Sympathy Please
I have one child that I would like to strangle almost every day. I'm not saying he is my least favorite child, I'm just saying he is the child most likely to get strangled to death by his mother. You see the difference right? And although it's highly unlikely I will ever kill one of my own children the desire is there some days.
This child is brilliant. All you have to do is look at his head and you can see that there are a lot of brains in there. I just wish one of theses days he would start using them to help him put his things away and then remember where he put them.
I get so tired of looking for library books, shoes, scout books, basketballs, etc. If I decide not to involve myself and make him look all by himself then I still have to endure the crying and wailing and gnashing of teeth while he's hunting.
Today this beloved child spent 15 minutes looking for his shoes so he could go to Scouts. We go through this every day. He never found them so he decided to wear his flip flops instead. He couldn't find those so I made him go in his Church shoes which for some reason he could find. He said that was embarrassing but I will bet you a million dollars that it's not embarrassing enough to make him put his shoes away the next time he wears them.
Then there is all the stuff he loses that we never find, like a $100 bike that he owned for two months before he lost it. It is really out of control. I can not buy him anything or let him use anything or he will lose it. I hate to tell him that because I don't want him to feel hopeless but that is what it comes down to until he learns to be responsible. It's his choice because I do not have time to babysit his stuff.
A couple weeks ago after an episode I told him he needed to come up with a solution for this problem. He went in his room and boxed up everything he owns that he could possibly lose and took it down to the basement. He kept his backpack with his checkbook and planner in it and he is working on keeping that put away and not losing it. I can't say that it's going very well but he's trying. I think.
If anyone has any ideas for us I would love to hear them. If not then I would like a lot of sympathy for having a son that is just like me. I hope he doesn't wait till he's 30 to figure out his behaviour is making life miserable for himself and everyone around him and decide to change.
Labels: Sweet Little Troublemakers
posted by The Lazy Organizer @ 3:44 PM
20 Comments
20 Comments:
All I can offer is sympathy. Emma is my nemesis, so I well understand you!
I have 7 of those! Whenever they ask me if I have seen _______ (whatever it is they are looking for) I tell them that the last time I wore/used it I put it away. I think eventually it will click and you have my sympathy until then.
Haha my son is the same. He is only 6 so I hope for improvement. But if he can not find something he approaches me with accusations as if its all my fault he put it down somewhere and can not find it. And then he wants me to drop everything to find what he has misplaced. I have slowly whittled his belongings down but he still manages to lose the "most favorite" things. =)
My deepest sympathies my friend. Do you homeschool? I can't remember if you do. Whether or not you do, I would suggest you devote a lot of time to this, as it is very bothersome to you both, and can get quite pricey. I would use money, or any kind of bribery that works for him and train him to NEVER, EVER, put anything down when he's done with it, except in the ONE place where it goes. Never ever. Not "just for a sec" not, I'll do it later. NEVER. If he walks in the door, he puts his shoes where the shoes go, hangs up his coat, puts his backpack away, etc. How do you "get him" to do it...wait at the door for him...remind him...follow him...reward him...sounds like he needs a lot of redirection, and focus. He needs to get out of the habit of leaving everything ANY WHERE, and get into the habit of only putting things where they go. I hope this smacks of sympathy for you, because I feel your pain, and I've spent a lot of one on one time training certain people, who shall remain nameless. ; )
PS I know what I'm suggesting is a huge investment of your time, and especially tiring when you're pregnant. It's worth a try. :)
I'm with amyr. Once in a while, I alow certain items to have two homes. If it's not in one place, then it's (hopefully) in the other. My son was very gifted but always had his head in the clouds. Once I caught up to him on the way to school. He was half way there, and was still carrying the bag of garbage I had asked him to take out on his way.
My son is the same way. We use a "dollar jar" anything not where it belongs (so far - not counting his room) if found out of place, whomever it belongs to, has to put a dollar in the jar. It has been a sanity saver.
Lara,
I didn't notice his church shoes at scouts-they all piled their shoes in the doorway!
I am sorry for your pain---however, it makes me feel a little less like a failure. Lara's child loses things also! I am not the only one!!!
How are you feeling? Your girl sat with us during Sacrament meeting on Sunday.
Amen Sister! All the same and more. Can he eat and keep the mess on his plate? Mine ends up with a ring of food around the dish, and we could feed a 3rd world country from the food under his chair.
