I'm feeling kind of frustrated about being a parent.
La Petit Sprog, who is ten, often responds if I ask her if she's done a task with a fake cry or cringe. To be clear, I don't yell or act frustrated, in fact I'm very much the epitome of calm. I use "I" statements, I don't react badly or with judgement, I'm just trying to get information. Her mom, on the other hand (my wife, who yes, I am very much in love with) gets frustrated very easily, and also has a history of meltiing down when she feels pressured, which I'm sure La Petit Sprog has noticed and tries to use the same behavior.
La Petit Sprog is also VERY slow at everything. I mean like it takes an hour to eat breakfast or dinner. This isn't slow eating because she can't eat fast - candy/ice cream/whatever disappears near instantly. She just eats... Really... Slowly. She likes the food (you should hear her go on about how fantastic my cooking is, and she will tell me if she doesn't like something) but unless it's sweet will eat like she has all the time in the world.
Same with homework. Math homework (which should take 30 minutes) takes 1-3 hours. She gets it right, but she spends so much time jerking around that there's no time for anything in any given day except for meal times, piano practice, homework, and showers. I want to do other things with her, I've dangled them in front of her, she wants to do them, and nothing gets done. Just slow, grinding, wasted time.
/headdesk
(Yes, the ADHD thing has been checked out. She has medication that she gets upset about taking. She has a short-term medication as well that she flat out refuses to take. It seems to make a difference when she takes it, she just doesn't want to take it and won't tell me why.)
It sounds like she
does have all the time in the world (and there's not necessarily anything wrong with that).
Ten is a tough age, because you need to open the door to letting her make her own choices. She's going to batter through that door in a very few years anway. But she's still young enough for you to put your foot down once in a while. "We've got half an hour for lunch, then I'm going to go do
fun thing. You can stay and finish lunch, or you can join me." (Obviously, be very careful with this one, if it means she stops getting enough to eat, you need to find another tactic.) Try setting aside an hour or two for
fun_thing , before homework time. See if she's more able to concentrate on homework under those circumstances. Try just insisting on her taking the meds. Maybe with a time limit, some kind of reward at the end, some kind of performance measurement. Or reverse that: not taking the meds
is the reward if she gets her homework done on time.
Consult with spouse/teachers/doctor and pick one of those suggestions at a time. (Or half of one. Generally the smaller the step, the easier it will be tolerated. Use your imagination to see if there are small tasks, small rewards, small aids that might help. (A checklist? A timer?)
Are you in the US? "I want to do things with her" sounds like a very US parent attitude. What does
she want to do? What do her
friends do with their time? [Also, what do
you do with your time besides watch her eat lunch slowly?] Get her doing some of those on a regular basis (regardless of whether she's finished her homework that day, missing a few won't do any lasting harm) then see if she's more willing/able to push through the homework in less time.
Also, take this with an iceberg of salt, but your kid doesn't quite sound like typical ADHD. Does your doc know about Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome (formerly SCT)? It's not a very well-established diagnosis, but there's research suggesting ADHD drugs don't work very well for this population, and other meds/therapies have some promise.
Edited to add: somehow on first reading I skipped past the part about cringing, and having a parent who's modeling the cringing behavior. That's not going to be easy to "fix". What do you do when your spouse acts like that, and why isn't that same approach working/appropriate with the kid? Is it something you'd like your spouse to work on too? Do you need a new approach to your spouse when she acts this way? Make sure you're not punishing the kid for something the adults in her life do. (Other than, you know, driving a car...)
Figure out which is more important (in your kid's life/future): the cringing or the dilly-dallying. They're definitely reinforcing each other, but be clear on what your goals are and you will have more clarity on what your next steps should be. Make sure your goal is not "I want her to behave the way I would", it's "X is actually hurting her right now" or maybe it's "I'm afraid it will hurt her in future"... Take stock of those harms. If it's just "she's missing out on fun stuff", maybe it's not the end of the world if she does some fun stuff before her homework is done. If it's "this cringing stuff is manipulative and annoying", I completely agree but it works for some people. You want to encourage her to tone it down, maybe talk explicitly about alternate strategies, but at some point she has to realize things for herself on her own timeline. You don't want to be the cringe police. "Kind but firm, and also calm" is the strategy here. Crying should not get rewarded with an exemption from the rules, but neither should it result in extra drama (which is a form of reward too). If your wife is not on board, that will be an uphill battle, because consistency is key.
We don't have a fence around the front yard and that's the only place with enough room for it. I can just see the neighbourhood kids using it at midnight and breaking an arm.
