My Daughter Dragging Her Feet
My daughter has been trying really hard to out smart her mother. Doing the dishes isn’t her strong suit. I finally got tired of fighting with her on the dishes, so I started helping her when I can. A simple load of dishes would take her 2 hours and sometimes longer. It’s no joke. She tries her best to use her ADHD to her advantage.
Lately, I’ve noticed that she’s been really dragging her feet on starting the dishes. I caught on after realizing she was trying to out smart her mother. So I decided Mom was going to drag her wheels/feet too. She would actually stand in one place wiping the same piece of counter top like it needed a serious sanding. I have to love her for trying to out smart her mother.
I have to admit that she’s pulled one over on me a few times. Her biggest thing is playing stupid like I didn’t tell her something. She likes to use my memory problems to her advantage. It really irritates me when I know I have told her something and she swears I didn’t tell her. I have a book that I write down things to remind me of things. The many things that lupus has taken away from me including my sharp memory. Sometimes the lupus fog is a lot like trying to drive through a heavy fog on top of a snow storm.
February 25 2008 10:49 pm | Life with Lupus and Parenting
March 23rd, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I hear you! How old is your daughter? Has she always had chores, or has she had more as you’ve gotten sicker, or ?
My girl (17) has FMS as I do, but she’s much healthier than I am. Happily, she’s got a great attitude, and she does try to help - but she gets so distracted! (She has ADD too.) She’s *always* had chores, though, and likes being able to contribute to the family by doing them.
I just feel blessed that she’s so much easier than her step-siblings, who used to live with us. ADHD is one thing, but toss in ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder - I think it should just be called BAD, and I am NOT the only one). A friend of the family who had doubted what we said about the step-kids was stunned to see my stepson drag out a 15-minute clear-the-kitchen job for over two hours one night, all the while whining that he needed to go do his homework NOW.
I think it’s telling that the step-kids didn’t have ANY household duties before I came into their lives, so they resented them as something they shouldn’t have to do. While everybody in the family took turns doing each job, they still complained constantly about fairness. They had an ingrained sense of entitlement, and their mother encouraged it.
Everything was a constant power struggle with them. Everything I’ve read about parenting and discipline says to avoid letting things become power struggles - but I’ve yet to find any “expert” who can specifically address that kind of situation, when a kid just doesn’t want to contribute fairly to the family. Life is MUCH less stressful around here now that they live with their mother (and don’t visit).
March 23rd, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I’m a firm believer in kids doing chores. My daughter has been doing chores since she’s little. She proably does more then the average kid because of my lupus and the fibromyalgia. I have days that all I can do is barely get out of bed. I make it to my living room and that’s a major feat. SHe’s a great kid althought the ADHD can be tring. THere are the times I wanna pull my hair out.