How can I get my daughter to school in a better mood?

Do you have a hard time waking her up for school? Is morning just bad in general?

Could you find one of her friends to carpool with, and see whether that makes the whole thing a non-issue?

Something else which could work: Let her stay home, if it’s at all possible for you. I read about a similar case recently, and that was resolved by the mom letting her son stay home for a couple of days. The kid started asking to go to school mid-morning, but was told the school wanted students to arrive on time which is true. He went to school happily on what would have been the third day off, and the family didn’t have any more trouble.

It’s a game. Change the rules, rewards, or stop playing.

I’d try driving to school, parking, and asking her to let me know when she’s ready to go. Basically we’d both sit in the car (her in the carseat) until she’s ready to rock, then we walk in together. No talking, no games in the car, it’s going to be boring, and school is right there with all her friends and things to do. Suddenly school is better than the car, and that’s one step up.

I’d also start explaining why her behavior makes me upset/embarrassed/sad (whatever she understands and uses herself when something is wrong) in detail.

“it makes Mom sad when you complain on our way to school because Mom worked hard to find a school she thought you would like”

Kids understand quite a bit.

Also, just a guess, but mornings are probably all about getting from point A to point B, most people’s are. But if it’s possible, try to have a little fun with her and involve her as much as possible in whatever leads up to school so she knows it’s coming rather than pulling her away from the home environment that’s she probably enjoys.

No issues with a teacher? Or maybe she doesn’t get enough sleep so that mornings frustrate her. What if you told her that she won’t ever go to school again, how would she react?

@ZEPHYRA‘s answer was the first thing to come to my mind. I’d make sure that her experience at school isn’t to blame for her dislike of school.

Save her favorite part of her breakfast as a treat that she can have in the car on the way to school?

It cracks me up that a 4 year old came up with the excuse “it’s too expensive” I don’t know how you were able to even drive without laughing yourself into an accident. The morning grumps is common with lots of kids, but I think you’re very lucky. Your little girl is already providing you with a life of sheer entertainment. One tip I can give you from experience is that you should feed the kid something in the car, half an apple, carrot sticks, even a sausage or slices of bacon. You won’t believe how quickly she’ll adapt to looking forward to the ride. But meantime, be sure to document and record her behavior. The “film” will come in real handy in the future when she’s reminiscing about her youth as a saintly child.

@stanleybmanly We had the same idea. Practical parenting!

@janbb bitter (actually that isn’t true) experience. The truth is those were some of the happiest and funniest days of my life. The adventures with the 3–5 year old daughter were riotous.

@stanleybmanly My older son carpooled to nursery school and some of the kids’ conversations were hilarious.

@janbb Yes indeed! A bunch of them together, and you’ll hear stuff that will split your sides. I couldn’t possibly have the job of teaching a room full of them and live through it. I can remember the Halloween my daughter was 3. She had spent the previous 2 days insisting to her friends in the car that she was going to the Halloween party as “Donny & Marie”. No explanation from any adult was sufficient in explaining that she had to be one or the other.

I sympathize with her and know exactly how she feels. I still have trouble switching from activity A to B. Take this minute; I am supposed to do 20 minutes of yoga, blow my hair dry and get to the polls before 12:00, all of which will be enjoyable. But I am so happy, sitting here, drinking my tea and thinking about dangling participles, ring guards, and Tom Magliozzi’s laugh.

@gailcalled The list of things those 2 introduced into the popular vernacular is long and funny. Like the size of your mechanic’s bill being proportional to the size of his “boat payment”

Still sitting here, like @keobooks‘s daughter. Ok, I’ll do the yoga later. “Don’t drive like my brother.”

@gailcalled I was very sad to hear that. I didn’t know he had Alzheimer’s.

I’d give her attention and listening about each argument, and considered responses. For example, I’d admit that school expense was not really the reason you won’t buy her some things. When she says she has no friends at school, I’d ask her to explain her feeling more, not requiring it to seem logical. “Hmm, you seemed not to be having fun with the other kids when you didn’t want to leave school the other day. No?” And then really listen. Etc,

@keobooks: Well, I finally got myself off my duff and to the polls, where everyone ended up congregating outside for gossip and political analysis. I noticed that I could barely pull myself away. When I finally did and went to the library. I had a similar experience. Of course, the gorgeous weather encourages schmoozing, particularly on an election day.

