If your child is in the middle of some activity and clearly enjoying it (and wasn’t supposed to be doing something else instead), DO NOT interrupt them and have them do chores that will “only take 5 minutes or so!”
You haven’t asked them to do anything before they got out the Legos, started reading a chapter of their book or painting the complicated picture, or began playing their video game.
As a result of being repeatedly interrupted, they will learn that their presence in public space of the household=availability to do chores, so they will make themselves scarce so you can’t find them and order them around. They will also become suspicious of your efforts to engage with them as they play, as they’ve learned that these pleasantries are a prelude to “Take out the trash”, or “move your boots and vacuum the entryway, there’s dirt everywhere ”.
“But I need my children to help me around the house!”, I hear you cry. I understand. Children should not be treated like royalty and left to their own devices 24/7.
An alternative is to give the kids a clearly delineated chore chart and stick to it, resisting the urge to add anything to it. There are some chores that are easier and quicker with two people, though. A (in my opinion) even better option is to divide the child’s day into “on-duty” and “off-duty ” time. When they’re on-duty, you can interrupt them as before, but you have *consulted with your child beforehand * and they understand that during this time they can relax, but they must be ready to jump in and lend a hand.
That way they won’t start trying to level up in their video game or break out the clay and make stuff. When they are off-duty, you leave them alone and their only responsibilities are to clean up whatever mess they make at the end of this time.
Also, if they are tearing around the house or whining about being bored, don’t make them do chores so they will “have something to do”; this could make the child conflate extra chores with punishment for whining and make them reluctant to help out when you randomly tell them to at other times because they might think they’re being punished but they have NO IDEA WHAT THEY DID. And IMO children should see chores as things everyone has to do no matter what, not punishments.
I may seem unqualified to offer parenting advice as I have no kids, but I was talking with my dad today and he said: “I wish you didn’t hide from us in your room so much, but every time your mom walked by she’d give you a chore to do, so I can’t blame you for that.” A kid who hides in their room to play has an entirely different relationship to the family than the child who sprawls on the livingroom floor and excitedly describes the city they are building out of Legos.
And today, in times of Covid I play a complicated game of hide-and-seek with my mother as I try to do my online coding homework and apply for jobs. I am now attempting to turn my bedroom into my own tiny office because if I work in our home office, she’ll find me and go “I can’t attach this file to my email,” and so on.
Children *have* to obey their parents when they are young. But true respect and honoring collective responsibilities is stronger than forced obedience. If you demonstrate to your children that you respect them and their time, they will reciprocate.
Tl;dr if your child is “always hiding in their room”, there is a reason for it and setting a regular routine and boundaries will benefit both of you in the long run.
MFW I realize I still hide in my room because I’m still yelled at whenever I’m seen enjoying anything
in case ur wondering I harbor no sympathy for the rich people who are no doubt going “ohhh thank God 2020 is over haha what a year” when their lives barely changed and they probably actively are contributing to the suffering of others
Check out this list of opportunities to support Black people with disabilities, including the Autistic People of Color Fund!
Having a disability, whether it be physical or cognitive, puts Black people at an even greater risk of arrest or violence by the police.
Having a disability, whether it be physical or cognitive, puts Black people at an even greater risk of arrest or violence by the police.
If you can’t donate, reblog. Spread the word because this story isn’t the only one like this and it is disproportionately happening to POC.
Landlords have bills to pay as well, but they should be standing shoulder to shoulder with their tenets against the larger power. The banks are the problem and the government is backing them up instead of having the backs of the citizens that vote them into power.
That the $2000 stimulus check couldn’t get unanimous voiced support means politicians are not nearly afraid enough of constituents showing up outside their door with baseball bats. We can fix that!
Hey unrelated but I just saw this fun image online I wanted to share :)
hmm weird i cant see the photo. heres this funny photo i found to make up for the lack of the other one :)
It’s not cool to go after the wife. Stick to the bastard.
Nah, fuck the high ground. Do whatever it takes to get him to submit
imagine seeing the shit he’s done and not leaving him lol. obviously nobody should physically harm this woman but I dont care if she gets cyberbullied or has a crowd shaming her outside her house
for the record, mcconnell’s wife is elaine chao, current secretary of transportation for the trump administration. she was also secretary of labor for the most recent bush, director of the peace corps and secretary of transportation for bush sr, and chair and commission of the federal maritime commission under reagan.
she also spent 4-5 years as a distinguished fellow with the heritage foundation (a conservative think tank most well known for “disagreeing” with the scientific consensus on climate change) and you can still find some of her articles on their website, such as “concentrate on needs of employers”, “left-wing proxy plays”, and “obama tries to stop union disclosure: no more sunshine on how worker dues are spent”
she’s also been a board member of the independent women’s forum, a conservative npo founded after justice clarence thomas was appointed to the supreme court that formed from a group called “women for judge thomas” which existed to defend thomas from the charges against him. there’s plenty more to say about the iwf, but go read their wiki page if you really want to hate a lot of people all at once.
in any case, the department of labor under chao was pretty strongly criticized for, and i quote, “walking away from its regulatory function across a range of issues, including wage and hour law and workplace safety”. the wage and hour division of the department of labor also failed to properly investigate complaints from low and minimum wage workers, and in 2008 it was reported that the department of labor under chao had given congress inaccurate numbers understating the expenses of contracting out employees to private firms.
as trump’s secretary of transportation, it does look like she’s been up to some pretty shady shit (she had 290 hours worth of appointments labelled as “private” during work hours in her first fourteen months, which was equivalent to seven weeks worth of vacation time, and multiple dot officials stated that the “private” label was to obscure what she was doing). it should also be noted that the inspector general of the dot, mitch behm, was fired while conducting an investigation as to whether chao was giving preferential treatment to projects in kentucky, where her husband was up for re-election at that time.
if that wasn’t suspicious enough, behm was replaced by howard elliot, who was already the administrator of the pipeline and hazardous materials safety administration, which is an agency of the department of transportation. so he’s effectively in charge of investigating himself as well as chao, who is his boss.
tldr: absolutely bother elaine chao. she’s far from an innocent bystander.
