would also be careful of WHEN you are asking her to do things and make sure she REALLY hears you. If she is finishing up her homework, get her attention--have her look at you--and tell her to bring her things upstairs now and then keep on her until she does. Don't ask her to do something like bring her laundry upstairs when she is in the middle of her homework-she isn't paying attention to you and won't remember. Catch her during breaks. When you ask her to do anything, have her do it right then-not later. That is the mistake you are making.

 

[KiKi Mouse]

My post was misintrepreted. DD was not saying how much she doesn't care about TV, she was stating how much she cares about soccer.
I am the parent in the house that won't take soccer away while my husband wanted to as punishment. We have come to an agreement on it same as the other things such as TV.
She did good yesterday so this morning after soccer we went for a treat on the way home. She knows she has to earn TV and other things back so we shall see how it goes.
Yeah I have made a mistake thinking she could remember from one minute to the next what the expectation is and leaving things without an end time for her to do it. So that is going to change on our end.
And no, she will not be getting an iPod Touch or anything else because she only wants this stuff because some of her friends have them. She has an older iPod nano and she rarely uses it.

 

[horseshowmom]

I would agree with those who said she needs to cut down to one sport only. When our daughter was growing up, she had friends who were involved in everything under the sun. We only allowed her to have one extracurricular activity at a time. She chose horseshowing which was year round.

It's not unreasonable to expect her to help out with the chores. My daughter knew what her chores were, and she also sometimes "forgot" (or procrastinated ). She knew that if she didn't have them done by a set time, then she had to do them whenever I noticed they hadn't been done (regardless of what she happened to be doing at the time - which was sometimes an inconvenience for her ).

I couldn't help but laugh at the remark by Jennasis about searching for poop with a flashlight. DD hated to go out to the barn to feed after dark but somehow often managed to "forget" to go feed before dark (and then wanting somebody to go with her to help). After a few trips to the barn in the dark, she got a lot better about feeding before dark (feeding was non-negotiable - if it hadn't been done by dark, she went when we noticed she hadn't been yet).

In the interest of full disclosure though, the same problem continued sporadically throughout her teenage years, it just improved over time.

ETA: When she was a freshman in college, she wrote a hilarious paper for her English class describing one of her trips to feed in the dark and the "monsters" she encountered. She got an A+, and everybody in the class got a good laugh.