Recently a mom asked my opinion on helping a child overcome her dawdling behaviours at school time. She exhibited her condition with whining, picking at her nails and verbally saying that she didn't like her school work.

The mother queried another homeschoolers approach of adding more work to her daughter's daily load as a punitive way to get her out of her habit. She also said her child was not being disrespectful in her manner when she was complaining.

To her heartfelt queries I answered:

I would definitely not add more work for a child who is already battling with the things you mention. her whining, nail fiddling and attitude IS disrespectful, just because it is so "low key" doesn't make it any different to a full out tantrum over work.

1. YOU HAVE AUTHORITY over her. She MUST obey you. This does not mean you need to be unkind about getting her to obey nor does it mean that grace flies out the window, but what is does mean is that you have to bring her to obedience.

A friend always used to tell me to teach my children: Disobedience brings pain, obedience brings blessing. And is this not true in our own lives? When we choose to disobey God we feel the consequences of that disobedience in the pain of an estranged relationship with Him (hiding like Adam in the garden). Or we can feel it physically through a bad judgment call or relationally with others when we do not choose to love.

At 5th grade spanking does not feature, but natural consequences do - like the fact that she misses her sport, co-op, youth, party or whatever is in the afternoon (or evening for that matter.) This is the pain.

The blessing is that she is free to do other creative work, bake with you, do art, or enjoy an afternoon out with you when she has done her work well and on time.

2. You need to have her in agreement with you on this dawdling issue. I would have a conversation with her in a NON conflict time and say: "[name of child], I have found myself getting increasingly frustrated at the dawdling that is taking place when I have set you your work for the day.

Your saying that you don't like school, picking of nails and whining are all contributing to this. Let's talk about what you are feeling and what exactly it is that you do not like about school work."

Then let her talk. Ask her questions like: What do you enjoy the most? Which parts do you dislike? What else would you like to do in your free time after school? etc. When she has had her say then I would say something like this:

"I have now heard your side of the story and will always take your feelings into consideration [make sure you do] but we still have a certain amount of work to do every day and every year. This is how we are going to proceed. Because I love you and because I don't want to have anything as a stumbling block in our relationship I am going to help your overcome your attitude towards school work and your dawdling habits in two ways: with consequences and with blessing."

Then tell her how you are going to set time limits for her work and stick to it both the consequences of not completing a lesson on time (in her free time and the loss of privileges) and in the blessing. For example without telling her, on a day when she has done her work well without attitude take her out for an ice cream or similar small treat or plan a surprise play date with a good friend at home.

3. Lastly I think we have been sold a lie that everything in homeschooling has to be fun and exciting. We also think that all homeschooled kids are eager to learn. This is not true. Some things in schooling are just plain hard and only discipline can get a child through it. I do not mean parental discipline, I mean the child understanding that it is tough and pursuing it even when they don't want to with a good attitude. We currently have this situation with my Gr 8 child and algebra. Its tough, but she does it with a good attitude.

We do NOT have to jump through hoops to get our children to embrace the discipline of tough things, nor does everything have to be creative and fun...but we do have to teach our children to have the character to work through hard things and do it with a smile on their faces.

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