Children
Teaching Responsibility in the Morning
Q: With my five-year-old son in kindergarten this year, getting out in the morning is even more hectic. The problem is that my eight-year-old daughter causes such a fuss every morning that I end up being upset long after she's in school and has forgotten about the problem. She fights with me about what to wear (even though I help her pick it out the night before) and what to eat. She wanders off to play and loses track of time. Sometimes I am literally dragging her out to the car to get her to school on time. I feel like I've lost control, like she's running the show. Help!
L.C.
A: The central issue here is probably the common parental problem of taking on a responsibility that belongs to your children. This prevents them from experiencing the natural consequences of their actions. Mrs. C. is so worried about her daughter being late to school that it has become her responsibility to make sure her child is on time. Therefore, her daughter doesn't need to be responsible, knowing that her mother will get her there, one way or another. In addition, the daughter's willingness to accept all this negative attention also suggests that she might feel that she's not getting enough positive attention. (This could be a response to the fuss about her younger brother going to school now.) Let's combine these two issues into a new strategy for the mornings.
Find a calm moment one evening to talk with your daughter about the morning problem. Find out how she perceives the situation, i.e., is she also unhappy about it? If so, sometimes just asking the child to suggest a solution can be sufficient to bring about a positive change. One of the goals of parenting is to teach children effective problem solving. But to do so means going through a process of giving them the responsibility to come up with an idea, try it, and if it fails, to encourage them to try again until a workable solution emerges. This requires some patience and giving a child the right to fail.
Of course some children will claim they are perfectly happy, won't agree that there is a problem, and won't (sometimes can't) contribute ideas to a solution. In that case, you tell her why you believe things need to change and present to her the new set of rules. From now on it is not your worry about whether or not she gets to school on time. If she's late, she's late. Explain that you will give her only one extra wakeup call and only one "time-reminder" about fifteen minutes before she's supposed to be ready.
This leaves you more time to focus on getting your younger child off to kindergarten and a little more time for yourself (what a novel experience). If your daughter isn't ready and you have to drive her to school on "your time", she now
owes you the time it took for the round trip. This is even more of an issue if she is supposed to take a bus or walk to school. Part of the message is that parents, yes, even mothers, have a finite amount of time to give. If some of it is used up by an unnecessary parenting activity, then it must be taken back from some other parenting activity. (Typically parents take it from other parts of their lives.) Thus, you might not read a book to her that night, or, even more to the point, you might not drive her to her play date, to her soccer practice, or to the store to pick up something she needs for school. In a sense, she used up her one round trip for the day!
Another approach to encouraging your daughter to be successful at getting ready without a fuss is to offer the reward that the time saved from not hassling can be transformed into your spending 10-15 minutes playing with her. The key here is that you are offering her a positive way to obtain attention the attention she craves. Sometimes the morning schedule doesn't allow for this. In that case, you can offer her a chip or sticker that can be turned in later that day for some extra time with a parent.
Of course, the first day or two may not go so well. In fact, she is almost certain to be late because she won't believe you are really going to follow through with this. But, not to worry. Children do not want to be late to school, walking in to an already quiet classroom and suddenly being different from everyone else. Usually it only takes one such embarrassment and the child gets her act together. If you are a working parent and normally would not be able to do the drive to school without being late to work, try to arrange some extra flexibility for a few mornings until the problem is resolved. In today's families, where both parents are often rushing out to work in the morning, it can be the combination of the absence of time for a little TLC plus the child knowing you are on a tight schedule that sets up the fussy morning process.
One of the by-products of this approach is that your daughter will experience a sense of accomplishment in getting herself ready. Most important, you will be able to enjoy her more. It is this process of finding ways to enjoy your child instead of having chronic conflict and anger, which is a key to successful parenting.
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