Results only work environment or ROWE is the brainchild of two former execs at Best Buy. It is based on the concept that people work best at different times and in different ways. Some need the adrenalin of the 11th hour and some like slow and steady; some are early risers and do their best work between 5 and 9 in the morning. Some slack no matter what.
This brings me to teenagers. We need to be boss but we also need to prepare them for the world. I have heard some say teenagers are naturally lazy. How do we get them to a state of independence without losing our minds and picking spaghetti off the ceiling for weeks ? How do we ensure they are fiscally responsible and not spending all their living expenses at University in the first semester to then find they need to sleep under someone’s dining room table or closet for the balance of the year? (true story-no names). How do we teach them to do laundry so we can sleep at night knowing if they get into that accident their underwear will be clean? How do we help them with tidiness and not saving every candy wrapper so that when they are older they don’t keep newspapers until they have a room dedicated to them? We need to teach them everything we know. Quickly.
TTFT -is a parenting acronym and something that makes me feel fairly guilty. Take Time For Teaching- means, sadly, that it is not enough that we have finally figured it out and can do it well, we have to teach our children how to do it. Then they then need to be given the opportunity to figure it out on their own, do it badly, come to it when it occurs to them and handle it in their own way. Their terms, their time and their technique. Like ROWE.
It is enough to kill you slowly but first torture you.
music outside, snacks of choice and a promise of maybe ordering a pizza afterwards or a movie night? We all need motivation. On the other hand- I just tell my kids this is what we are doing today and I need your help.They know we are a team and need to work together but often I feel they are too busy during the school year to help so I let them off the hook often then. It is tricky. Always trying to get better at this!
Okay, so I have three teenaged boys…the concept sounds good to TIFT, BUT I try. God knows I try. I work and by the time I get home, KD under my feet [must have flown out of the strainer mom!] the garbage is overflowing…the windows are all shut and no one has been out of the house. How do I turn my teachings into…action?
One of the only things I have seen work is allowance. I have been doing it since the divorce and find they get it when I explain that if they spend it…it will go.
In the example above….I would tell one or more son to paint the fence, get them started and then life would interfere [four boys, job you know…] and I would come back to said boy [s] napping under a tree with a dumbfounded look! “Paint the whole fence? Um, no!’. LOL. They are lovely boys but….help!
Idas- I always love your thoughtful and intelligent replies. “Repetition is soul sucking”- now that I can relate to! Although I do love the comfort and shape that comes from the repetition of things we love. I love to see your daughter’s face on Thursdays and see how she approaches the project we are doing. And I love garbage day and Monday morning and coffee early in silence.
TIFT- good useful. It reminds me of my dad getting impatient when he was supervising me stirring the dinner pots, “Gira, gira” he would start to fume when I was doing my teenager dreaming. Few things irritated him more than scorched sauce and strands of spaghetti partly stuck together.
Used to drive me nuts sometimes but those lessons, sometimes impatiently taught, lasted me to adulthood. His cooking lessons made me a good multi-tasker, as I would have to watch several dishes at once and manage a debate on politics du jour.
He made me paint our really, really long and old fence one very hot summer. Thirsty old wood, took a lot of paint. I learned a lot of lessons from that one.
1)Get an education so I won’t ever do this job or anything like it unless I want to.
2) Find a job with divesity because repetition is soul-sucking for me.
3)Hard work is a good teacher. Even when you think you can’t paint on more board, you probably can.
If we can make a post-it note on the fridge to teach 1 thing, even ever so little, every day, imagine the possiblities.
I am going to make mine: TIFT-1
thanks Nancy for reminding me to start early and be concious of what I choose to teach.