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We have 2 thirteen-year-old daughters who are not coddled and don't act entitled but the eye rolling and sighing and "unpleasant" attitude when they are asked to do something around the house is getting really old.
I'm talking about regular things like helping in the kitchen with supper and clean up, vacuuming and dusting on the weekends. One has lost her laptop and Nexus for 2 weeks now because she cannot "remember" simple things like wiping down the counters when she shares kitchen clean up with her sister. She can't "remember" to empty her lunch box when she gets home from school and stuff ferments in there. The other one is "mouthy" and her tone is disrespectful.
I got mad at them last night and said "I'm on strike. Not cooking anymore after no cooperation with kitchen chores." This morning I refused to cook our usual big Weekend Breakfast and they were shocked. I also told them I was only fixing lunch for myself and to not count on me for supper.
For the past 9 months I have been in a CROW boot for Charcot foot and standing for more than 10 minutes results in incredible pain in my hips all the way up to my neck. It can take me several hours to prepare a meal I used to fix in 30-45 minutes because of my limited mobility but I haven't complained because...well..nobody likes to hear complaining.
DH is wonderful and smart but turns into a drooling idiot in the kitchen. Mensa does not test for kitchen skills it turns out! He would just as soon make a sandwich for himself anyway.
This is not my first rodeo with teenagers as these girls are number 6 and 7 but the last two and these 2 are 19 years apart.(Most on CD know they are adopted.)
So the question is. Does going on strike do any good? Should I beat them "about the head and shoulders", take up drinking, sit them down with DH to have another "talk"? Chalk it up to they are teens and I'm old and get on with it?
I need to add I've told them many kids their ages come home to take care of younger kids and have dinner on the table for working parents. They know they are not overworked or asked to do too much but they are not cheerful or even neutral about chores most of the time.
I have sure felt like it. I have scaled back on cooking majorly. My kids at home are 9 and 10 and getting them to clean the kitchen would be just not worth the fight right now. I feel like I would be endlessly "training" them only to have them slack off every chance they got and "forget" what needs to be done. But my husband sets a terrible example and doesn't help with clean up hardly ever. So that leaves me making a huge family meal, and then clearing and cleaning. No thanks. They can have fish sticks.
More so, my son has sensory issues and is MEGA "picky" about food. He won't eat 80% of what I like to cook. I have trained them not to fuss or make rude comments and to be polite no matter what is on their plate (I don't make them eat it though). But when they just don't eat something I spent an hour cooking, its disappointing.
Luckily I have the long view. I had the same issues when my oldest were this age and by 17 or 18 they were pitching in for clean up, enjoying what ever I put on the table and being delightful dinner partners. So fingers crossed!
My 10 year old son wishes for "family dinner" (aka a big dinner I cook and we all sit at the dining room table together) more often. I let him know I would happy to cook it more often if the kids would clear their toys off the table and help clean up after. Maybe it will sink in at some point.
So the question is. Does going on strike do any good?
Not as well as ruining a few meals. "You don't like burnt pork chops and under-cooked rice? I don't like your attitude. That makes us even. You change your attitude.... my cooking improves."
I think it is an appropriate consequence for their actions. Directly related to the issue and not authoritarian.
Besides one of the hardest things for teens to learn is to treat their family members as well as they treat their peers. It's good to learn at an early age that if you treat people poorly there are consequences.
If it makes you feel any better, I have a similar experience with my 12yo daughter. My kids have had chores practically from birth. They have regular chores, and it's a given. My sons are great and just do them. If they need reminding, they don't complain, they do it. My daughter has complained about chores from the time she learned to talk. There are consequences, but she occasionally throws a fit. She has gotten somewhat better over the years, but it's an exhausting road.
Nothing wrong with kids that age cooking for themselves. I have to admit, I stopped cooking regular breakfast/lunch for the kids a while back.
I think it is an appropriate consequence for their actions. Directly related to the issue and not authoritarian.
Besides one of the hardest things for teens to learn is to treat their family members as well as they treat their peers. It's good to learn at an early age that if you treat people poorly there are consequences.
I agree. Your daughters, and husband, should have stepped up as soon as you were disabled with your foot injury.
Frankly, you should have been minimizing your cooking for the last nine months and asking your family to help more and more.
In my house, I basically stopped doing major evening meals about the time that my 13 year old daughter became a vegan (no milk, no meat, no fish, no butter). At the time my husband had an extremely limited diet due health reasons (no red meat, no fresh vegetables, limited fresh fruits) and our son had sports so his schedule was all goofed up (loved red meat which I disliked). It ended up that it was almost impossible to find foods, especially main dishes, that all of us could eat.
My children had been making their own breakfasts, during the week, since they were about six. It was a natural progression to making more meals as they were older.
Last edited by germaine2626; 02-13-2016 at 08:14 PM..
When I was having trouble walking and standing, my kids (ages 7 and 10 at that time) did a lot of the cooking and cleaning. Now that I'm more able than I was, I don't really make the kids help with the cleaning because they did most of it for a year. I never made them help me and they didn't have an attitude about it, they just saw that I wasn't able and they helped out.
My older daughter doesn't like to cook. She's willing to make gravy or cook hamburger meat but she doesn't want to do anything more complicated. My younger daughter, who's 10 now, will cook anything and everything. She can look at what we have in the fridge and pantry, look online for recipes that will work with those ingredients, and cook the recipes herself. All I have to do is drain pasta for her or take things out of the oven, things that she's afraid to do because she's so short. My older daughter has a couple of daily chores (empty the trash cans, fill the ice cube trays, feed the pets) and my younger daughter doesn't have any daily chores because she helps make dinner every night.
My idea of a well-run household is one where everyone helps out according to their interests and abilities...it's not worth making my older daughter cook when she's so uninterested in it. I do want the kids to clean up after themselves. My 10 year old changes clothes 10 times a day, so she's responsible for doing her own laundry. She also washes her sheets and towels because she wants them clean more often than once a week, but I'm not running a hotel so I'm not providing clean sheets and towels every day.
My main threat for non-compliance with household rules or for having a rude teenage attitude (older daughter gets PMS really bad and is mean as anything for several days each month) is to change the WIFI password. I've never had to do it so far...just the mention that I might do that is enough to send the kids running to do what they're supposed to do.
glad you reminded me...I had a friend suggest changing the WIFI password regularly--or anytime we feel a correction in attitude is necessary. I forgot about that.
The thing is I LOVE to cook. I'm a retired landscape designer and since I can't garden anymore I found cooking to be a very creative outlet but with this clunky rocker boot on it isn't as fun lately. DH was out all day with the girls today and he said he talked to them while they were captive in the car. Let's hope it does some good.
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