TheBanyanTree: 'Kill the boy'

Wed Feb 17 01:29:12 PST 2010

Yeah, we have one of those too. 15 years old, and coincidentally also has to
do the bins and the dishwasher - his only household chores apart from
keeping his room tidy-ish, taking his dirty wash into the laundry, and
personal hygiene.

He's pretty good - he does other stuff when I ask him to do (well, 10
minutes later, or maybe two hours later 'cause he's deep in a Playstation
game. Or just forgot).

I feel your pain about jobs not being done when they need to be done. It is
very irritating to find the dishes still sitting on the bench, awaiting the
dishwasher being emptied, and the boy being asleep or not around.  So this
is what I do - and it kind of works. (But not for everything.)

The basis of my action is the idea of consequence, a common principle touted
for dealing with teenagers, but it requires patience and fortitude as it can
be inconvenient. So if I am forced to do his chore, then we have the 'job
swap'. This means that he therefore has to do one of my chores - and not one
of his choosing. It has to be something that needs to be done in the near
future - like, soon. This is usually something like taking the washing off
the line and folding it, or having to take care of his own laundry from
start to finish (usually painful, as those five steps from his bedroom to
the laundry, from whence I will wash it, are quite irksome to him and
therefore his dirty clothes can build up in his bedroom to two full loads
quite quickly). 

I haven't had to deal with the bins issue, as we do give him a reminder. I
guess I chicken out there, as the thought of having a full bin sitting
around for another week gathering flies is just too much. Though I did once
threaten that an unemptied bin would be placed in his bedroom for the week
so that he would understand why we wanted it reliably emptied.

I also dealt with the dirty-clothes-in-the-bedroom issue by a) providing a
laundry hamper (this is what he has to bring to the laundry to empty it into
the big laundry basket) and b) threatening to throw out any clothes I found
on the floor. Fortunately I only had to do it once, and it was only a pair
of socks. Of course I retrieved them as soon as he was out of the house, and
threw them in the wash. He never knew; I was too reluctant to waste the
money I had spent on them. But it did the trick - he knew I was serious. I
was amazed it was so easy. But then, his bedroom is pretty small, and it's
not THAT hard to put his dirty clothes in the hamper. 

Good luck, is all I can say!

Anita

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:05:58 -0500
From: Laura <wolfljsh at gmail.com>
To: The Banyan Tree <thebanyantree at remsset.com>
Subject: TheBanyanTree: "Kill the boy"
Message-ID:
	<72ba5561002112305l62ec71f5i3316bcc2a7cbd31a at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Last night was a Kill The Boy night.  Bill Cosby fans among you will
recognize that quote. For those of you who are not fans, it is taken from a
bit Bill does about coming home to an angry wife, and when told he is to "go
upstairs and KILL THAT BOY", replies, "yes, yes... kill the boy, kill the
boy!"  He's just glad it's not him at whom she is angry.

I have a 16 year old, just getting ready to turn 17, and he has become
smarter than everyone else, stronger than everyone else, and invincible to
boot.  What he isn't, is responsible, though he assures me that he most
certainly IS.  Both my boys have lists of chores to be done, hanging on the
refrigerator.  How difficult is it to glance at the chart when you're
getting into the fridge for the 100th time that day?  I would think it
wasn't all that difficult, but apparently my mind is going, and I'm too
stupid to understand.

Yesterday, when he was supposed to be doing schoolwork, I kept hearing
tic-tic-tic-tic.  I looked around to see him texting instead of schooling.
I told him to stop texting, and start schooling, or I was taking the phone
away.  He texted at least twice more, claiming he was telling his friends
that he couldn't text any more.

Last night, at half-past midnight, I had a thought, and checked outside.
Nope, the trash bin was still sitting out by the curb.  The trash had been
picked up at 6:30 am, so the empty bin had been sitting out by the street
for 18 hours, but the party responsible for taking it around back couldn't
be bothered yesterday, it seems.  He's too busy texting on the phone which
is supposed to be used for letting me know he's gotten done with class
early, or the party is over and he needs a ride, or the church is burning
down and he'd like to come home.  Instead, he's using it to spend all his
time texting, then going to bed without doing any of his chores (and really,
three chores a day is not that many, in my humble opinion!), and leaving
them all for me to do.  Sure, I can do them, but the point is that he should
be participating in the operation of this household, not being waited on
hand and foot like some royal bastard.

I got pretty hot under the collar, stomped down the hall and BANGED on his
door.  "YOU NEED TO GET UP AND TAKE THE TRASH BIN AROUND!" I screamed, and
stomped back down the hall, muttering under my breath.

A few minutes later, his highness came slumping, zombie-like, down the hall,
slipped on some shoes (it's 15 degrees F here, so even invincible teenagers
put shoes on to go out), and shuffled out the front door.  He had neglected
to unlock the back door, so he had to bang on it.  Fortunately for him, his
Dad was there to open it, because I sure as hell was not going to let the
little ingrate back in. If he's too stupid to remember to unlock the door
before he goes out, he can bloody well walk back around to the front to get
in.

A few minutes later, I went in to clean the kitchen and get ready for bed. I
saw that the dishwasher had not been unloaded. This is another of His
Highness' chores that was supposed to have been done.  Rather than have to
face the boy, because I might have strangled him, I started unloading the
dishwasher myself, muttering obscenities, and blamming and slamming cabinets
and dishes as I went.

My husband came in and asked if there was anything he could do to help.  I
told him no, to just stay out of the way.  He quietly slipped out of the
kitchen.  Then I heard him say, "I know what I can do to help!"  I said,
"You gonna go in there and KILL THAT BOY?"  "Well," he said, "that wasn't my
first thought, but I'll take it under consideration."

Lucky kid.  He was still alive this morning, and I managed to let him get to
class and come back home before he got the multi-lecture about
responsibility to the household, and responsibility to school, and
responsibility with his electronics, and his responsibility to learn time
management.

I'm pretty sure he'd have rather been killed than have to listen to the
lecture.

-- 
Laura
wolfljsh at gmail.com
http://wolfsinger.wordpress.com

------------------------------

______________________________________
             TheBanyanTree
   http://thebanyantree.remsset.com
Send posts to: thebanyantree at remsset.com

End of TheBanyanTree Digest, Vol 77, Issue 16
*********************************************