Your daughter seems to like school fine and the problem could be that leaving you makes her feel insecure. I would get more involved with her school work. Ask her what she does at school, who she plays with and help her at with her homework. Let her feel you are with her at school in thought if not in person.

Tell her she can’t vote in the next election if she doesn’t stop!

Is she getting enough sleep?

Do you have a particular schedule that you stick to in the morning? That can be important.

Have her go to bed earlier.

Cocaine, ecstasy, weed… >.>

If I ever have the misfortune of having children, I’m going to be a terrible parent.

Give in one day. Do it when she needs to have shots, or go to the dentist, or something not near as cool as school. She doesn’t need to know there was an appointment. Let her think it was her doing. She will be more careful in the future what she asks for. It will only work if she thinks it is because of her choice.

I don’t like the feel of that, @Here2_4. That’s manipulating a child and taking advantage of their innocence. I don’t…I just don’t have a good feeling about it.

You would rather she thinks skipping school is going to be a fun day of Dora The Explorer? Manipulation? The child is trying her hand with manipulation of her own now. She needs for that to backfire on her, or it will snowball. Rather than making her feel forced, she needs to see a day of skipping is no fun. It isn’t like cheating her out of hard earned pay for profit. It is no more sneaky than hiding vegetables in a casserole.

You don’t need to refine her manipulation skills by modeling even higher manipulation skills.
I can’t put my finger on it. It just feels wrong. Maybe someone else can define it better than me.

Carrie Contey is pretty amazing. She has the PhD and all the qualifications but also really into her work and a good communicator. Check her out and you’ll know pretty quickly if it’s your thing or not.

She’s got a course called On Toddlerhood that’s all about helping you understand why your daughter is pushing boundaries and then helping you both figure out better ways to learn.

@Here2_4 and @Dutchess_III I agree with Dutchess. Using a dentist appointment as punishment is not a good idea. Rather, I’d work hard to make taking care of your body enjoyable.

I stand corrected. You may be right. I have no experience there. All of my kids were very excited about school, and ere never reluctant to go. They were never afraid of medical appointments either. My oldest steered clear of storm drains. My second feared nothing, but wasn’t big on trying new foods. My youngest has never been afraid of anything in the universe except up until she was seven or eight she was afraid that is the plug was pulled before she got out of the tub, she would go down with the bathwater.

The good thing with kids is that it’s all “stages.” What is a crisis or issue now will not be in a few months. Just wait. (it will be something else, but this one will go away).

I still store my hairspray up high, just because when my daughter was about 2 she got her hands on it and was ready to spray it. To this day, 5 years later, I habitually store it about 6 feet up on a shelf. I know she has zero interest in it now, and didn’t about 3 months after I saw her touch it, but out of habit it remains.

When my daughter was about 6 months old, I had to take her to a family party I was laying on the hosts’ bed, giving her a bottle. I said to someone “I can’t wait till she can hold the bottle herself.” They told me “don’t wish for the next stage.” They were saying maybe in the next stage, she could hold the bottle herself but she may also be wanting to walk all over the place. I learned to appreciate this stage for what it is, because each stage has fun, incredible things and it also has new little issues.

My son had some pretty awful back to back experiences with the ER and the dentist. He was only about 4, and they were both emergencies cause by him crashing and burning. Stitches and a tooth knocked loose.
Not long after that I wanted to check his perceptions of “bad guys.” You know, we want them to be cautious but not paranoid.
So I said, “What do you think would happen if a bad guy took you?”
In a little voice, dripping with disgust he said, “He’d take me to the doctor’s and to the gemist!”

I just did the 20 mintues of yoga that I planned to do yesterday.

Put a good cupcake in her lunch and send her off with a good healthy breakfast.

