Our daughter turned ten in January. Ten seemed a good age to start asking her to be more responsible, especially with her chores.
Getting her to do them is not too difficult. Most days they do get done.
Getting her to do them well and efficiently, that’s another story. She is famous for taking extra long for EVERYTHING! She’s not the “pitter-patter” type. She is an expert mosey-er. On the plus side, she knows how to enjoy herself and make her work fun. She hums. She skips. She dances. She listens to stories. She makes up stories. You won’t see her frowning. You won’t hear her moaning. She’s like a delightful scatterbrained fairy. In her dimension, time does not exist. What should require about 90 minutes usually takes ALL DAY LONG!
We’ve tried it all and nothing has worked.
We’ve used incentives: “Get it done by noon and you can have TV today.” (She rarely gets TV so that is a major treat.)
We’ve tried the When A is done B can happen method: “Once your chores are finished, I can take you to the playground.”
We’ve tried punishment: “If you don’t finish by noon today, no art class tomorrow.”
We do follow through. She doesn’t get TV, doesn’t get playdates, doesn’t get painting class and yet nothing has changed!
A few days ago, she promised her dad that she would be finished and in bed by 8.15pm without drama. As you can imagine, that SO didn’t happen. She still was not in bed at 8.45pm, whining, crying, and complaining the whole time she was getting “ready”. When her dad reminded her about their deal and confirmed that she had lost all playtime after swim practice for five weeks, a tragedy of Shakespearean magnitude unfolded in our living room.
He was scolding. She was waling. I started ranting.
“You should never make a promise if you’re not 100% sure you can keep it.”
“Your father and I do so much for you. We don’t need this stress. YOU don’t need this stress.”
“The older you’re getting the less capable you seem to be.” (This was not constructive criticism.)
bla bla bla, bla bla bla bla.
We closed her bedroom door and went to bed ourselves trying to recover. My husband, usually the calmest one in the family, was so upset it took me a good hour to talk him down.
“What am I doing wrong?” he wondered.
It was clear that our well laid plans were not getting us the results we wanted. Our stacks of carrots and sticks had been useless.
Our daughter is not a rebellious child. She’s very easy going and pleasant but, at age 10, she still doesn’t flush the toilet 4 out of 5 times; she leaves her clothes on the floor right where she undressed; she forgets what you’ve asked her to do almost immediately.
Painting class at 9.30 am was on her schedule recently. I told her that everything on her list would need to be completed in order for her to attend. This, I remind you, is her FAVORITE class! There is no bigger carrot we could dangle. She asked me to put an alarm for 6.30am. We made a list of what she could get done quietly while we were still sleeping. When I got up an hour after her, she had not yet finished the quiet activities (completion time should have been around 40 minutes.)
I didn’t need to nag or harp: painting class had been canceled so the stakes weren’t high. (The teacher had texted me late the night before but my daughter didn’t know that). I decided to observe her, truly observe her with curiosity and no judgement.
She was checking her list periodically. She fed the cat and watered the plant. She read to me in French and English. She raked the yard. She went to give the neighbor a thank you card. That took 15 minutes instead of 2. She made her breakfast and asked me to read to her while she ate. She made her bed exactly how I showed her to and then she started violin practice. She was having so much fun playing and she was so proud of her progress, she wanted to play for me and then play for her dad. At 9.15, hearing noise in the kitchen, she exclaimed: “Oh daddy is done teaching, it must be time to go soon.” And yet she didn’t hurry. Instead, she just continued with her violin.
At that moment, I chuckled and had a A-ha moment.
People pay top dollars to go to ashrams and learn the practice of mindfulness and here it was, perfectly executed by my ten year old daughter. She lives in the moment. She doesn’t think about what’s happened before or what’s coming after. She, in true yogi fashion, only knows HERE and NOW.
“Right now, I’m having fun.”
“Right now, I’m telling myself a story in my head.”
“Right now, I’m enjoying playing the violin.”
I realized that her struggles to get things done, get them done to my standards and get them done on time were not signs of willfulness or laziness. I now believe that she is doing the best she can.
In the day to day, this is very challenging. Most of the time, it is annoying and inconvenient but I get it now: we’re not doing anything wrong and neither is she.
This little girl loves life and doesn’t relate to time the way we do. We just have to accept that.
With acceptance comes a renewed willingness to guide her more gently, give her grace and muster the humility to acknowledge that…
Maybe we don’t need to change her.
Maybe we’re the ones who need changing.
Maybe…
I started writing this essay two weeks ago and struggled to finish and post it. I am still working on controlling my emotions around this. I may understand the why better but that doesn’t mean it’s easy dealing with it.
As always, I admire your honesty and learn from your struggles. Good luck as you find your way on this one!