poll - how helpful are your teens

amother

Thu, Jan 27 2011, 8:03 pm

I'm trying to get tips how to teach my kids to be more helpful around the house and I'd also like to know what is the norm since my daughter keeps telling me how she helps more then she sees her friends do and...I dunno, I've seen teenagers practically run the households, not that I would expect that from my own but it just seems mine are oblivious to how much work I have to do and how little they do to help me. They aren't bad kids but it feels like pulling teeth just to get a load of dishes washed or a counter top cleared off.
Is it too much to expect that if the kids see something needs to be done they do it without me needing to tell them about a 1000 times?

amother

Thu, Jan 27 2011, 8:04 pm

OP here
I had another poll question but it disappeared
I had: needs to be asked a zillion times before doing something you ask them to do.

could a moderator please add it?

yentadevosha

Thu, Jan 27 2011, 8:11 pm

This is a tough one to answer. Firstly it depends on her mood, Secondly it depends what you need done. My dd hates to do laundry, but will gladly bathe the baby. One day she'll do everything on her own, the next day I could be talking to the wall.

amother

Thu, Jan 27 2011, 8:16 pm

One of each Very Happy

happyone

Thu, Jan 27 2011, 8:40 pm

My teen is amazing when it comes to the kids. Will run to diaper, feed, dress, etc.. without being told. However, when it comes to housework.... now that's another story. Very Happy

Fox

Thu, Jan 27 2011, 8:50 pm

yentadevosha wrote:

happyone wrote:

My teen is amazing when it comes to the kids. Will run to diaper, feed, dress, etc.. without being told. However, when it comes to housework.... now that's another story.

Yup! Years before I even had kids, I heard Rebbetzin Tzipporah Heller speak regarding this. She said that we have to be honest with ourselves: if our goal is to lessen the objective amount of work, we should be happy to let our teens do the parts that they find most appealing. If, however, our underlying goal is to do all the fun parts ourselves while insisting that our kids take over the yucky parts . . . ? Well, then, we probably won't be too successful.

So I try to let me kids do the parts they enjoy the most, and I save jobs for them based on individual preferences. So, yes, sometimes I end up doing the dishes that everyone dirtied, but I didn't have to make the cake, the chicken, etc.!

amother

Thu, Jan 27 2011, 9:53 pm

Fox wrote:

yentadevosha wrote:

happyone wrote:

My teen is amazing when it comes to the kids. Will run to diaper, feed, dress, etc.. without being told. However, when it comes to housework.... now that's another story.

OP here.
My goal is 2 fold
a) I need the help so I don't care what's done so long as I feel the load on my sholders lessen.
b) this even more then the first reason I want to train my kids to be mentchlich, to notice the needs of others and to have basic kibud av V'aim.

They are in general respectful but seem to take me for granted when it comes to cleaning up.
They have to be told to put their own plates in the sink even let alone clean up anything else.
I can't afford cleaning help and I don't see why I should take a cleaner when I have enough able bodied older children to help out.

ttbtbm

Thu, Jan 27 2011, 10:10 pm

My teen is great about doing the things she enjoys (like keeping the little ones entertained). About things she doesn't enjoy doing...well... Rolling Eyes

Many of us adults are like that - but we don't have a choice. If we won't do it, it won't get done.

grace413

Fri, Jan 28 2011, 12:31 am

Let's be honest. Almost nobody likes to do housework. When I was a teen my sister and I dusted and vaccumed, did laundry, washed and dried dishes. My brother took out the garbage and cleaned the family room. My room was a mess and mom gave up and told us to keep the door closed. We helped with the food prep - like peeling potatos but didn't actually cook. I didn't like it but I knew I had to do it.

I now have two teens. There rooms are also disasters and I leave it - I just tell them that if the laundry isn't in the laundry basket it won't get cleaned. My DS actually does laundry frequently. He also takes out the garbage mostly without complaint. He washes the milchig dishes - after I bug him a lot. Friday night he and DD set and clear the table and help serve - without a problem.