Why put a cupcake in her lunch?

@Dutchess_III Cupcakes always made me happy as a kid. it’s the prize in side the lunch bag.

When my oldest was about 8 I packed her lunch as she watched. She became disgusted when I put a Twinkie in the bag. She pulled it out and put an apple in it’s place!

@Dutchess_III I guess it is a case by case basis. I didn’t like fruit in my lunch. I ate a store bought hoagie and a liter of pop or milk. Then I decided if I wanted to go home or finish the school day.

My daughter has always been like that! Dunno why.

I hated the morning when I was little and still hate it now. Getting ready for school and going to school sucked. Once I was there I was fine. There was nothing I forward to enough at school that would make me happy to get up, get dressed, and leave my house early in the morning. I did it because my mom made me do it. She said she loved when school was out in the summer so she didn’t have to deal with dragging me out of bed.

In retrospect I think that caffeine probably played a part in my bad mornings, but I was not drinking caffeine when I was 5, that was later. I also think I am naturally a night person (I still hate going to bed most nights). I think I needed more sleep than I was probably getting. If you have to wake her for school, that to me means her sleep is being interrupted, rather than waking naturally. Waking up so early for me was painful and the pain and grumpy lasted for a while in the morning.

I also think I am like @gailcalled that I don’t always like to change gears, and your daughter might be that way too.

This is all good stuff. I gave in yesterday and let her stay home, but I didn’t allow any fun toys while she was supposed to be in school. She still fought this morning, but I got her to school 10 minutes early and she got to color and play with some other kids who were also there early.

Right now, it’s just a hassle. The only thing that got her motivated was that I had Hello Kitty jeans ready and she wanted to show them off.

The Hello Kitty jeans were a good idea. I can see how that would be motivating.

Maybe she had one or two bad instances at school being teased and she worries about it happening again.

Can you make up a game that you only play in the car to get her to want to go in it? I suspect it is the transition that is the hardest.

How did she handle not being allowed to have any fun stuff? That was a good move @keobooks.

^ Don’t know about that. Allowing her to stay home with stipulations is still fighting her. The fight is the problem, it colours her view of school as something she is forced to endure. My two cents, and what was discussed in the article I mentioned above.

I don’t know if that is a fight as much as a consequence.

^ It is not a natural consequence. It is a punishment. The two are often confused, but consequences do not need to be created – they are already there. For example, there not being any other children at home is a consequence. Taking toys away is a punishment, which makes it about power – a fight.

I didn’t say it was a natural consequence, but it was a logical consequence. It’s the reason we discipline our kids, one way or the other, for running out in the street. We can’t afford for them to suffer a natural consequence of their action so we create a logic consequence.

I’m waiting to hear back from @keobooks on this.

I’m saying it is not what’s usually called a consequence, in parenting. Be it natural or unnatural – it is neither. Instead, it is a punishment. Many people use punishments when dealing with their children, and I know you do. All I’m saying is that the term you used is often used wrongly.

Well, a punishment or discipline is also a consequence. I mean, the terms are interchangeable, depending on which one one finds more agreeable.

“If you do that again you’ll have time out.” It is what it is.

“The terms are interchangeable”

I disagree, which is why I explained the difference, five posts up.

Is putting a kid in time out a punishment, a discipline, or a consequence, especially if they know ahead of time what’s going to happen if they do it again?

It is a logical consequence, which is what we do when the natural consequences are too severe.

In the sense it is used in while discussing parenting, punishment. In your mind, is there no difference between punishment and consequences?

No. Especially if they know ahead of time what the consequence will be if they do something. I just prefer not to use the word “punishment.” It sounds harsh to me. I prefer discipline.

When my son was 4 he was outside playing with the day care. He came into the house and put himself in time out! I said, “What are you doing? I didn’t put you in time out!”
He said, “Well, when you find out what I just did, you will, so I thought I’d just get started..”
Funniest moment ever! But the point is, he knew what the consequences were going to be.

Just looked up “punish”:

1. to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault:
to punish a criminal.

