Total System Failure: The Inherited Dragon vs. Zoe

Unfortunately for Zoe, she was born into a family that’s ultimate success depends entirely upon routine and habit. Also unfortunate for Zoe is that she is composed 90 percent of me and only ten percent Nathan. This means that she is easily prone to the disasters of distraction, procrastination and lack of good prioritization skills.  Knowing myself somewhat, I have come to realize the pitfalls of these things and have really only just begun to demand myself to live beyond them. My most successful days at work are the days that involve immediate list making and planning. I am constantly battling my own desire to procrastinate and be distracted by “something else,” because there is always “something else” to think about or do. The last year or so I have watched Zoe start to engage in the mindset of just doing the things she would rather be doing and ignoring the things she is required to do. I’m sure this behavior comes directly from me and is therefore entirely my fault. Nathan’s only downfall in these areas is simply remembering. If he remembers what needs to get done, it happens. The child’s mistakes are always borne of parental failure, aren’t they? And I’m afraid I am just about to get my head above water in this one myself, and have no idea how to help her learn to do the same.

Today has been the perfect example of total familial system failure. I got a call at about 12:20pm at my desk from Zoe’s teacher. Zoe didn’t have a lunch in her backpack. Now, since I’m on a Turnaround schedule at work, lunch packing duty has been handed off to Nathan (whose lunches are way more awesome than mine, I’ve been told) but the reality is that if I don’t remind Nathan to pack Zoe’s lunch it gets forgotten. As the turnaround progresses the need for daily lunch packing reminders increases. Today, I reminded twice, placed the lunch box on the counter near Nathan but forgot the crucial third reminder as I headed out the door. So I drove my lunch over to her school and Zoe got to savor the delicious taco leftovers that I had been looking forward to since about 7pm last night. That was failure part one. Part two was what the teacher told me about when I got there this afternoon. Apparently Zoe had been really wanting to do more internet based research on Manatees (her current research project) today, so much so that in order to get some extra time on the computer she wasn’t very truthful about getting her other work done first. Her teacher caught on to this, but wasn’t very impressed with her sneakiness. Just a few days ago I witnessed this sneakiness in Zoe’s room where I discovered little secret hidden piles of candy wrappers, dirty laundry and other forbidden things. We’ve also been having daily struggles with getting her homework done and done well. She would just rather do other things. I’ve talked to her very rationally about the importance of doing what we need to first, so that we can be proud of ourselves and say that we did that and did it well, and then got to do what we thought would be fun as a sort of reward for our hard work. I’ve tried some basic reward systems for being honest and getting school work/chores done. We’ve had dozens of what I felt were great conversations about the rewards of working hard and doing good work and having plans to do what needs to get done followed by what would be fun to do. These conversations lead to several really good days at school and home, but never last. She always reverts to doing what she wants to do. I am not sure about how to continue to handle this. How do I teach her to enjoy working hard and not be distracted? How do I show her that following through with your priorities and obligations can be even more rewarding than the things we think would be more fun to do in the first place?

            She’s such a smart girl. She places in nearly middle school reading and spelling and is starting to get the hang of more advanced math. She loves, loves, loves science which makes me all sorts of proud (she loves it when I try to explain Industrial Hygiene to her, especially the history of how sampling was done a long time ago in comparison to how we do it now). She really enjoys researching things and just last weekend spent the better part of an hour looking up what sounds a Manatee makes and laughed hysterically over one particular video clip of manatees singing and dancing for a videographer. She’s seven and already I see so much of her personality in what she chooses to research and love, but I’m also terrified that this struggle she is facing now, her inability to focus and get things done, is going to be a dragon she will battle for the rest of her life. It has been for me, and I don’t want her to have to face it too. Any and all dragon slaying advice would be greatly appreciated.