A difficult child's version of "Do to Get"

[Josie]

For those that don't know, difficult child 1 is on the girlfriend/CF diet and when she follows it, she is a easy child (I think). When she doesn't follow it, she is back to her old, defiant ways. I think we can treat her as a easy child since it is within her control to be one. So if she were really depressed, I might not expect her to do chores but since she is depressed because she ate something, she needs to face the consequence of not doing her chores.

From what I can tell, she cheats about every other week. She will eat something and then the rest of the weekend, she will not do chores and is difficult to be around. Walking into the same room will irritate her. So, after that happens, she doesn't get to do anything else that weekend.

What usually happens is she will have a bad weekend, then get it together and do enough chores to be able to do what she wants the next weekend. At her best, she has to be reminded a lot to do them and if we don't follow through enough times, they go undone. She will do her Saturday chores if there is something she wants to do that day.

Last weekend was a bad weekend for her. husband and I have gotten tired of her having every other weekend of privileges and resulting bad behaviour so we told her this time that she has lost all of her privileges for 2 weeks. The two weeks starts when she is doing her chores when asked and when she is reasonably civil to the family.

She is back to being pleasant enough and doing some of her chores, but she still refuses to do some of them, saying there is no reason to do them since she is already grounded.

We have her cell phone and she has lost TV and computer privileges. Obviously, she doesn't get to go out with her friends for now. We will re-instate some of these privileges as we go along. I feel like as long as she is saying she won't do chores because she isn't getting anything out of it, she hasn't gotten our message.

Any advice?

 

[Pookybear66]

I don't really have any advice. In my situation, my ds does not really have chores because he doesn't do them anyway. I'm sure this is NOT teaching him anything but it's less stress on me. If I need him to clean up his room or make his bed or whatever, I have to physically help him and also make sure I pick a "good" day so I won't undure a meltdown.

Question though: Is there somewhere I can check for more info about the girlfriend/CF diet? I've only been a member a few months so its unfamiliar to me.

 

[Josie]

The gluten free/casein free diet eliminates all gluten (wheat, rye, oats, and barley) and casein (milk) from the diet. I found out about it because my younger daughter had stomach problems from gluten. It led to all of us trying the diet and it has made a dramatic difference for us. A lot of people who do it find it improves their mood and/or their children's behaviour. It is not a very popular approach here, but in gluten free circles, it is widely accepted as true.

I don't really have a good site to read about it. www.glutenfreeforum will tell you how to do the gluten free part but it might look overwhelming to try. Here are some success stories for it: http://www.gfcfdiet.com/Successstories.htm

If you are interested in reading it, I can pm you a recent posting on the national celiac listserve about how gluten affects various people who responded.

We do not really ask our child to do a lot of chores but she is almost 13 and should be able to do more, especially since we do a lot for her. She is enough of a easy child that she should do some basic chores like pick up after herself, unload the dishwasher, set the table, and clean out the car (of mostly her stuff). She is probably behind her age in this area because of her many years of difficult child behaviour when it was more trouble than it was worth to get her to even pick up after herself.

 

[busywend]

There is a Natural Treatments section on this board. Many people have success with the Gluten Free diets. Check it out.

Go to the Main list of board and you will see it there.

I only just got my 17 year old doing chores without defiance, and that is only because it is tied to her cell phone bill. It gets shut off is she does not do her chores. All I can say is good luck to you. I have no advice because the more I tried the worse the arguing and defiance got.

 

[susiestar]

Have you read any of the Love and Logic books? They might give you a different way to go about this, esp as straight links between chores and privileges isn't working.

Sorry I can't be more help.

 

[flutterbee]

It sounds like you need something more immediate since the long term effect is not working. I can see that 'if I'm still grounded for 2 weeks, why bother'. It's immaturity, but it's age appropriate for a 12 year old. It sounds like you need a more immediate payoff. After you do your chores, you have cell phone privileges or computer privileges, or friends, whatever. If she's going to be grounded all weekend or 2 weeks regardless I can see her just not bothering.