So riddle me this...

[Big Bad Kitty]

Pixie is the pickiest eater on the planet. No, your difficult child is not pickier. I promise.

My difficult child can out-picky your difficult child any day, any time.

Why, then, did she, instead of getting a wet tissue, decide to clean the dry-erase marker off of the laminated homework checklist with her tongue?

I believe this sparked the beginning of her "not gonna cooperate for anything" mood. She is supposed to be in a parade this Sunday. The family is coming to see her, then they will probably come by here for a visit. I already bought fruit and sandwich stuff. My house is a disaster because I have been so sick. I told Pixie yesterday that today was clean the house day. 80% of the mess is hers. Today I went so far as to say, we will only worry about the front room & dining room, not her bedroom, because that is way overwhelming. All she really has to do is bring her mess into her room. Well 2 hours and 3 meltdowns later, she refuses to do it. My last threat was, if she does not pick up her mess, she will not be in the parade.

"So?"

Alrighty then.

Now, my standing rule is, if she does not pick up, it gets tossed. Her consequences today are to miss the parade. Do I still toss her stuff? What do you think? Any feedback welcome.

 

[Sunlight]

sounds like you really would like her to go to the parade. I would give her a choice...parade or toss her stuff.

 

[bby31288]

I would say no parade, and still toss the stuff if she doesn't clean up....

 

[Sheila]

She sounds a bit overwhelmed.

My son is 13 with-ADHD. To this day, I can not tell him to "go clean your room." "Go clean your room" is a multistep task. I have to break it down into manageable tasks.

Example:

difficult child, go pick up you dirty clothes and put them in the hamper. (2 directives only)

When that's done: difficult child, put all your CDs back in their cases the then back into stand. (2 directives only)

Put your shoes in the closet. And so on. He has no organizational skills, so it's overwhelming. He'll jump from one thing to another and then, if a task takes too long to complete, he gets sidetracked fiddling with something else and forgets all about the task at hand.

I'd trigger "meltdown city" if I assigned him to clean two rooms at a time. :faint:

 

[Crazy-Steph]

I guess for the same reason that my difficult child ate his hot dog out of the trash rather than just admit that he didn't finish his dinner.

As far as the mess, is there any way you can back down but still let her know that her behavior is inappropriate? It sounds like you jumped to the next threat out of frustration (trust me, difficult child has been sent to bed at 7:00 before -- and he is 11). But I think she may be feeling overwhelmed by everything -- the parade, company, being moody already today...

Personally, I would stick with the original punishment of throwing things out. After all, the parade sounds like fun. How often do we get to have fun with our difficult child's?

Good luck no matter what you decide. We are here if you need us.

 

[babybear]

Now, my standing rule is, if she does not pick up, it gets tossed. Her consequences today are to miss the parade. Do I still toss her stuff? What do you think? Any feedback welcome.

I used to give the same rule and ended up being inconsistent with it because some things I just didn't want to throw out. I changed the rule to "it's mine to do with as I please". That way I can throw it away, lock it up for a while, or even let it slide and still enforce the rule consistently.

I often let her buy things back via a nice foot massage

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

Know what?

She went outside for awhile. I let her cool off. Then I went out there, we talked about bees and fowers. I asked her as I was about to walk in "are you SURE you don't want to help me?"

"Uh...nah."

"Okay..." I answered. Then she asked if I would take her to the park. I told her no, I was still going to clean up. Then I walked into the house. A few minutes later she came in and told me she was sorry for making me clean up all by myself. I gave her a big hug, and she asked if she could help me finish and still go to the parade.

We are on a break right now. This is one of those times where instead of going off the deep end, I waited it out, and she came around.

Yay! She'll be in the parade after all. Thank you for all of your input.

 

[Hound dog]

I have the same rule. Pick it up or it gets tossed.

But I agree with Sheila. How does difficult child do with big tasks like this??

I can't just tell T to clean his room either. Oh, he may start out fine, but 2 mins later he's sitting down playing with something he's found.

We used to have wars over this.

Then he had his first visit to the neurologist. Neuro said, "Let me guess, T's room is a disaster, if you ask him to organize he just stares at you, if you ask him to do this, this , and this you might only get 1 this done if your lucky."

You could've knocked me over with a feather. T cannot multi-task worth a darn. (even applied to homework) There is no teaching him how to do it. He simply can't period. Now that I had no trouble believing as I'd spent 13 yrs trying to do just that. Everything HAS to be broken down into steps. Then I have to give it to him 1 step at a time to get the tasks done.

Have you tried to break large tasks like these into smaller more managable ones and see how she does??

I don't double punish. She already got the parade taken away for not cleaning. in my opinion if you also toss her stuff it's another punishment for the same deed.

Hugs

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

Lisa & Sheila, no, I would not just send her into a room and tell her to clean it. Usually we do it together. Today she just was not going to do it at all.

I am glad she came around though.

 

[flutterbee]

I have to break it down for difficult child, too. Even if I tell her to take her things upstairs. She thinks she's done and I look around and see at least 5 or 6 more of her things. She just doesn't see them. So instead I either list of separately or, more often, I put all of her stuff in a pile and tell her to the pile of stuff to her room. If I told her to clean her room she would have no idea where to start.

 

[Crazy-Steph]

Same here. husband gets so mad about this. I have tried to tell him to break it down. Now I will have proof that it is not just our difficult child being difficult!

 

[flutterbee]

It's really not. At least not in our case, and I'm assuming with Sheila and Lisa as well. It's executive function stuff. I know there are threads in the archive re: ADHD and executive function. You might want to poke around there and have husband poke around there, too. It's very insightful.

It wasn't until recently (within the last year) that I learned about it myself. I had compensated with my parenting before then, but I didn't understand why it needed to be that way. I just knew that when I made these accommodations it worked. If that makes sense.

 

[Crazy-Steph]

I will look around that thread this weekend. Thanks!

Oh boy, after reading all of this stuff over the last week, I am starting to get nervous about our evaluations this summer. I think we are in for a huge awakening. Hopefully we will gain better skills and tools to help difficult child become a successful person!

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

Thank you all again for your input. The house looks very nice!

I still can't quite figure out her licking off the dry erase marker though...eeeessshh...