One of my biggest frustrations lately has been a rather poor work ethic on the part of my sons. The older boys (age 11) in particular have spent a good deal of their lives rejecting the notion that part of their purpose on this planet is to do some work.

Interestingly, they’ll work for other people rather well. I get the most resistance, and Hubby takes second place. I’m glad; I’d rather the problem was at home than abroad, as it were.

However, the frustration for me has hit critical levels. In fact we were only 2 days into our school year when I announced that this is the last year I’ll be teaching them at home and that they had 2 more days to convince me I shouldn’t just drive them to the public school and enroll them immediately.

I meant every word.

They did convince me that they want to stay at home, but the final decision hasn’t been made about the future. Which I think is fine really…I’ve always known there was a possibility they’d want to go to school. I’m quite at peace with how things are going in that regard. For their part, the boys have been working a bit harder when I ask. That’s a good thing.

I went through about 2 weeks of complaining about the whole situation which I also think was a good thing. It seems to be out of my system and now the real work is beginning.

Bottom line: if I want my boys’ behavior to change, then I have to change what I’m doing first. As the parent it’s my responsibility to be a leader and to set the tone and expectations. Clearly there’s something about the way I do things that lets the boys think they can question and disregard what they’re asked to do.

I started small: the dining room table. Even though the boys are 6 and 11 years old, it’s a complete mess after every meal. I’ve never understood why it was so difficult to get the food from the plate to the mouth, but the mess on the table, chairs, and floors daily is proof of that challenge. So. I have started insisting that every boy clean up his own spot after every meal. If they leave dishes or crumbs, they’re sweetly called back to fix the problem.

Wouldn’t you know it? They don’t like cleaning up after themselves. Who woulda thought? But they’re doing it, and even eating more neatly.

I added insult to injury yesterday by insisting that the older boys do a couple of chores off the paid list and then I [gasp] paid them. TechnoBoy was pretty offended by the turn of events which is hilarious because he wants to save up for a Nintendo DSi. Apparently he thinks he’ll come into the money without effort somehow.

To be clear: I have wonderful sons. They are amazingly great kids. They just have a bit of a problem with the whole work thing. Which could be a big problem, granted. I think we can fix it though.

Tonight I asked them to do some work that is not paid but a fun activity and there was decent cooperation. I also made an effort to be as sweet as possible about correction if there were mistakes. However, I brooked no argument over them complying with requests for work. It worked out very well.

So. The order of the day: consistency! Be sweet! Firmness rules!

Wish me luck?

by AmyL

Photo graciously provided by duesentrieb, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved