Quick answer: child who enjoys refusing to help

[StephaniePowers]

I have a child who enjoys letting us know that he doesn't want to help.
I suspect it's a power thing but I don't know how to handle it.
Little jobs get allocated and the children are expected to do their bit and they do get thanked.
DS (8) simply hates this. Wall charts, rotas etc: he just refuses.
Being thanked: he says 'I don't care'. I'm sure positive reinforcement is getting through on some level but why say he doesn't care?

This morning he went to pick up the post - I asked him to - and came through to tell me with a look of triumph that he'd got his own letter, and left mine on the mat.

I have no idea how to respond. I want to stop him being unpleasant and I assume telling him that what he did was unpleasant and selfish wasn't the best tactic.

or is that dessert even?

I'd have responded 'and now can you go and get the rest of the post please'

And repeated the request (broken record technique) until he'd done it.

Then said thank you, now we can get on with our day.

I'd have not let him get away with not getting all the post. Complying with a reasonable request is non- negotiable.

I also have a child like that! He's only 4 so i hoped he would grow out of it - but perhaps not now i've read this.

He is so different to his twin sister and older bother. They they both want to please but not him.
I haven't read that book but I remember hearing others highly recommend it so I might look for it today.

Thanks for all the advice. Attention-seeking: yes, it is attention-seeking behaviour. It's just so wearing. Of course the nice, good parent thing to do is to say 'when you have done X then you can do Y' but actually, finding a Y that totally motivates him is well-nigh impossible, he has a bloody will of bloody steel. And I'm left feeling that I shouldn't be running round trying to find things to threaten/bribe/motivate him with, he is bllody old enough to have learned that a reasonable request is just something you carry out (I would have thought).
He'd better grow out of it, we are so thin on patience at the moment

If he?s going to all the trouble of demonstrating his lack of co-operation?.. how about ignoring it? No reaction at all. As if you hadn?t even asked him to get the post, or as if you?d forgotten you?d asked. Ask another child to get the post and praise them for doing it. ?Thank you ? that was very helpful? and a warm smile. Preferably where your DS can see! Then immediately give him another chance to help ? ask him to fetch the newspaper, say, so he can earn his own thanks and praise.

I?d ignore your DS?s lack of co-operation totally even (especially!) when he?s showing it off; and whenever he does co-operate with anything at all, thank and praise, even for things you don?t praise in your other kids. And don?t undermine the praise by saying ?I wish you were always like that? or anything like that.

That should work after a while, because he seems to be seeking your attention for being unco-operative. So don?t let him have any

Hate to say it but?. my son is 14 and hasn?t yet grown out of the need for me to motivate him. Well not for everything but for some things, there are some things he does automatically that other parents envy me, but other things that some kids do readily he has to be carefully primed. Being a parent is tiring!

I think different things motivate different people and some times its hard to find out what. My daughter now 18 is intelligent and generally lovely. As a child she was the same as your son - she only did stuff that she wanted too and was generally too bright to be motivated in the same way as my other kids. They would do anything for a sweet or 5p but she just couldn't be bothered.

I once asked her ( aged 6 ish ) at the shops if she would like some sweets and she replied that she would as long as she didn't have to share them. I replied that it is kind to share and that she should and she said - no thanks then.

Over the years I have tried loads of things to motivate her and now just ignore her as its just frustrating. Everyone at school and generally thinks she is a lovely polite girl but at home she can be so stubborn. Maybe is her tiny bit of rebellion

How is he outside the house ? Do school have the same problems ?

I will ask her if she has any tips !!

It is attention seeking, and it is working because you are concentrating on changing it. Ignore it as much as you can. Praise and reward the others as and when they help. Praise and reward him as and when he does. Ignore him when he doesnt. Where you can find a natural consequence to his actions to impose then do, but where there isn't one I wouldn't sweat it.

Do you have a lot of wall charts and rotas? If you do, maybe there is just too much to rebel against and you need to tone it down. It sounds as though your other kids will comply anyway and as a method to get him to do so, it doesn't work.

And stop asking him why- that is the attention he is getting

Thanks, lots of food for thought. We've been working on really praising him and rewarding him when he does something good (which he does) and for now we have a sort of truce

I totally take the point about rewarding him for being an uncooperative wee shite by giving him lots of attention. It's a fine line because I can see that he feels triumphant when we ignore him refusing (this reaction was another reason for posting here, we do ignore bad behaviour as much as possible but felt it wasn't working). I don't want him to think 'all I have to do is say no and then I don't have to do what everyone else does', I mean, surely that will nurture a sociopath?

My son resents being asked to do anything to help, however small. He thinks it is my job as a mum to do everything for him and his job is just to have fun. I have no idea where he gets this attitude from, but its been noticeable since he was 7, he's now 13.

My son won't openly defy me by refusing to do as he's asked, but will adopt a passive aggressive stance by only partly doing as he's been asked, endlessly forgetting to do what was asked, doing whatever I've asked but doing it so badly that I have to do it again, pretending to have misunderstood or misheard what i asked, purposefully keeping me waiting if i pick him up from somewhere etc etc.

Over the years I have tried every which way I can to communicate to him that this behaviours is not on. I've punished, ranted, had long chats, reasoned, offered rewards etc etc. All with no or only short term success.

It seems his beliefs that I am the one that is being unjust and therefore I must be punished is quite set.

We are currently seeing a limited improvement by tying in his willingness to comply with our requests to his allowance. I feed, clothe and house him, but refuse to give him money or pay for anything else unless he tows the line and treats me with respect. It's taken a few weeks of him missing out on things for him to start to see that I mean business.

Might this give you some insight into what's going on inside your sons head?

Just a thought but..... it might also be that he would respond to having more responsibility ? so, instead of having a rota of little jobs that everyone does, could he have his own individual responsibility for one big task? Something he could do in his own time in his own way, a task that recognises that now he is old enough or skilled enough to take this responsibility? Maybe he needs to feel more ?special? and that could be a more positive way to get that feeling than being a refusenik!

Yeah I think more responsibility might be the way to go. Something manly, like mowing the lawns?