Wednesday, April 29, 2009

A Sense of Urgency

How to instill a sense of urgency in my 4 y.o. ???

I am frustrated...She has a chorepack. We have been using it for several months now. Simple things I know she knows how to do and is very capable of doing. I have witnessed her accomplish them in a timely and efficient manner on several occasions without my help, except maybe to brush her hair and teeth. She is to put her pajamas away, get dressed, brush her hair and teeth, make her bed, pick up her room and feed the dogs. Like I said, she has done all of these things independently multiple times and very joyfully.

This morning, and this is not an isolated occurrence, I was finishing feeding Mikah and then feeding myself and cleaning up breakfast, changing Mikah's diaper and a couple other odds and ends. All of which took about 20 minutes. Ellie was to go and start her chorepack, the first thing being to put her pajamas away and get dressed. So, 20 minutes later when I finished all my breakfast stuff I went down the hallway to start on my after breakfast chores and walked past Ellie's room to see her NAKED body dancing around her room! Naked! Nothing even close to being on her body. How long does it take to get dressed?

So how do I instill in her a do it now and dance around the room after I am clothed attitude? If I am not right there with her every second, which I can't possibly be, she seems to become distracted so easily. I know some may say she is so young. My response is that she CAN do it. I have been witness to this.

Is it an obedience issue?

Just some Wednesday morning musings...Any thoughts?

1 comment:

Mrs. B, a very peculiar person said...

I completely understand where you are coming from. Although your daughter is capible of doing these things on her own, please be aware that as she progresses through life there will be times like this.

I don't really have an explanation, but I have experienced it with ALL my children. AND not to discourage you, but it comes and goes all through out thier upbringing. Sometimes they were/are on target and dilligent, other times they were/are "in another world".

How did/do we handle this in our home? For the younger children, we'd keep track of thier dilligence. If they are able to complete thier chores, correctly and timely 5 days out of 7, they would receive a reward, like homemade cookies, at the end of the week. As they grew/grow older, they have to succeed 7 days per week before a reward is earned. Once they were/are about 10, the weekly reward system ends and they then begin to loose privileges when they fail to stay on task. Dilligence with thier responsibilities is how they earn those privledges back.

I hope our experiences will help you in brainstorming some ideas that may work for your own family.

Mrs.B