DD sweeps and washes the kitchen/living floors before Shabbat, without too much complaining. She's also willing to run to the makolet, and take the recycling out. Sometimes she cooks with me. Actually my son also cooks a bit.

After writing this I realize they are better than I thought! However no way they would do anything without being told; but I don't think that's unusual.

Isramom8

Fri, Jan 28 2011, 12:56 am

I find that it's a stage (that can last years). My teens have been bad about this, and later good. One kid became so good later on that I could never even find anything after this kid cleaned up ;-)

A bunch of experienced Bnei Brak moms said that if a mother's concern is that the child will not be able to maintain a home due to lack of experience, not to worry, because when it's their own home they do what is needed.

Yeah, it's very frustrating. Exploding anger

amother

Fri, Jan 28 2011, 1:43 am

Isramom8 wrote:

A bunch of experienced Bnei Brak moms said that if a mother's concern is that the child will not be able to maintain a home due to lack of experience, not to worry, because when it's their own home they do what is needed.

OP here
that's not what I'm worried about. I was a messy teen myself and didn't help much around the house but I can maintain my home at least to a reasonable standard.
I think the problem however was because I wasn't trained to help around the house, I didn't know to train my own kids while they were still young and still don't know how to.
I never thought to tell them to take off the table when they were young and more impressionable at an age where habits can stick easier. etc..

BeershevaBubby

Fri, Jan 28 2011, 1:51 am

How old are your teens? How many of them are there?

I have 2 teenage daughters. They're 19 and 18. For some things, like dishes, we STILL have a chart because they both hate doing it and they always fight about whose turn it is to do it.

They will often give me arguments about cleaning the guest room and the bathrooms. They do a shvachy job in the salon.

When their arguing gets REALLY bad, I simply tell them that I cannot do it all. I work from home, take care of the younger boys, do the shopping and since my girls aren't home most days (their dad and I are divorced plus they're in boarding school, so I see them once a week and every other Shabbat if I'm lucky) I'm the one that does pretty much all the housework when they're not here.

It's about respect - respecting you, respecting the dynamics of a family and the household.

Isramom8

Fri, Jan 28 2011, 2:22 am

At this stage I might keep repeating that we are a family and that means everyone pitches in. If they say they didn't make all the mess, then say neither did you.

Assign specific chores or rooms and let them have some choice about what they will do - not if they will do anything at all.

If they don't then they are not entitled to certain privileges. (But I'm not so good at this part.)

Even if they don't listen now, eventually the message should sink in. I know that youwant help now, though.

And it is good to start young. My 8, 9 and 12 year olds have a checklist they have to do before bedtime, which includes tidying their rooms well enough that Mommy can walk in there happily to read a story. It takes themsometimes way past what I would like to be bedtime, but then I do walk in and read a story.

Tamiri

Fri, Jan 28 2011, 5:40 am

It's not easy. No teen really WANTS to do the work. You know what? Neither do I. But their father and I work very hard to give them a clean home, food, clean clothes and other ammenities, so we expect some help. It is like pulling teeth with some most of the time, and more like begging with others at other times. But the fact is, they have to pull a bit of weight around here. There is a lot of work that goes into running a household and DH and I cannot be slaves.
We also get the "no one else helps" and that is true in some homes. In other homes, I see the kids doing shopping, cleaning, cooking - every house is different.

freidasima

Fri, Jan 28 2011, 6:11 am

I gave up on my kids long ago. I'm quite neat, they are not. I can't stand clutter, they like to live in a pigsty where you can't find anything, even they can't find anything in their room.

As for helping around the house, when they were younger we had assigned tasks. Which never, but never got done. Take away privileges? Big joke. What privileges? No tv? That only meant that they would fight with each other more and the house would become a battleground. As they got older what privileges? No borrowing the car? They would then once again start fighting with each other, even in their teens and early 20s, so badly that the house would become a battleground.