2. to inflict a penalty for (an offense, fault, etc.):
to punish theft.

3. to handle severely or roughly, as in a fight.

Consequence:

1. the effect, result, or outcome of something occurring earlier:
The accident was the consequence of reckless driving.

2. an act or instance of following something as an effect, result, or outcome.

@longgone and @Dutchess_III Hmmm, OK, getting in trouble with the police is a consequence. “These are the rules and if you break them these are the consequences.”

One of those consequences includes jail. Jail isn’t punishment if you haven’t been sentenced. It’s just one of the consequences of being arrested. Lots of people are let out of jail without being sentenced (and being sentenced is a punishment).

I don’t think I am getting through to you. I have tried to explain the difference, but it is so clear to me, I’m having trouble seeing your reasoning. Once again, I’m talking about the use of “consequence” when discussing parenting. It is in no way common knowledge.

Consequences happen when you’re taking care of yourself. (“I don’t want to read you another story.”) Punishment happens when you’re actively and consciously trying to shape someone (“No dessert, if you won’t eat your vegetables.”)

Do you underdstand what I said about the difference, even if you don’t agree?

Consequences can be positive.

Examples:

I attained my degree in nursing and the consequence was I was able to secure a job in nursing.

I struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to me and the consequence was he knew a long lost relative of mine.

Punishment is negative reinforcement of a behavior. Punishment can fall under the larger heading of consequences. Punishment is a very specific part of consequences.

@JLeslie
“Negative reinforcement” is another one of those terms that get misused a lot. The “negative” means “take away”. Thus, negative reinforcement is reinforcing a behaviour by taking something away – it makes the behaviour occur more often. Positive reinforcement is adding something to reinforce a behaviour, and both positive and negative punishment lessen the frequency of a behaviour.

Example:

Positive reinforcement:

Rat stands on hind legs – gets food

Negative reinforcement:

Rat stands on hind legs – the shocks it had been receiving are stopped

In both cases, the rat will presumably stand on its hind legs more often, because this was reinforced. Punishment, by definition, would work in the opposite way.

@longgone You’re right. In behavioral psychology you are right. Technically it would fall under operant conditioning if I remember correctly.

We need to decide whether we are going to get very technical or use the words as they are commonly used.

Certainly nothing wrong with being more accurate in the more technical use if the words.

In America people will say someone is acting schizo when they are being inconsistent and out of control. To me schizo or schizophrenia has to do with hearing voices and having difficulty telling reality from imagination.

I wasn’t thinking of it as a punishment. I just honestly wanted to make home more boring than school for the day, so that she’d have more incentive to go to school and less incentive to stay home. She was saying stuff like “I want to stay home and play with iPad—I mean play with you!”

Anyway, the problem seems “solved” for right now. My mother in law told her to go to school everyday and she said “OK!” and this morning, she popped right up and went to school.

LOL. So basically it’s the curse of the mother. She gives you a hard time because of your position. My SIL used to ask me why her kids behave so well with me, and I would say because I am not their mother.

I have a problem grand child, but he isn’t a problem when he’s with me. This is because of years of experience. He’s a pro at pushing buttons, but he can’t find mine. The worst thing you can do is let a kid, especially a manipulative one, find out where your buttons are.

@keobooks I think that was absolutely the right thing to do. “Ok, don’t go to school, but don’t expect to be at home having a blast.”

@JLeslie “We need to decide whether we are going to get very technical or use the words as they are commonly used.”

You’re right in that “negative reinforcement” is almost interchangeable with “punishment” by now. It’s been used wrongly for ages. It’s a concept I explain about once a week, which gets frustrating at times.

@keobooks That’s good news. I’m curious whether the problem is solved for good – keep us updated? :)

“For good” is terribly unpredictable.

She no longer has unsupervised iPad play. I did download a Lego type app and I want to play it with her, but she can’t have the pad to herself. I think she gets too focused on it and doesn’t want to do anything else—including going to school, eating with the family and just about everything we do on a daily basis.

Damn. I’m so glad that technology wasn’t available when my kids were growing up. They had to settle for this.