<p>Ha - I have lost count of how many times I’ve said - this is not a hotel and I am not a maid - this week. My 8 year old is fine, it’s my 17 year old that seems to think elves come in at night and clean & replace “borrowed” items. I threatened to leave all the dirty dishes & crumbs on her bed if she did not clean up after herself, although I’m afraid she would just leave the stuff there and than I’d have to go out and buy a new set of dishes - LOL
Have you tried guilt? I think that’s my next strategy, how hurt and disappointed I am … all I have sacrificed … this is the thanks I get (dramatically putting back of hand on forehead, maybe a few tears for good measure).</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Guilt doesn’t work…Removing privileges is what works. Being messy means no car (or no new clothes, or no allowance, or no whatever). That usually scares the @$%& out of most kids. </p>
<p>Yes, there are some kids that will say, “Big deal, take the car away. I’ll just have my friends pick me up.” But, that won’t last long. They will want their car usage back. And, their friends aren’t going to like driving them around, just so that your kids can remain slobs.</p>
<p>One of the things I’ve noticed when my kids are all home now is they are adults, and they are large creatures. Very different from when they were toddlers, or even middle schoolers. Having a few extra adults in your home, with their friends, their laundry, their food, is like an invasion. Especially after you have adjusted to their being away. Add to that the new habits that come from college life, and it’s disorienting. A big loving sloppy crazy old mess. Family!</p>
<p>hohum—clients have standing appointment and I just could not meet elsewhere. My home office althought it shares a common wall with the house is separate from the living quarters and is much cheeper than paying for space. The only thing my office is missing is a bathroom, which is not a problem when the kids are not home. </p>
<p>I love my kids so much and they really are terrific productive kids but I just want to see more respect or attention to the things that are impotant to us.</p>
<p>Frazzled, your husband has no choice. The kids do…</p>
<p>and, “hate” may sound strong to you, but to a kid’s underdevloped sense of perspective, that’s exactly what they will feel. If only for a little while. Resentment is probably the better word. But I still feel most parents wait FAR too long before they begin the dicipline. Today’s “just let them be kids” mentality tends to backfire about age 13…</p>
<p>We moved to a new town about 18 months ago. I can’t tell you how many teachers and parents have asked my wife and I what on earth we did to raise such respectful children. We hear it all the time. And it’s because we started with consistent dicipline from an early age and made them responsible. If you wait until the teen years, you’ve done both them and yourselves a disservice.</p>
<p>A serious problem with today’s parents is that they let their kids convince them that they are incapable of responsibility. That’s hogwash. Farm kids are driving tractors and raising animals and doing chores before age 10, while most city kids are begging for the remote and demanding more games for their Wii. And it’s the parents who are to blame IMO.</p>
<p>But, my experience is that most parents don’t want to hear any of that. Nobody wants to admit they weren’t hard enough on their kids for some reason. Just not “PC” in today’s liberal society.</p>
<p>John.</p>
<p>John, we get asked the same thing a lot. My running partner was our neighbor when my kids were small. She recently told me that she used to think I was too hard on my children, but she’s changed her mind now that she sees how happy, respectful, and considerate they are.</p>
<p>Hm. I guess since that whole Industrial Revolution thing, it’s been tougher to raise farm kids if you don’t live on a farm … And reporting strictly on my own three datapoints, they somehow overcame the handicap of being raised with liberal values by liberal parents, and have become considerate, independent adults. Go figure.
