(Two minute read)
I’m not going to school!!!
Email from a fellow mom and blog reader:
I’d like to share the success I’ve had using one of your recent tips.
My 8-year-old princess, a second grader, complains almost daily (well, definitely a few times a week) that she doesn’t want to go to school. Last year she complained, too. In preschool as well.
I’ve tried many strategies throughout the years, including having her stay home and not giving her any attention, neither negative nor positive, until 4:30 pm.
Nothing seemed to help.
I decided to try your tip of “Let’s name all the reasons why…” you don’t want to go to school.
My daughter asked to write the list. I said, “Sure!” I suggested she leave space under each problem so we can write some solutions.
And she found 10 reasons why! As she said each reason, I acknowledged each of them.
On a different day, I told her that she can choose any two of the 10 reasons she wanted to address. I then asked her to explain the two problems in greater detail, especially when I didn’t understand them. For example, she said that she’s annoyed during recess time because she doesn’t know which friends to play with, AND it’s very noisy.
She came up with some solutions: She wanted to bring enough snacks to share with a friend. She actually picked three friends to share snacks with and planned to quietly ask one of those girls to play with her.
My daughter is cute. She calls this “real problem-solving examples” as opposed to the “fake ones” in her math workbook.
And she looks forward to working on more of her reasons.
In the last few days, we got through most of them.
(She crossed out one of them that seemed to be part of another reason.)
It seems to me that she’s finding this activity empowering and powerful!
I hope to have continued hatzlacha (success) with this.
A truly grateful mom
Dear Mom,
Thanks for sharing your story. It helps when we hear how this strategy can be implemented for a variety of challenges.
Have a successful and productive week!
Devora