She does it because she can. She knows you will make her do it, remind her, whatever and she doesn't have to be responsible. You need to put that responsibility onto her. It's hard for us to do as parents at this age because we have been mothering for 13 years-reminding them to brush their teeth and do everything or even doing much of it for them. It's NOT easy to find the balance to where you stop doing so much and forcing them to take responsibility. I know I SUCKED at it with my grown children-BAD.
I have discoverd the beauty of immediate consequences and rewards. This is my answer NOW as I have two fully grown and wish I'd figured out how simple it could be back then...
I think that the best way to make sue she "remembers" is to have a set time of the day/evening that an alarm clock goes off and she's to do her homework, practice, etc.
THEN... Today you lay down the law. "I will not remind you... THIS time is for you to do your____ every day. If you do not do it you will not_____ . If you do it you will get _________" Computer time, game time, phone time whatever it is that motivates her for that day. If she doesn't do it then she pays a forfeit with ______ AND gets not computer/phone/game etc time. So, essentially there is an immediate reward-the phone, game computer... We also have a weekly reward. For the boys (13 and 15) they want to go to skating on Friday night. If the do all of the assorted things they have to do within the week they get to go skating. If they don't, then they don't skate. The minute they miss something I put a reminder in my phone so come Friday night I don't forget and let them go-done that MANY times before and they got smart to it, so I had to get smart to them. Friday at 6PM if there is no alarm going off in my phone-they go. It took a month or so to get them re-trained and me on the right page, but it works wonderfully now!
I SO wish I had figured it out about 10 years ago. My life would have been much easier.
Just stop reminding her. She doesn't remember because she doesn't have to. It is time for her to take responsibility of her grades and getting things done.
No, it's not too young.
What consequences are tied to them not practicing? I'd either tell them that if they can't practice they can't do the concert, or remove phone.tv.computer, etc.
:-)
Homework, project times carved out.... His whole life is planned by " beeps" except , it seems....bedtime ;-/
I don't know about too young, but I'm in the same boat. I have to remind ds1 (same age, 13, 14 in March) to practice orchestra everyday, and to submit his practice form if he has one due on a Friday.
Sorry I don't have any answers for you, but at least you know you're not alone!
And for those saying we should make them drop the class, let them fail, etc- orchestra is one of the only classes he really likes and does well in. Since he tend to struggle w/ most everything else, we do not want to take away the one class he thoroughly enjoys.
They either want to play or not. It sounds to me like they really don't want to be involved with this.
This was my son's problem, he did not enjoy the instrument so we switched to something he wanted to play and I never had to ask him to play again. He was on it everyday!
Quoting Jers.:We treated it as homework so, when he was doing his writing and reading homework for the day,this was also part of it. Maybe she doesn't want to play anymore? Maybe she wants a different instrument?
Random Question 5/24
- JustaSM231
on Jan. 30, 2013 at 4:02 PM