I’d have said just the opposite!</p>
<p>With my two Ds out of the house I had imposed a New World Order on my Husband and Son and had them whipped into shape. Then the girls came home and messiness again became the order of the day until we sat down and explained these two rules:</p>
<p>a) you are only treated like company if you are home for a weekend, anything longer than that and you are again a member of the household. At which point you will pick up after yourself and do your chores.</p>
<p>b) If I am nagging or scolding it is because they forgot rule a</p>
<p>oh BTW liberal in NOT= to permissive. I am far more of the former and far less of the latter than my SIL whose children used to appall me with their self centered attitudes and behavior. (I do have to say that in spite of that, they have matured into really nice kids ;)) Anyway I am sure everyone on these boards can think of their own anecdotal example to disprove that postulation.</p>
<p>Establishing ground rules for polite behavior has very little to do with political orientation</p>
<p>This political/polite issue always makes me laugh.</p>
<p>H and I – hippiest folks (well hippest I hope and not with the absolute biggest hips in the room) ever. I say I am a refugee from the sixties.</p>
<p>Teachers always said the same thing: how come your kids are the most polite?</p>
<p>Relatives faint because they were so opposed to my politics that they thought I would automatically raise wild little banshees.</p>
<p>But being polite is part of a liberal agenda I think because it values community. Neither red nor blue has the lock on self-centeredness or caring, though we secretly think the other side are selfish and we are righteous.</p>
<p>My kids are polite, well I don’t know why. I told them to be, and they are. On the other hand, I also told them to be neat and they’re not.</p>
<p>All bests are off with politics and politesse. Remember the picture of VP Rockefeller giving someone the finger? It made the front page of every major newspaper. Maybe some of you are too young.</p>
<p>As for the mess? Doesn’t seem to be anything I can do. When I remonstrate it gets a bit better.</p>
<p>The kid at home is not the kid elsewhere/in public. Sigh- everyone else gets his good side. We have longstanding issues (see the introvert/extrovert thread for insights). It is nice to justify more cooking and stocking the pantry. But it is also nice to be a twosome, we have adjusted to the empty nest quite nicely. It is too late to change the formative years ingrained habits and personality. We make the request for all dirty dishes to be brought down when it is time to run the dishwasher, his as yet undone laundry piles (he did one or two loads to get by, then either quit or forgot) went into that closet (out of sight out of mind- for me, they were out of his in the open). I’ll clean house when he leaves. </p>
<p>College kids are still in the process of maturing- and coming home makes them revert to childhood behaviors. Since the visits are temporary although long it is hard to reestablish routines that depend on the child/adult. And of course no sane person willingly does more work than they need to without any benefit to them (and they still utilize the techniques they mastered while teens at home to avoid work- hearing, memory lapses…)- they have no motivation for house cleaning as they get to leave it behind. </p>
<p>BTW son complained that I sent (actually they were in the piles on the dining room table last summer for him to choose from) too many dishes with him- there wasn’t enough room on his limited counter space for the dirty dishes. Duh- all he has to do is clean them as he uses them and not use them until there aren’t any clean ones. No dishwasher this year.</p>
<p>It takes some patience, but we have to remember that even though they have returned home and are consuming space and resources they are on a much needed break/vacation from their job as students. Unfortunately the break is probably twice as long as it should be for a vacation and it is hard to get geared up for former family routines for just a week or two. My son lives in his room most of the time, as he has for years during and before college (introverted). He did spend time finishing grad applications, so his true relaxation time really began later than his arrival. The adult separation is a slower process than any parent expects. It took years to define the parent-child relationship and it will take years to establish the parent-adult child relationship in its final form.</p>
<p>"I guess since that whole Industrial Revolution thing, it’s been tougher to raise farm kids if you don’t live on a farm … "</p>
<p>Nice cop-out. You can certainly demand a lot from kids - even (gasp!) giving them lists of grown-up chores to do - whether or not you live on a farm… If you don’t expect much from a child, that’s exactly what you’ll get.</p>
<p>“And reporting strictly on my own three datapoints, they somehow overcame the handicap of being raised with liberal values by liberal parents, and have become considerate, independent adults. Go figure…”</p>
