Dealing with Lazy Teens
I’ve got a not-so-fun situation on my hands. Three of the four kids we have are lazy — while two are lazy extraordinaire. And to be honest, I am really struggling lately with the feeling taken advantage of — It seems most everything I do as a loving parent is more expected and not appreciated. In fact, most times I feel like they don’t give a damn about helping to make my job a little easier.
- Three things that rub me the wrong way and absolutely irritate the hell out of me are:
- To be sorting clothes for SIX people and have clothes half right and half wrong side out.
- To have the sink empty of dirty dishes at night only to wake up the next morning to having to clear a sink full of dirty dishes before I can even make my first pot of coffee.
- To place clean and neatly folded clothes on beds and for the kids to just throw them in the floor to make room for them to sit on their bed to play a Gameboy.
Am I being overly picky?
Caring for SIX people isn’t an easy job! Is it really too much to ask that they help make my jobs a bit easier by putting their dishes in the dishwasher, turning their clothes right side out and putting clean clothes away?
Does anyone have a creative suggestion or 10 that I might use to get the kids a little more motivated to get off the couch and do something?
My husband and I have discovered that the kids prefer to do things half-assed in hopes that we may never call on them to do it again because we can’t trust them to do it right.
The one we do have that is a little workaholic and clean freak feels like he’s doing it all while the others do nothing. And that’s not fair either.
I can’t stand a filthy house! I can’t stand clutter and I can’t stand laziness.
What’s a mom to do?
Suggestions?
Tags: parenting, teens, lazy teens, chores, reward, parent discussions
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POSTED IN: Parenting
7 opinions for Dealing with Lazy Teens
Thinking Blog Award
May 22, 2007 at 10:38 am
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milander
Aug 12, 2007 at 10:41 am
apple and the stick seems to come to mind….
lori mccrackin
Aug 12, 2007 at 6:17 pm
I have the exact problem - AND my mother and ex-husband meddle telling my husband and I “they’re just kids, you expect too much” HELP!!!!!!!!!!!
Nicole
Aug 23, 2007 at 4:32 pm
My daughter is 5, my son is 2, and when I tell them to do something, by god they better get up off their butts and do it or the belt comes out AND they lose privileges. My best friend has 3 kids, one is a real whiner at 4 years old and is still firmly “on-the-tit”, one has to be told 3 times or more to do anything at all and questions her authority at every turn, and her oldest lives on the computer day and night while he should be visiting with and spending time with his mom who misses him the entire remainder of the year. In fact he won’t get off the computer for anyone to use it without leaving MAJOR processor hogging programs running, making it pointless to even get on for how bad it lags. He’s got a filthy mouth, he’s lazy, and today when I took all the kids to the pool, he refused to give his mom any alone time, which is why I was taking the kids. The whiney little runt also refused to go. She really needs to learn how to be more confrontational. Her children display no respect for her, and it severely pisses me off to see them treating her like this.
Brendan
Aug 7, 2008 at 11:27 am
beat the shit out of the little fuckers. theres no incentive like a broomstick to the face.
Memo
Sep 21, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Put your lazy husband to work!
nanna vine
Oct 30, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Beating children? Belt? WTF, it is never okay to hit a child, it only teaches them that it is okay to hit others, and not to trust the parent. parents that abuse thier children with whippings and the like only do so because they have issues of control that stem back to childhood because they themselves experienced the same thing! dont do what your parents did people! You have to give these kids a choice between A or B, A=do the right thing get reward
B=do wrong thing choose to loose priveledges. but the biggest problem today is parents that do not follow through with the dicipline that they promised this is why children have no respect. that is the parents fault not the childs. And I dont know about you but I have never respected or trusted ANYONE who hit me!
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