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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Grounding and Parenthood

On Monday I got a call from Hayden. He was in trouble at school for not doing his work and talking through a test. I explained how he needs to focus, get his work done, and be good.
We grounded him from video games and TV hoping that would show how serious it is that he's not doing his school work. The next morning he was sitting at the kitchen table with a dozen lego things he built and I asked him "What did you learn from yesterday?" He said "Having no TV and Video games is boring..."
We chatted a bit more about how important it is to do school work, and how he doesn't get to have the fun stuff if he doesn't do the work.

It's not just at school though. At home with the homework he throws fits, cries, and just plain doesn't want to do it. We've tried threats of taking away Angry Birds, no Christmas, and grounding to no avail.
It's been a couple months of off and on struggles with the homework.

Last night I was watching the recent episode of Parenthood and they had a scene where two moms were talking and one asked the other how she got her kid to do the work. She pulled out a huge thing of candy and said "We bribe."  She also said "As a parent you shouldn't feel guilty for doing what works."

My goal now is to try more of the positive reinforcement and bribing. I'm at my wits end with this struggle and I really don't know what else to do to get through to him.


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