One of the ongoing challenging tasks for parents is to help children and young people to get their jobs done.  Trying to help children and teens follow through on mundane tasks like cleaning rooms, unpacking bags, putting their toys and doing assigned chores.

This is hard enough for parents with kids who have easy going personalities and few life demands - but when you are trying to help a child who struggles with worry/frustration management, attention problems and other life challenges - getting them to do their chores is extremely hard work.

Parents in our clinics talk about the immense frustration that comes with reminding, nagging, yelling at young people in order to get them to do these simple things - and how they end up just doing it themselves.

There's no easy solution for helping young people get things done, but in my experience there is ONE detail that can potentially make a big difference.  If we get this detail right, then it is significantly more likely that children/young people will do their jobs, and if we don't - it's much less likely this will happen.

Let me tell you about Cindy. Cindy is the representation of many, many teenage girls I have seen over the last 20 years.  She is 14 and and very self-conscious.  She is desperate for approval by her peers and struggles with anxiety and confidence. 

One day, Cindy looks at herself in the mirror and decides she is fat.  Cindy is not fat.  But she weighs herself and is shocked to find she weighs much more than she did when she last weight herself when she was 10.  She starts to try to lose weight.  She skips some meals.  She tells people she isn't hungry.  She does 100 push ups at night in her room.  She cuts her portion sizes down to tiny amounts.   She weighs herself several times a day.

Cindy loses some weight and is thrilled by this.  The weight loss gives her a sense of power and reward which is very seductive.  So she tries to lose some more weight - and then some more.  

Her parents start to notice her weight loss and reduced eating, and are concerned by it - but they don't feel they can do anything - after all Cindy still eats.  In fact she still eats junk food.  Her weight loss is small. She is only *just* in the underweight category for her BMI.  They don't feel it is their job to question her - or to "force" her to eat more.  After all, she is old enough to make her own eating and exercise decisions.  Isn't she?

Every week we see children, aged from 5 or 6 onwards who say something like this:

"I wish I was dead"
"I wish I'd never been born"
"I want to die"
"If I have to do this/if this happens I will kill myself"
"I want to kill myself"

and so on.

It's very distressing for parents to hear their children say these things.  As parents, our dearest wish often is for our children to have a happy, meaningful life - and hearing these words is often a shocking blow.

Here are some steps you can take if you have heard your child use sentences such as these.

1. Try not to panic.

Many children say something like this at some point, it is not uncommon.  It does not necessarily mean your child is depressed (they may be, but it's not a definitive sign) nor does it doesn't mean there is something else wrong with them.   It doesn't necessarily mean they are hiding something from you, that they are sad "deep down" nor does it necessarily mean they need help.  Of course some children who say "I wish I was dead" ARE depressed, or DO have immediate needs for support, but the words alone don't usually suggest this.  

Last night I missed out on watching a House of Cards episode I'd been really looking forward to, because my husband (who watches it with me) had to work.

It was the one thing which had kept me going during a long day and evening of work and I was really disappointed...So I yelled, cried, screamed and threw things across the room.  

Just kidding.  :)

Actually, I just sighed loudly - and got over it.  But let's unpack WHY I didn't have a meltdown and how I managed it.  

Apparently, somehow parents are doing it wrong compared to the parenting that happened in the 60's and 70's.

Ironically, it seems we as parents today are making one of two completely different mistakes.

These articles claim that either:

We are spending too MUCH time with and energy on our kids and teens - we are over scheduling, overprotecting them, rescuing them from every little harm, trying to force them to talk to us, doing too many craft activities, questioning their teachers too much, spending too much energy on them.  According to these writers, children and teens should be outside playing with sticks in the creek and managing life on their own like we did when we were kids.

Or: