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It's all about consequences. Not ready for school on time? Bedtime is now 1/2 hour earlier. Lose 1/2 of your allowance. Don't get up on time? Phone/screen/computer off limits for the day.
Ready on time for a week? Double your allowance. Stay up 1/2 hour later.
Ready on time for a month? Double the data on your phone.
Is it just me, or does it this seem fishy to you? (generic "you") If an adult doesn't get up on time, he/she learns a lesson, eats crow, and moves on. Or even finds a way to minimize the consequences; for example, skip breakfast, and instead eat a Snickers bar from a vending machine or a sausage burrito from McDonald's. If a child doesn't get up on time, he/she gets slammed with completely unrelated punishments and gets no chance to minimize the consequences.
My parents used a simple method: a big red clock/timer, like in movies. It worked well enough. In high school, the way my home was located, it took less time to ride the city bus than the school bus. So my own "natural consequence" for missing the school bus became having to pay the city bus fare to get to school on time.
My mother would set the timer on the stove and sit me down at the kitchen table while I did arithmetic problems, when I was your daughter's ag. I didn't enjoy arithmetic, particularly fifty examples of the same concept - adding up long columns, subtracting and carrying remainders, etc. I could do it - didn't lack the ability - but didn't like it. So my former math-teacher mother came up with the beat-the-clock technique, once she made sure I understood the concepts.
I don't remember dawdling at this age over other things, though I'd zone out in the bathtub at times, especially on weekends.
Is there something else going on in your daughter's life that is troubling her, so she is using this behavior to "escape"? Does Big Brother pick on her about other things in addition to dawdling? What does her teacher say about her classroom work? I agree that positive reinforcement or neutral approaches like beat the clock are more likely to get the results you want.
Tell Big Brother to back off Big Time. Sounds like he's trying to get a self-esteem charge at Little Sister's expense. So sit him down when he has not offended and have a serious talk with him. Praise him for what you can - but tell him that he is to back off when it comes to his sister and instead treat her with love and respect and provide a good example. How old is he, by the way? Is something going on in his life that makes him aggressive towards his sister rather than towards what should be another target? Is he picked on at school, perhaps?
This is very unworthy behavior on his part that goes beyond normal sibling rivalry and spats, and makes him look like a bully and perhaps a misogynist, which certainly is something no male in his right mind would want to be viewed as right now. Tell him he needs to provide a good, loving and respectful example for his younger sister, who is likely the relative who will be part of his life longer than anyone else (except for cousins, perhaps). He'll probably respond that he was just trying to help her, just teasing, etc. Stand your ground.
How does he treat other girls? How does he talk about women and girls? Get onto this and keep an eye on it. Have him watch some documentaries about admirable women or read some biographies. See if he has any political interests right now and is absorbing online garbage as a result. Nip this in the bud.
Not every woman or girl is admirable, or course, and all are flawed - just as are men. But all are worthy of respect, and that includes his sister.
Last edited by CraigCreek; 10-04-2018 at 06:03 PM..
We punish our son consistently when he is rude or mean to his sister. But he keeps on doing it. In fact, this is one of our greatest parenting frustrations. But that's a topic for another thread.
We have a child who is very slow moving in general. Bright kid, no disabilities whatsoever but never in a rush and not going to be rushed no matter what. We work with it. I wake him up 90 mins before his bus comes so he can move at his pace. I plan our afternoons and evenings and weekends knowing he has his own pace. We tried to rush him or force him to move faster and it just wound up with all of us mad and frustrated. Now that we have accepted it we are all much happier and more laid back.
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