The "I Don't Want To's"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will admit I have a 6yo not a teen but when I ask her to do something and she says I dont want to , I say " I didnt ask if you wanted to, i asked to you do X" At this point 99% of the time she does what I ask. I am assuming this is harder with a teen but you need to then have an immediate consequence. Loss of phone, loss of screens, loss of car or driving her somewhere.

Yes, you would typically take a different approach with a six-year-old than with a seventeen-year-old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will admit I have a 6yo not a teen but when I ask her to do something and she says I dont want to , I say " I didnt ask if you wanted to, i asked to you do X" At this point 99% of the time she does what I ask. I am assuming this is harder with a teen but you need to then have an immediate consequence. Loss of phone, loss of screens, loss of car or driving her somewhere.

Yes, you would typically take a different approach with a six-year-old than with a seventeen-year-old.

Yes but if she is behaving like a 6yo maybe she should be treated like one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will admit I have a 6yo not a teen but when I ask her to do something and she says I dont want to , I say " I didnt ask if you wanted to, i asked to you do X" At this point 99% of the time she does what I ask. I am assuming this is harder with a teen but you need to then have an immediate consequence. Loss of phone, loss of screens, loss of car or driving her somewhere.

Yes, you would typically take a different approach with a six-year-old than with a seventeen-year-old.

Yes but if she is behaving like a 6yo maybe she should be treated like one.

No.

[Anonymous]

Rising senior?

Do you nag her? Why are you asking her to do stuff all the time? Write a list (sometimes verbal communications come with attitude).

Once she is done her chores, volunteering and job... do you ask her to do more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rising senior?

Do you nag her? Why are you asking her to do stuff all the time? Write a list (sometimes verbal communications come with attitude).

Once she is done her chores, volunteering and job... do you ask her to do more?

God forbid a teen should be asked to do more once in awhile.
?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rising senior?

Do you nag her? Why are you asking her to do stuff all the time? Write a list (sometimes verbal communications come with attitude).

Once she is done her chores, volunteering and job... do you ask her to do more?

God forbid a teen should be asked to do more once in awhile.
?

I did not say she should not be asked to do more but some women just keep harping, it's why most men stop listening.

Also, an inability to plan on your part does not constitute and emergency on my part.

And guess what not everybody cares as much as you that the shoes are not on the mat but next to it, maybe your crazy, idk, just gathering information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rising senior?

Do you nag her? Why are you asking her to do stuff all the time? Write a list (sometimes verbal communications come with attitude).

Once she is done her chores, volunteering and job... do you ask her to do more?

God forbid a teen should be asked to do more once in awhile.
?

I did not say she should not be asked to do more but some women just keep harping, it's why most men stop listening.

Also, an inability to plan on your part does not constitute and emergency on my part.

And guess what not everybody cares as much as you that the shoes are not on the mat but next to it, maybe your crazy, idk, just gathering information.

Uuuhhh, wut????????
Projecting much, PP?
Maybe start your own thread in another forum about how your wife/mom nags you to death about your shoes on the mat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So is she doing what she needs to do just being a grouch about it or is she not doing what she needs to do?

BOTH. And I mean throwing a fit like a toddler.

Yesterday when my DD15 called me to ask for something and I said no, as I tried to explain why at her prompting she kept interrupting me. I told her to stop, she didn't, so I HUNG UP ON HER. Three minutes later she called me back and agreed that when I was speaking she would listen and when she was speaking I would listen, etc. If your DD throws a fit, send her to her room and tell her not to come out until she has herself under control. You don't need to deal with that crap.

[Anonymous]

I found a list of daily and weekly chores for my 2 kids was much more successful than doling out chores via my lovely voice. I think the list seemed more fair to them ("I emptied the dishwasher last time" ) and it gave them some control of when they did their chore.

[Anonymous]

I asked my teen to clean her room— for two days—and she didn’t. She literally did nothing but lay around and watch Netflix until she had to go to work. So while she was at work I bagged up all her shit into garbage bags.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mainly just want to know what her deal is, what's her problem.
I've approached the behavior a number of different ways, and nothing really has had any effect on changing her attitude, in fact I think it's worse. She has the mentality of a spoiled brat 13 y/o. As a kid gets older you expect them to mature, not regress, and she's becoming more and more immature.

Has anyone ever dealt with this specifically?

Teenager behavior doesn’t progress in a linear fashion. Mine is only at the beginning of the curve. But when I did RN training, one of my rotations was at an alternative HS - basically kids who had failed classes or couldn’t fit into a normal public HS setting for one reason or another. The principal said it was really common for the oldest ones to do well in classes until the last minute, and then bomb their exams as a way to stay in the system for a little longer and avoid the pressures of being a fully-fledged adult. Those were kids whose social supports outside of school were pretty lean, so the behavior was magnified, but many teens go through conflicting feelings like this. I think even back to my own adolescent years and can remember rare bursts of ‘babyish’ behavior despite being a really mature-for-my-age teen.

Response-wise, I’d recommend a variable approach. Be open to discussion about pressure and stress. Let the unimportant stuff slide - save your breath for when it counts. But hold firm on important things, and have a calm convo about stepping up to do unwanted stuff anyway. Your DD will get there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From a young age, whenever my son would say, "I don't want to" I would make sure he understood that nobody wants to do these things. We had long talks about how just because he doesn't hear us complaining out loud doesn't mean we want to __________ (fill in the blank with just about any responsibility). Now he is 13 and he has gotten much better about saying this. When he comes home from camp, he is much better about pitching in without being asked. Maybe sending her on a mission trip with church might do the trick.

Poor people don't exist for the purpose of providing valuable life lessons for privileged teenagers, though.

This is not why they exist, That is a stupid statement. But doing something to help those who have less than you can be eye opening for a lot of people.
I truly think if more people did this kind of thing for others we would have less Trump supporters. ( That is a whole other thread)

By all means, go ahead and actually do something to help such people. But know that, as a factual matter, households headed by conservatives give significantly more to charity than households headed by liberals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mainly just want to know what her deal is, what's her problem.
I've approached the behavior a number of different ways, and nothing really has had any effect on changing her attitude, in fact I think it's worse. She has the mentality of a spoiled brat 13 y/o. As a kid gets older you expect them to mature, not regress, and she's becoming more and more immature.

Has anyone ever dealt with this specifically?

Teenager behavior doesn’t progress in a linear fashion. Mine is only at the beginning of the curve. But when I did RN training, one of my rotations was at an alternative HS - basically kids who had failed classes or couldn’t fit into a normal public HS setting for one reason or another. The principal said it was really common for the oldest ones to do well in classes until the last minute, and then bomb their exams as a way to stay in the system for a little longer and avoid the pressures of being a fully-fledged adult. Those were kids whose social supports outside of school were pretty lean, so the behavior was magnified, but many teens go through conflicting feelings like this. I think even back to my own adolescent years and can remember rare bursts of ‘babyish’ behavior despite being a really mature-for-my-age teen.

Response-wise, I’d recommend a variable approach. Be open to discussion about pressure and stress. Let the unimportant stuff slide - save your breath for when it counts. But hold firm on important things, and have a calm convo about stepping up to do unwanted stuff anyway. Your DD will get there!

OP here. This is good advice, PP, thank you.

As it turns out, it is a medical/mental health issue (in addition to regular teenager-itis) which we are now in the process of treating.