John Cowan - Getting out the door - Life | Well Being - Coast FM

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John Cowan - Getting out the door

Tuesday, October 02, 2012 4:14 PM

There used to be a credit card ad on TV where some smarmy young high-flying business exec is on the phone to his boss: “You want me to go to Bangkok?” Then he’d pull out his credit card and say, “Sure… I’m packed!” At that stage of my life I would want to hurl things at the screen, because just getting out of the house to go to the dairy with three little kids was such a mission.

When my kids were little, our infants would do synchronized pooping as they detected you moving them towards the door. Then in the adolescent years it was teenage grooming or the need to properly conclude an on-line chat that delayed departure.

What’s the solution? Stay home. Shop for groceries online. Live on an island.

Alternatively, here are some strategies:

Start a count down. “We’ll be leaving the house in fifteen minutes.”
“Okay we leave in ten minutes – what do you still have to do before we go?”
“In five minutes you have to be in the car – better save and shut that down now.”

People sometimes say, if they aren’t ready, go without them. Often very impractical – and what are you going to do when you get to her music lesson without her anyway? But do use a consequence: If they are five minutes late getting through the door, get them up five minutes earlier, and move their bed-time forward five minutes as well. It needn’t be a permanent change, but do carry it through at least in the 24 hours following the incident.

Make sure you aren’t actually rewarding their dawdling. Maybe they have learnt that if they are slow then you will give them a ride to school. But it should really earn them a detention for being late because they had to walk.