It’s a chore getting my kids to do their chores!

Q:  Both my children are doing well at school. However, when it comes to their daily routine at home, I find I’m constantly reminding them to do their chores. 

Taking away privileges such as TV, video games, etc., has little or no effect on my kids, and my husband feels that it is my role to get them to act more responsibly.  He feels that it is my job to physically move them and bring them to their rooms until they perform their tasks.  Any suggestions?

A:  If your kids are not responding to typical consequences, such as taking away privileges or sending them to their rooms, you may have to play hardball. 

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I’ve dealt with many children who do not respond to time-outs, taking away their daily allowance and not being allowed to watch TV.  These kids are tough cookies and seem to be able to be happy just doing nothing or else spending their time grounded and driving you nuts.

A couple of ideas that might help you: 

• Tell them to complete a chore and set a timer by which they must get it finished.  If they fail to do so, try taking away a prized object such as a CD, cassette tape, favorite book or even an article of clothing and giving it to the Salvation Army, Goodwill or a homeless organization.  In this way your kid will realize that you mean business.  Also, if your child is somewhat spoiled, he or she may have too many things to begin with and not value them anyway.  In this manner you can begin to weed out some of the material objects they didn’t need in the first place.
  

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  Use a more onerous time-out.  Most parents use bedrooms for time-outs. Problem is, kids generally don’t mind too much the idea of spending time in their room (even though they may fuss about going in there).  A kid’s bedroom usually has some sort of musical device, be it a CD player, stereo, radio or video games, perhaps a TV set and VCR player. (In fact, a lot of kids choose to go to their room just to get away from a nagging parent!) Why not turn the tables on your child and make sure that the time-out is a very boring situation?  One of the best places is an empty guest room (if you’re lucky enough to have one).  Beyond that I suggest using a safe bathroom.  Bathrooms are terrific time-out spots if you can make them boring and, of course, safe.  (I would not use this for very young children, though, because they can easily get hurt touching hot water or hitting themselves on a sharp corner.)  Pre-teens most likely will not bang around; they’ll just lie down on the floor and try to go to sleep.  After a half-hour, an hour or even 90 minutes of bathroom time-out it does become quite boring.  I believe your kid will begin to take you seriously if you use guest room or bathroom time-out.  Remember, though, that time-out must be safe and boring, not harmful.

One other matter from your letter: At the risk of starting a marital battle, I am concerned is that your husband feels it’s your responsibility to get the kids to do things and not his.  But this is a column about parenting, so I’ll let you deal with that elsewhere.

Ruth A. Peters, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and regular contributor to “Today.” Her most recent book is "Laying Down the Law:The 25 Laws of Parenting" (Rodale, 2002).  For more information you can visit her Web site at www.ruthpeters.com. Copyright 2004 by Ruth A. Peters, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

PLEASE NOTE: The information in this column should not be construed as providing specific psychological or medical advice, but rather to offer readers information to better understand the lives and health of themselves and their children. It is not intended to provide an alternative to professional treatment or to replace the services of a physician, psychiatrist or psychotherapist.

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