Reply To: Work in Progress

[Anonymous]

Wow. Thanks everyone.

@ipsofacto, the advice to think of consequences later is an awesome idea, and one I have used occationally, but need to implement more often. It’s much easier to use logic when you’re not focused on the deed, but where it came from/why they acted the way they did. I always try to say, “seeing why they did what they did, understanding it, doesn’t excuse it.” And it doesn’t. Sometimes I think if people see you taking it in without blowing up, they think you’re underreacting or don’t care. When really most of the time I’m just trying to figure out the whys of it.

As for all the clothing issues, I set a few rules for this, though I still have skirmishes at my house, just not as many as I used to.

For my son (11yr old) His issue was he was wearing whatever was clean in his dresser. Except that sometimes what he put on was “farm clothes”. Old, ratty things I kept so he could go with my dad to their farm and I didn’t care if he tore them up or got them dirty. And he wore these to school. As I have issues being focused especially in the morning, I wouldn’t notice. After a phone call from the school expressing concern over whether he had decent clothes to wear and if we “needed some aid in obtaining appropriate clothing” (I explained to them he had plenty of good clothes, he just wasn’t wearing them) we made the rule that he could wear any collered  shirt he owned. Didn’t matter if it was flannel, a polo, or whatever. If it had a collar on it, he could wear it. (Then I had to go buy a whole lot more since he only actually owned about 3 of them). Jeans could only have a hole at the knee, and then if it was bigger around than the bottom of a water bottle it had to go in the ‘patch bin’. (which usually means I a trip to the second hand store ’cause by the time I get around to patching it, he’s outgrown them).

For my 8yr daughter things were different because she’s more responsible and self-sufficient, but she’s also a bit of a diva. So for one week I chose what she was going to wear every day, and she didn’t get a choice. I don’t know why this worked, but after that week, she stopped having fits about “not having anything to wear” or “You never wash any of MY clothes” (which, after going through her dresser I discovered I just hadn’t washed the particular outfit she wanted to wear that day). And for Christmas and birthdays, I stress to people she loves getting clothes. My family thinks this is strange since when we were kids we wanted toys, but she really does prefer clothes. Probably because she gets cool stuff from her friends on her birthday.

So that’s how I handle it, but every kid is different so it’s kinda a crapshoot.

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