Judie C. Rall

> << Well, that doesn't seem to bother the rest of my family, because
> nobody ever asks to help me clean up, even if they were involved in
> making the mess. Unless I ASK them to help clean up, they don't.
> It doesn't bother them to stand there and watch me clean up. >>
>
> Kids who are made to clean up (by rules or contracts) are less likely to help
> voluntarily than those who aren't made to. It's not fun if they HAVE to, but
> if others help them easily and willingly, they will come to see that as a
> desireable way to be.
>
> Sandra

Well, that's the point. They DON'T have to. I DON'T make them.
They aren't required to do ANYTHING. And most of the time they
don't. They don't have to make their beds, don't have to clean
their rooms, don't have to do dishes, don't have to take out the
trash, don't have to even get out of bed if they don't want to. I
don't make them do ANYTHING.............

And they don't volunteer for anything either. They do exactly what
they want, which means I do everything.

Are you suggesting that I shouldn't even ASK them to help, either?
Even if they are free to say no? Because I say, "Would you like to
help me by cleaning the cat box? and they don't mind saying, "No, I
wouldn't like to."

My older son is 18, when is this desire to help out supposed to kick
in?

Judie

Judie C. Rall

Well then, I guess I need a definition of responsibility, because to
me, responsibility is doing those things that I have a duty to take
care of. And we all have those kind of things.

So I am sitting here in my messy house thinking, I have a
responsibility to clean this up, but I don't want to, so why should
I? Nobody else wants to share the responsibility, and I don't want
to do it, so why not just forget it?

That's how my son feels, and if you walk in his room right now, you
will see an unmade bed, piles of dirty clothes, dirty dishes, empty
glasses, food trash and empty food containers, and ants following a
little trail to his room because they know that's where the food
crumbs are. You will walk by him and his hair stinks because he
refuses to take a shower and wash it. Eventually this is going to
get to be a health hazard, but that's ok because we don't have to do
anything we don't WANT to do.

Where do we draw the line here?

Judie

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In a message dated 8/31/03 1:22:06 PM, adonai@... writes:

<< Well, that doesn't seem to bother the rest of my family, because
nobody ever asks to help me clean up, even if they were involved in
making the mess. Unless I ASK them to help clean up, they don't.
It doesn't bother them to stand there and watch me clean up. >>

Kids who are made to clean up (by rules or contracts) are less likely to help
voluntarily than those who aren't made to. It's not fun if they HAVE to, but
if others help them easily and willingly, they will come to see that as a
desireable way to be.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/31/03 3:22:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
adonai@... writes:

> Like, if I'm getting ready to set the table and
> my kids start getting out paint, I'm going to tell them that what
> they are about to do is going to interfere with what I'm doing, and
> that they should have asked first before getting it out.
>
>

I guess what I do in that situation is to make a place at the bar for them to
paint. Or help them to find a more suitable place to paint where they can
spread out if it is a large project. Or we can take the food in the livingroom
and they can have the table to paint on if the other places are too cluttered.
A never ending situation here. There is always something going on at the
tables. Art projects, books everywhere, a lot of it mine. LOL. So much to do
and so little space.
Pam G


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