While I agree with the others - I realize we live in a not-so bendable world. I was a single parent for a long time, technically I still am, but DF is part of our permanent lives.
So if you can't change jobs - what other alternatives do you have available to you? Would it be possible to
1.) Go to your supervisor and ask for a shift change saying that you have 2 young girls who are spending the night alone and are very scared something is going to happen?
2.) Go to your supervisor and ask for 3/2 shifts. Three days a week you work days 2 days a week you work nights until full time day shift is available?
3.) Find an elder-type person who is looking for room and board in exchange for watching / monitoring the girls at night?
4.) Find a social service in your area that offers cars to single mothers. There is one here where I live. People donate them just for this reason. There is a mechanic too.
5.) Find an afterschool FREE program like Boys & Girls club that will help them after school with their homework and provide a positive environment until they have to go home?
6.) Get a cell phone and keep in your pocket to call the girls and have them call you from the house and check in every 30 minutes or so? You could keep the phone in your pocket on vibrate and not even answer it so you didn't use Minutes. Tracfone is cheap (I have it) and adding time to it has it's perks for free minutes if you have computer access.
7.) Ask a neighbor to keep an eye on them.
8.) Talk to the friends Mother when shes (ahem) AWAKE. And I promise if you tell them that there is NO supervision at your house from this time to this time maybe the mom will be less likely to allow HER daughter to go to your home.
9.) Maybe if she's a really cool Mother she will offer to keep your girls at night? You keep hers the days you have off so she can get time alone with her hubby?
10.) On grounding. I have found it only has ever led to more arguments. So what we did was still ground but SHORTER TERM. This way the idea that YES LITTLE GIRL you ARE BEING PUNISHED is getting through, but in smaller steps. And by making it shorter term she doesn't HAVE a chance to buck your system or push your envelopes.
Behavior modification with children is not a lot different than training any animal. (And only MY kid was a horses pettutie, so you can see how this analogy will work). If you think of a dog or a horse, one that has NEVER been ridden - it's wild. I mean you can get a rope over it's head but you certainly aren't going to throw a saddle on it, and ride in in Dressage immediately. You have to train YOURSELF and TRAIN THE HORSE to do what is being asked of it. If I am training a horse to walk, trot, canter....and it doesn't perform the way I think it should - think about this : I GROUND THE HORSE to it's pen. Big hairy deal says the horse, I just got out of doing eXactly what you wanted me to do, and now I have time to do what I want to do. And the horse, eats, sleeps, talks with other horses in the barn...poops ...and WE clean it up. Kids are not much different.
But if I take that same willful horse and just keep working on ONE thing at a time say the trot, and it doesn't perform well and I hobble it (tie it's legs together) and LEAVE it out in the round pen so it can't move, can't eat, can't see other horses and just ignore it's neighs and whinnies, then go back and try the trot and it is willful immediately I put the hobbles on and leave it there ignore it and come back later. Eventually with small steps like that I'm telling the horse "I am in charge and here is what I ask of you" Won't do it? OH well I'm not going to send you to the stable for entertainment...you're going to sit here for 30 minutes and then we'll try again.
Instead of 'grounding' your daughter or adding chores, go back to basics. Get a chair, set it in the corner and tell her for 30 minutes she sits there, for every one time she turns around it's another 10 minutes (get a timer too) for every time she gets up ? another 5 minutes, for every time she gets out of the chair THAT is when you say "EITHER SIT THERE FOR 30 MINUTES WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED AS YOUR PUNISHMENT OR and then you take away something of real value, stating that since she did NOT want to do the simple 30 minutes of silence in the corner she has CHOSEN to have her Ipod or her skate night or friend taken away for 2 days) HER CHOICE.
The exercise seems really like and exercise in futility - I mean who of us would learn anything by sitting in the corner for 30 mintues? BUT what you are doing is establishing that SHE (ALL ON HER OWN) has choices and that YOU mean what you say. And the punitive damages aren't SO heavy that she wants retaliation - it just shows her that eventually YOU are in control. Of course you NEVER EVER utter those words (I AM IN CONTROL) it's like a death wish with these kids. But what you are doing in small steps is showing her you're the boss, and she has a choice. We ALL always have a choice.
Also you have to have a written set of rules posted for everyone to see in your house. And allow your girls to participate in what they think is fair punishment. Actually I love this because they will always say something they think is lame, but when you take it from them the Gods seem to shine on us and at that moment whatever lame thing they felt they could do without is what they will need in the next 20 minutes. It has to be fair and serious.
If the rules were not posted for you at work...how would there be any order in the workplace? Say no one ever told you you were to be in the place you work by 7:30 and you strolled in at 10:00...they say YOU ARE IN TROUBLE and you say BUT SHOW ME WHERE IT'S WRITTEN! EXACTLY - so write down the rules the consequences AND.....AS ALWAYS so that they don't become disgruntal...the rewards. You like to get a bonus for your hard work....when the girls behave SO DO THEY. And it's QUITE alright for one to get a reward and not the other, matter of fact if it happens the first time and it bothers her = it's a sign you are doing something right.
Hope this helps you....parenting alone is tough, working when you want to be home (I'll just censor myself here otherwise it would light up like a tree in Times Square around Christmas)
But YOU TOO have CHOICES - You can quit your job, and find something else - you choose not to. You can choose your words carefully around your girls, you can make their punishment fit the crime, you can make this work - yes, even alone. Remember God was a single parent, but he had a lot of angels and disciples to help. Find your angels, find your disciples.
Hugs
Star - the rather long winded.