<p>Oh, sorry. My mistake. I thought you reported having problems with them…</p>
<p>“I’m proud to say that I have, over the past 31 years, managed to teach my husband how to place his dirty clothes in the hamper and his dirty dishes in the dishwasher…”</p>
<p>“I had imposed a New World Order on my Husband and Son and had them whipped into shape…”</p>
<p>Wow. I bet you two are a real barrel of laughs. Makes me wonder what you ever saw in your husbands…</p>
<p>MaineLonghorn, I hear ya. Some folks just don’t get it until it’s too late.</p>
<p>John.</p>
<p>actually I am quite fun and quite well loved by my husband and my son which is why when I explained what needed to be done they willingly complied. I was using hyperbole in an effort to be humorous.</p>
<p>I think when people talk about liberal parenting, I don’t think they are necessarily talking about political leanings.</p>
<p>Liberal parenting has nothing to do with being left, right, or center in regards to politics. Liberal parenting is different, from being politically liberal. My mother in law isn’t a liberal (politics-wise), but she had THE MOST laid-back liberal parenting style EVER. She never asked any questions, she never paid attention to her kids’ grades, she never told her kids “no,” she rarely stepped foot on her kids’ schools’ campuses while they were young, she bought them WHATEVER they wanted (even if they treated their things shabbily), she allowed ridiculous rough-housing in her home and kids broke many household things. Ridiculous.</p>
<p>My H always thought his mom was fabulous (because the kids got what they wanted and total freedom), but now realizes that she was lazy about parenting.</p>
<p>So, no one who is politically liberal should take offense at criticisms of the liberal parenting style that creates spoiled, greedy, lazy kids.</p>
<p>Just so that no one misunderstands. I’m not implying that anyone here is like my MIL or has a liberal parenting style.</p>
<p>I love historymom. She’s one of the funnest, kindest people I know. She can whip me into shape any time. I’ve never seen pix of her kids in which they weren’t smiling.</p>
<p>My D is never smiling, but that’s because she thinks she is much more attractive when she is looking moody and seductive. She’s got the Penelope Cruz thing going for her.</p>
<p>backatcha mythmom. Thanks for the back up…I may be a crummy speller and a mathematical idiot but by golly I am as fun as the next gal with a whip. ;)</p>
<p>BTW your D and your S are stunning…smiling or not :D</p>
<p>
Nope. Wasn’t me, and I can’t see why you thought it was. I don’t object to the way my kids behave when they come home to visit because they are, as I said, responsible and considerate. Though I have been awakened by the smell of chocolate chip cookies (or weirder, tacos) being prepared at 2 AM - but when I come downstairs in the morning, the dishes have been done and put away, for all the world as if the Brownies had been there. And each of them was indeed a Brownie, in my own troop yet. What makes you think my kids never got lists of grown-up chores to do? We liberals can make lists too, you know.
That got unpleasant quickly, didn’t it? As to what I “ever saw” in my husband, it was sufficient to keep me hanging in there for the 31 years it took to reinforce putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Who knows - in the next 31 years, he may actually learn where we keep the vacuum cleaner.</p>
<p>“Nope. Wasn’t me…”</p>
<p>I stand corrected. </p>
<p>“As to what I “ever saw” in my husband, it was sufficient to keep me hanging in there for the 31 years it took to reinforce putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Who knows - in the next 31 years, he may actually learn where we keep the vacuum cleaner…”</p>
<p>Sufficient? </p>
<p>LOL!</p>
<p>Liberals…</p>
<p>*My mother in law isn’t a liberal (politics-wise), but she had THE MOST laid-back liberal parenting style EVER. She never asked any questions, she never paid attention to her kids’ grades, she never told her kids “no,” she rarely stepped foot on her kids’ schools’ campuses while they were young, she bought them WHATEVER they wanted (even if they treated their things shabbily), **she allowed ridiculous rough-housing in her home **and kids broke many household things. Ridiculous.
*</p>
<p>I forgot on the best parts…she always kept a can of wall paint nearby and a paint brush. Instead of wiping off fingerprints, food splatters, or whatever, she would just brush on some paint. LOL I’m not kidding.</p>
<p>momma-three, I have to give you a shout out to say Major Congrats to your D for her accomplishments this semester. Sounds like she has learned a lot about herself, in and out of the classroom, and I wish her the best as she continues to progress.</p>
<p>CountingDown, Thankyou so much, She has been making great progress and we are looking at transfer schools now. It is such a blessing to see things going so well.</p>