Re: refusing to do chores
We do no screens until responsibilities are done. Also they get allowance on Saturday, but only if they've completed their responsibilities that week. We did have to go through a time when my son didn't connect the later privileges with completing his responsibilities, so I talked a lot about contributing to the family and how we all help each other, and then I took kind of a big step. He was totally fine to just play and skip whatever good things might be coming later, the later was just too far away. So when it was time to do chores, I told him nothing else could be done at chore time. He could sit on the bed or the couch until he was ready to do his chores. It took a week or two honestly of blocking him from leaving or grabbing toys to play with. Sometimes he would sit for an hour just doing nothing. At first too he thought that he could just sit until WE were done with chores and thus skip chore time altogether. But I told him there was no skipping, if he wanted to get up and move on to the next thing, he had to do chores first. I started very small, with tasks I knew he could do, and walked him through each thing until he could do it on his own. I discovered also that a lot of pushback was because he felt like it was too much or overwhelming.
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Mary K
wife to Daniel for 16 years
mom to 13 year old the Girl
and 11 year old the Boy
and 8 year old Tiny
Almost always posting from my phone.
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