Arguing, Chores and Not Focusing

Arguing: Don't rise to the occasion. When he says "why?!" or "But you said..." just repeat the instruction. Don't show anger, just boredom. The best way to get my boys to put on their shoes...I'd just walk out the door. "Okay, I guess you don't want to go...bye!" They'd come running!

Chores: He's 5 so chores should really be instructive. You're teaching him to take responsibility for himself and his mess. His laundry in his hamper, his toys away, beginning to fold his own clothes and put them away, putting his dish in the dishwasher, hanging his towel after bath...and maybe feeding/watering a pet. The most important things is that he should be able to get ready, start to finish, in the morning. It helps if everything is put out in the evening (also something he can do).

Focus: Yes, he's 5. Try natural consequences. If you say "you have 15 minutes to eat your cereal," and he's still lollygagging at the 15 minute mark, tell him he's done, take the bowl, and wash it down the sink.

If he doesn't complete a chore before he's supposed to go do a planned activity, like go outside or watch a cartoon or do a fun activity, he doesn't get to do it. Don't just put off doing it "Oh, you can't do that until you get THIS done." Say "Sorry, your fun time was supposed to be from 10-11. You took too long to get this done, so now you can't do it. Maybe next time you'll get the chore done when I tell you to do it."

The trick is NO BARGAINING and NO GIVING IN. Let him learn the consequences. Good luck!

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Christy P nailed it. Don't argue with him. Just repeat what you said or you say, "I'm not going to argue with you. This is not up for debate, Mr.!"

Loved Christy's suggestion of giving him 15 minutes to eat whatever and then taking it away when the time is up. I'd also cut out distraction - like no tv, computer, music or reading at the table. Don't worry about sending him to school hungry - he needs to experience it in order for him to learn to eat his breakfast in a timely manner.

I also agree about not letting him do his fun activity until his chores are done. This might take awhile, but he'll get it eventually. I had a friend growing up that her job was to clean the hallway bathroom every Saturday. She could not leave the house until it was done. There were so many times that I called her around 11am and she still hadn't cleaned it or wasn't finished! It was frustrating to her because she couldn't do what she wanted (hang out with me), but it was frustrating to me because she could be so stubborn about it! So, with a little peer pressure, she started cleaning it earlier so she could have fun in the afternoon.

Consistency is key. He may be strong-willed, but you are the adult here. You are smarter and stronger-willed than him. Keep your cool, be firm and be consistent.

Good luck!

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I see a battle for control. He's asserting himself the only ways he knows how, arguing (stalling, creating a diversion) and doing things on his own timetable. Recognize that he's going to do it and make it work for you, don't try to fight it. Give him lots of choices that you can live with, and let him decide on the timetable where he can. Example: Say, for instance, you have 45 minutes to get ready for school in the morning. The day before, sit down with him and come up with the list of what has to happen, have him think about how long each thing might take, then see if it adds up to 45 minutes. He gets to allot the time for each thing, and your job is to support his decision, maybe be the one to set the timer for each task. He might even see it as a challenge to get stuff done under the time limit. But the emphasis is to get him involved in his choices and time management -- don't be the one setting the rules that he gets to rebel against and argue with you. Make him more in control and he'll fight you less.

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First, I like to say that sometimes I think our kid's sole purpose in life is to try our patience. This sort of stuff drives me crazy. Just to make you feel better, I have one that does anything I ask and always has but has a brother that will dilly dally and never get anything done when it comes to chores or will break down and cry that he is tired or his brother is mean - whatever to get out of it (he is 5), I also have a 3 year old girl who will simply dig her heals in and not budge, she just says "no" or "I don't have time", "I'm busy" (hmm, wonder who that sounds like?) - UGH!

Here is what we do, we give them 1 minute to fulfill their duty (which is pretty small typically) or they go to bed - PERIOD. The second they begin their tactics to get out of it, I take their hand and walk them up to bed. Usually they will stop and say, sorry, I will go do it right now! Sometimes not. It takes months for it to work, but my frustration is lower because I do not negotiate or even listen, I just stop it, no questions asked.

As far as the focus, that is a bit harder to deal with (my oldest used to be this way) but here are some suggestions:

- Make sure you keep his diet super good, low-sugar, good breakfast (skip cereal and pancakes if you can and stick with eggs, toast, etc.), lots of veggies, and little fast food if any.

- When he is on any task, e.g., meal time, you put the food in front of him, let him do his thing then after a reasonable amount of time, take it away and move to the next task. After a couple of meals, he will begin to eat when it is in front of him. The key is to not make it a deal for you or get aggravated or even talk about it. Just limit it and move on. Repeat all of this with everything. For toothbrushing, do it for him, you're kind of supposed to anyways.

- Try to remember, he is 5, and expect him to listen and follow through but he will be distracted and they LOVE to work you at this age.

In short, every time you react, he will get a charge off of it and do it more. That is what they do. So keeping your cool and rewarding the behavior you desire works really well. Side note - try to keep it to "I am proud of you when... " and not "What a good boy!" We have a tendency to reward without verification which makes them question what they did exactly and in turn question what to do going forward.

Last but not least, it wouldn't hurt to ask for an appointment with your Pediatrician as well. I did with my oldest son and the doc checked him for any signs of something else going on. There was nothing, he was just a free-flowing creative soul. I was glad I ruled out any other problems though.

Good luck! I am sure it will all work out.