When my kids expect their crisis to turn into mine my response is, "Did you see me using it? No? Then I don't know where it is." Then again when we're heading out the door for church, it becomes ALL our crisis. :)
(((Sympathetic Hugs)))
I echo Amyr's thoughts. Everything has a home and don't set it down until it is where it belongs. Yes, I know, great ideology. Better he learn it now than at 30.
I think you are tackling it right, though. He has got to feel the pain of his consequences. If it means enough to him, he will figure out this life skill. Maybe wearing his sister's flip flops to church for a few weeks might help :) !!
Is your son getting attention from looking for his lost items? When he complains about losing something do you ever go look for it and find it? Those two things are key. If he is getting attention from the whining and DRAMA of not having what he needs, cut that off. He can go cry and boob in his room. Don't serve as an audience or give him ANY sympathy. If his lost items are actually somewhere where he can find them, then he is probably doing the lost thing to get attention from you.
In our house we have a "black hole." If things are left laying around the house, I swipe them and put them in an undisclosed location for an undetermined amount of time. The kids have been getting quite good at keeping their things picked up and put away. If they want to get something out of the black hole before I return it to them, they can draw a job out of the mystery job jar, do the job and choose one item out of the black hole. It gets lots of windows washed and cupboards cleaned!!
Good luck!
Carla - Montse's cousin
SYMPATHY and lots of it to you!!! my sons are the same way. it is a serious problem because they only have one of many things. one pair of shoes, one sweater, one rain jacket, one hat...you'd think it wouldn't be so hard to find those things.
i finally got fed up today after much warning and just cleared the room. i took a laundry bin, started at the door and put everything inside that was on the floor or out of place and carted it off. only problem now is that i have a pile junk in my room.
i am totally implementing the black hole idea!!! thank you so very much carla for that.
Sympathy! You got it! But think about how funny those brilliant sons are and how creative they can be. Better to be with a smart child who could use their brains than a not so smart one who could not. =)
Have you noticed most people they speak of as a genius, have organization problems? Their minds are too busy to think of such mundane things!
I have two of those... not just one, but two....although one is far worse than the other... last night one lost her glasses and the other lost his homework that he's already done... of course, I can't really blame them too much, they are just like their mother... although as I've aged, I've gotten better but there are still days that we are all searching for my glasses or my keys just so we can leave the house... ::sigh::
i do, however, like that fact that i'm smart...(which is the case with all of us... very intelligent, just not so much when it comes to common sense....)
Oh, you have all of my sympathy! My son has gone through 3 or 4 wallets. Lost, usually with money in them.
I am so glad to see so many suggestions... I will try them all with my middle boy. Yesterday, he walked into school with his bag and lunchbox, but called me up and 10.00 to ask me where they were.
????!
I find that writing things down helps. He seems to "hear" the written word better than the spoken! I keep post-it notes in wild colours in the car, and a permanent marker. I write down what he has to remember, and stick it to his shirt. Or write stuff and stick it up on the wall by his bed. Or write on the bathroom mirror with a dry-erase pen. This REALLY WORKS! But not for everything. I will try everyone else's suggestions too!
If I had the money and the connections I could save your son and myself from this life debilitating issue. This is something i dream about everytime I'm looking for my keys. When you loose your cell phone what do you do? You call it. Why can't everything have a little reciever in it and it's own phone number? If I loose my keys I just dial my keys. If I loose my wallet I just dial my wallet. It rings and then you can find it. Cell phones are so small I'm sure the little reciever and speaker would be so tiny that they could go on anything. I'd be willing to pay $30 a month to never loose anything again.
Our oldest's room always looked like a tornado hit it and getting her to clean it all up was WWIII. Now she's the neatest one of the three. How did that happen? I don't know, but some of the life lessons were getting through, I guess.
http://organizeddoodles.blogspot.com/
We have the same problem with socks. We could buy the Costco hundred pack and by Friday no one would have socks. I make the kids buy their own clothes once they hit middle school, it cuts down on "lost items" but before middle school I've given up and keep my Costco membership up to date.
Would this "most-likely-to-be-strangled" child by any chance be your second or middle? Seems those are hard family spots to occupy. I recently posted about my #1 troublemaker and my brainstorm on how to handle it:
http://presseddownandshakentogether.blogspot.com/2007/10/feeding-good.html
Forgive me touting my blog, but seriously, same topic.
Post a Comment
<< Home