I had several meetings with parents over the weekend and the same theme continued to come up. Each time I heard something to the effect of, “My child is X years old. I shouldn’t have to tell them…”

To which I always reply, “Only if you have taught them that skill.”

Too often, adults expect a behavior from a child simply because of their age. “I shouldn’t have to tell my 9 year old to clean up his room!” The fact that the child is 9 years old has no relevance to being able to clean up his room. A child will clean his room once you have showed him what your definition of clean is, where all of his belongings go, checked on his progress over several weeks - or even months, and put rewards and consequences into place to keep him challenged.

And remember, we are all human. Children - just like adults - forget things and need to be reminded occasionally what to do. This is not the time to start yelling and screaming at them. This is an opportunity for you to lead by example and remind them nicely.

I would love to hear some comments about what tasks your child is struggling to learn. Click the comments button and post your story….I will choose one or two and discuss them in a future post.