P.S. The kids (5 and 11) are to pick up their room before bed at night. Make their beds in the mornings. Do dishes after dinner. On Saturdays, we all pitch in for 2 hours and clean the house, the 5 yo dusts, helps with the bathrooms and picks up. I try not to bombard them when the first walk in from school, I would rather they focus on school work. I expect probably double from the 11 year old from what I get out of the 5 year old. My 3 yo daughter is picking up the pace on chores, but still pretty much free, she helps pick up, clears the table, helps with bathrooms etc. The 9mo old is obviously not doing anything yet.

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Does it get cold in Utah?
In Illinois my 5yo would dawdle and I finally picked him up, his clothes and put him outside. In January. He dressed so fast and was inside in less than 5 minutes. It took three times, but you have to do it in the winter. By spring getting dressed quickly will be habit.
I am the queen of throwing my kids in the car or saying I left and leaving. THey run out the door with shoes on hand.
Mine have a chore chart on the calendar. I have next year's calendar started already too. So they can look at Dec 8 and know which one does the cat chores, or the kitchen or the dog chores.

We did eventually have to remove all my oldest's belongings from his room. He never asked for anything back except his Legos and his gameboy. I left his bed, dresser and books.

And I agree meal times are meal times. After an allotted amount of time food goes away, it's how we train dogs too. :-)

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Arguing: Does he ever "win" the argument? If so, then he is getting just enough intermittent reward to reinforce the behavior. To nip this you need to have him lose every argument (and this means with mom and dad) just because he argued about it. I know it sounds kinda mean, and you probably want to help him develop sound reasoning and persuasion skills -- but at the same time you also don't want to have him try to talk you out of everything he has to do. So sit him down and tell him that he has to do certain things, that there is no arguing about it. And that right now he needs to learn to obey even when he doesn't want to. Tell him there will be no arguing about it. You will tell him what to do, you will remind him what to do, and then if he doesn't do it there are consequenses.

Chores -- my 6 year old unloads the dishes, cleans his own room, and has to help out with whatever else I ask him to do (set the table, help his sister with things). I have him do chores at dinner time or right before because that fits in with our schedule.

Focus -- Give him a task and a time to complete it and a reward for completing it on time. For example: Breakfast. You need to eat your cereal. You have 15 minutes before we have to get shoes on to leave. If you finish eating your cereal before shoe time, then you get to play with _____ (insert something he wants to play with). If you don't, that's ok too, but at the end of 15 mins it will be time to put shoes on. At 15 mins tell him to go get shoes on. If he didn't eat, then he didn't eat, and that's his choice. You say to him "Wow, I guess you weren't hungry this morning. If you get hungry before snack/lunch time then you need to remember that it was your choice to be hungry because you didn't eat your breakfast." The rest of the morning goes the same way -- he has to put his shoes and socks on in 3 minutes or he can carry them out to the car and walk barefoot.
The trick is to find natural consequences and then allow them to happen. (Really it's allowing them to happen that is the hard part. None of us really want our kid going to school in their PJs or without shoes, but if you let it happen once, it's possible that it will only happen once).

As for being strong-willed. Good for him -- it is a great trait that will serve him well in life IF you can channel that will into appropriate areas. Right now it seems like he's just using it to "out stubborn" you. And it is working for him. As long as he can pretend for long enough that he doesn't care then you don't have something to punish him with. There will be something he cares about, you just have to find it and follow through with it. Consistency is key here -- you have to catch him and punish him almost every time to make a change in the behavior.

It is hard to raise strong-willed kids, but it can be done and you can focus their will into positive things!

Good luck!

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My son was the same way and he got diagnosed with adhd. So far the medication seems to be working. Theres other options as well. He was getting in trouble at school, just clowning around. Hes a smart kid, just was unfocused. He would forget alot, and take forever to do something that should have taken a few minutes to do. I found it best to make him do his chores and homework right after school before he could do anything else. (Like t.v. playing outside ect.) As far as arguing, I wouldnt period. I gave him a choice.. He can either do his chore or go to his room. Hope you find this a little helpful :)

OMG...my 5 year old is the same way!

He is not too bad on chores most of the time though. I try to give him some kind of reward for doing though, for instance I won't let him do something that he is want at the time until he finishes whatever chore I assigned him.

I am very interested in what everyone said on the other two issues though, especially the focus one...

Whew!! I am glad to see that my 5 year old isn't the only one who does everything at half speed. We've tried to fix it on both ends - so we give her a little more room to do things at her own slow poke pace but with other things we set a time limit and then if the task isn't done, we just end it. Like we have 30 minutes to eat dinner, which is plenty of time and at the end of 30 minutes I pick up plates and leave the table whether she is finished or not. At the beginning of the meal we tell her the expectation and then if she starts to argue or negotiate during dinner we say we already discussed it and aren't talking about it any more (and that is really the difficult part, not to get dragged into a conversation again). But with bed time we were spending so much time yelling to hurry up and that just felt like a bad way to end the day, so we just started having her start getting ready for bed an HOUR early and what ever time is left before lights out is special time with mom and dad.

She also does chores. She has a chore chart and every week she gets to pick from the selection of chores and earns 10 cents for every chore (she has to spend her own money on junk toys when we go shopping). Mostly they are simple, like picking up toys, getting ready for bed, not whining, etc. We spend 10 minutes of the hour before bed doing any last minute chores and then fill out her chore chart. She doesn't have to do her chores, she knows it is up to her to earn her money or not, and I don't make a big deal out of it. Although with picking up toys we do have the rule in the house that if I pick them up, they become mine and I like to keep my toys in the garage, or occasionally I even like to donate my toys to Goodwill. :)