Ask for help, please take out the garbage, please put the dishes in the sink. Please wash the dish you leave in the sink. It never got done. It was never "no I won't" but "in a minute." which would require me to get up, go to their rooms, ask again and hear "in a minute". So I was exhausted after work, and the amount of energy it would take me eventually to get them to do it, with a scowl, an angry look, yelling that no one in their circle lifts a finger, they all have maids (they did) they all have cleaning help (they did) they all have dishwashers (they did) and their mother's don't work alll day and night like I did and take care of everything (not true but I asked the other mothers and none ever asked their kids to help and they also have 3, 4, 5, 6 kids...) so why do they have to.

After they got older there were no arguments, it was just "in a minute" or "soon". Soon never came. It took me ten trips to their room to ask them to do something and finally they would say "mom if you are doing the dishes why can't you do mine too, it will be less energy than your coming here and yelling at me to do it because I don't care if the dishes are dirty, when they are all gone I'll eat out of the box"

They called a spade a spade. It was awful. I would go to my own friends who are therapists to vent about it. Until finally I realized that they were a lost cause. These kids, for some reason, have absolutely no desire, respect, or appreciation for (1) neatness (2) cleanliness (3) order (4) cooked food (5) a clean kitchen (6) a roachless kitchen (when we once got roaches because of their filth they walked around them for weeks until I got the exterminator.

Yes, they won. Simply because I didn't have the physical strength for a battle that never ended. Why are they like this? G-d knows, certainly didn't learn it from me or their father. A reaction to us? Possibly. The boys are better than the girls, much more helpful, but being in yeshiva and out of the house since age 14 one was never home to help or do, from there to hesder to army to hesder to marriage. The other a chayal and never home, the oldest hasn't been home since 18 either and before that she was never home. Basically only two girls who are still single are home all the time and they do nothing to help. Ever.

A good friend of mine said it right, like Isramom said, when they get married either they learn fast what has to be done or their house is a pigsty. If their husband doesn't mind, that's the way it's going to be. If he does and they don't learn, either they will learn or be very unhappy or end up divorced. nothing you yell at them at age 12, 14, or 16 is going to change that.

And as she said, you have limited energy. If you try and try for a year and they aren't learning anything and aren't doing anything with the "not now" or "soon" excuse, and you have no hold over them (I tried "no supper" so they would go to bed without supper and end up ordering in pizza after dh and I went to sleep...at age 12, with their allowance money...so what good was that? Ground them? They never went anywhere anyhow after school as they got home so late).

In other words, if you have no hold over them except your anger, they stop paying any attention to your anger. And then you have no hold over them at all. Do you want your home to be a battleground? If so, geh gezint, keep asking, requesting, pleading with them to do chores. If you want a quiet house, or at least one that doesn't have you frazzled making you into a nag, an unbearable nudge 300 times a day, then just GIVE UP and do it all yourself and you will have peace and quiet.

Eventually I chose peace and quiet because my nerves were so shot after years of trying to get them to help, that I just gave up.

And finally, it's in the nature of the kid. I have at least one very stubborn kid who won't do anything, won't take any guidance, won't take any suggestions even now in her 20s. The married ones are out and have learned to take care of a home although my daughter is such a bad housekeeper that her mother in law pays for an ozeret for her as she can't stand the mess when you walk in. Dishes from three weeks can still be in the sink there, her husband is never home and doesn't care either. My married son married a neat girl so that's not a problem. My chayal had it bred out of him in the army. As for the two single girls....Hashem Yaazor.

grace413

Fri, Jan 28 2011, 8:51 am

And while my son finally did the dishes I'm still waiting for the garbage to be taken out and Shabbat is in 40 minutes.

Dayzmom

Fri, Jan 28 2011, 8:53 am

amother wrote:

OP here
I had another poll question but it disappeared
I had: needs to be asked a zillion times before doing something you ask them to do.

could a moderator please add it?

I chose the second option b/c that was the closest, but now that you mention there was a third - THAT sounds closest to reality.