Reply to 7th grader says he needs to "chill" after school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hi everyone: I'm the OP. Thx for your replies. I did talk about the ethical aspect of the puppy and he seems to feel bad for a bit, but then doesn't want to deal with doing it. [b]She is, to be clear, a total spaz. At this point, she isn't cuddling until she has run like a maniac. [/b]But he's not a mean jerk-- he is just too into wanting to relax and prob be on his phone. Regardless, he is going to need to do this or the phone is gone and I am promising myself I will stick to this. He is bright, but we are investigating possible ADHD  inattention. Btw: some of his grades do count in 7th bc he is in a couple advanced classes:( It's hard to do homework later at night bc he has several sports in the evenings. I don't really want to take those away bc I think he needs to run and exercise. So I really need him to start after a bit of chill time. His friends are all very smart, but they are all addicted to their phones. He's not allowed to play Xbox on weekdays and he knows that. I just need him to care for the dog, start some work and I guess have some chill time before sports etc. thx for listening. The only motivation, albeit negative, is taking away his phone and saying he can't be social on the weekends. Finally, public school is way harder than when I was a kid!!!! [/quote]

Puppy needs to work off pent-up energy. That's a natural reaction. Sounds like your son's having a hard time understanding why he needs to place her needs over his own need to relax.

Think about it: he's just spent hours following directions and doing school work. He comes home and the first thing he needs to do is defer dealing with his own pent-up energy and complicated teenage feelings about whatever happened that day in order to deal with the puppy's pent-up energy. Delayed gratification is a pretty big challenge for any kid. You're talking about motivating him through extrinsic means (taking away his phone). That's sort of a fragile "fix."

If you can connect to his deeper values over this, you're better able to achieve a more robust outcome that could have positive effects for his decisionmaking in other areas of his life. You know your son best, and what would work well for him. Ideas that come to my mind include touring an animal shelter to talk and interact with staff and/or watching shows focusing on people learning to resolve pet-rearing challenges.[/quote]

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