Laziness in children

Today, a friend asked me what I do to combat this. I have too much experience in this because not only was I a VERY lazy child, but I struggle with laziness to this date. (Don't tell my husband I EVER admitted to this! I go on and on to him about how hard I work. And I do, sometimes.)

I ended up typing out a few articles on Laziness in children sent them into the IAHE. There was one thing I didn't put in the articles, but is something I do in our family. It's very effective. As background, I'll copy a little from "Diagnosing Laziness (part 1 of 3)" :

We love our children, how can we label our children with such a sinful sounding word? It just sounds…yucky. Cancer doesn’t go away because you ignore it. My dad died of colon cancer 5 years after he started having symptoms because he didn’t want to admit there was a problem. Not that your child will die from laziness, but it won’t go away or get better because you make it sound nicer. It is what it is. Because you love your child more than life itself, you’re willing to wipe their bottom and their snotty faces and look at what they need – pleasant or not – and provide for them.

Here's a snippet from "Diligence versus Laziness (part 2 of 3)":

There are two underlying principles at work in these answers. The first is a habit must be replaced by something rather than just eliminated. ... The second underlying principle is the same motto that my husband and I have in this and many other areas of child training : make disobedience more painful than obedience. Obedience is joy. Disobedience is painful.

...Specifically, these are tactics we use to wage war against our children’s baser instincts. I must insert that we are NOT waging war against our children. Our greatest desire is to love, nurture and provide for our children. These small (or large) battles should never usurp that primary objective to love, nurture and provide for our children. The challenge looms large, but is achievable. These tactics of battle are to be executed with tenderness and caring, not with anger, as much as is in our power to do so.

Rules of Engagement – You are the parent. Your mission is to be the parent in this battle. Anyone who is not the parent, can not take or maintain the authority of the parent. They do not have the wisdom or loving discipline to effectively handle the authority. Hostile take-over or pilfering of authority away from the parent will not be tolerated. You are the parent.

The one idea that I left out of the article "Battle for Diligence (part 3 of 3)" is the following:

One of the things that work best for my kids is not to give them the carrot ahead of time: “We've got a field trip we can go on if you get done with your work.” They tend to choose not going over working hard and quit trying. So we tell them what they've lost when they've lost it; it's more of a shock and seems more painful that way. (Remember the motto : Obedience is joy. Disobedience is painful.) At 3pm to say, “I feel bad for you guys because today we were invited to a birthday party if you were done with all your work by 2:30, but the party is about to start and I had to call and tell them we weren't coming because you weren't done.” No threats or me yelling, just an unintended consequence. My feeling is that they are choosing laziness over the fun I want to give to them, so they should know that. "I was going to make cookies this afternoon as a mother-daughter activity if you were done with school before dinner, but you didn't do your school work and by your choices to play around, we can't do that fun activity, now."

Another tactic is Martial Law - for just one kid who has been totally lazy. I take away all privileges during Martial Law for a specified time period, for example a week. The first few days they fuss. The next couple of days, they comply, but resentfully. By the end of the week they are joyfully obeying and diligently doing their school work. We are all happy to remove martial law and go back to normal life and fun times with children who appreciate the gifts in their lives.