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Am I the only one in the world that has issues getting my kids ready for school in the mornings? Sometimes it seems to be an endless battle. I know that the dynamics in each family are different according to how many kids verses how many parents. But I thought I would share my ideas in the chance that they might help some parents.

I have an ongoing difficulty with my 10 year old daughter, Rebekah. It doesn’t matter what time she wakes up in the morning, she seems to end up pottering around and then being late to school on a regular basis.

The first thing you should do with a child reluctant to get out the door to school is to talk to them about what happens at school. Are they being bullied? Is there a reason that they don’t want to go to school ? Once you have eliminated anything there, then you will need to come up with a plan of attack for how to turn this problem around.

It is important to find a positive way to deal with the problem if at all possible. Perhaps a sticker chart or something that they can get every day to start off with, depending on the age of the child. But early on the rewards should be pretty immediate. Then as the child catches on the rewards can be a bit further apart.

You need to exhaust all the possibilities of positive consequences before thinking of turning to a negative consequence as positive consequences really do work better. Unfortunately for my daughter I had to use a negative consequence this morning, on account of her throwing a tantrum. That was something I would not have expected to see from a ten year old.

Becky is finally gone to school now and it’s time to dream up her consequence. Because she chose to throw a tantrum like a little child I have decided to deprive her of some things that are reserved for older girls. I shall be taking away her favorite earrings and also a few random items of “grown up” clothing. They will go up into my top cupboard. Beck will be devastated but I will explain to her that those kinds of things are reserved for girls who act their age and don’t throw tantrums.

Always try to match the crime to the punishment. In my case I am letting Becky know that because she threw a tantrum she should not be wearing grown up clothes. Make sure that you talk through it with the child so they understand why you are doing what you do.

Even though this may seem harsh, I will give Becky a chance to lessen her consequence very quickly. Our job as parents is to help prepare our kids for the outside world when they grow up. Even convicts in jail have the chance to lessen their time behind bars for good behavior. So our kids should also be provided with this opportunity to lessen a consequence wherever possible. If Becky does the right thing for perhaps two days, she will get her earrings back and so on until she has earned everything back again. This way she fully understands that she is responsible for making things happen in her life. And that’s the way I want it to be.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 12:34 pm and is filed under Parenting Articles.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.