How to Motivate 11 yo dcg

[BumbleBee]

I have an 11 yo dcg who is here 50 hrs a week during the summer. She's been here for almost 3 years. She's a bit on the lazy side and her 'currency' is screen time followed by art and baking. She gets plenty of screen time at home (2-3 hours a night), art is 95% at my house, and baking happens rarely at home.

At the beginning of summer we worked together to develop a 'gem chart' that has ways to earn gem's (I bought them from the dollar store) and what she can spend her gem's on. (1 hr of screen time cost 5 gems, baking a dessert of her choosing cost 10 gems, etc.) She can earn up to 30 gems a week. Right now she's earning 5 a week.

Part of me says just leave it as she's making the choice to do the bare minimum so she can get her screen time that she so dearly covets. Another part of me wants to motivate her to do more. She often does the bare minimum-her daily reading and subsequent journaling is done with the least amount of effort possible and still passable, any cleaning she does (can earn gems for wiping off the table after meals, etc.) is done only to standards and nothing more, her daily math worksheet is done as quickly as she can get through with it.

In one way I think she's doing this on purpose as she can be quite manipulative. At home if she bugs her parents enough by being passive aggressive they will tell her to just go watch tv. She knows how to push my buttons and does it well. It's almost like who can out wait the other. I haven't given in at all this summer. I simply tell her to go find something to do.

Art doesn't cost any gems at this point because this particular child's fine motor skills are quite behind for her age. I purposely bought art activities and projects that require fine motor skills so she can strengthen those skills.

Any ideas?

[jenboo]

I have an 11 yo dcg who is here 50 hrs a week during the summer. She's been here for almost 3 years. She's a bit on the lazy side and her 'currency' is screen time followed by art and baking. She gets plenty of screen time at home (2-3 hours a night), art is 95% at my house, and baking happens rarely at home.

At the beginning of summer we worked together to develop a 'gem chart' that has ways to earn gem's (I bought them from the dollar store) and what she can spend her gem's on. (1 hr of screen time cost 5 gems, baking a dessert of her choosing cost 10 gems, etc.) She can earn up to 30 gems a week. Right now she's earning 5 a week.

Part of me says just leave it as she's making the choice to do the bare minimum so she can get her screen time that she so dearly covets. Another part of me wants to motivate her to do more. She often does the bare minimum-her daily reading and subsequent journaling is done with the least amount of effort possible and still passable, any cleaning she does (can earn gems for wiping off the table after meals, etc.) is done only to standards and nothing more, her daily math worksheet is done as quickly as she can get through with it.

In one way I think she's doing this on purpose as she can be quite manipulative. At home if she bugs her parents enough by being passive aggressive they will tell her to just go watch tv. She knows how to push my buttons and does it well. It's almost like who can out wait the other. I haven't given in at all this summer. I simply tell her to go find something to do.

Art doesn't cost any gems at this point because this particular child's fine motor skills are quite behind for her age. I purposely bought art activities and projects that require fine motor skills so she can strengthen those skills.

Any ideas?

If you want to motivate her more, I would make the most desirable reward cost the most. So maybe art should be 5 gems, baking costs 10 and screen time costs 15.
This could backfire but I personally would give it a try.

[Laurel]

I'm not sure so I'll just think out loud here.

Things I might consider are:

-Taking screen time out of the picture at your house completely or limiting it to one hour a day and not having to earn it. She gets one hour but only one hour every day. If she begs for more than she loses that hour the following day.
-Require her to make a list of things she would like to do (not to include screen time) and then when she gets bored she picks something off the list. Reading (pick up library books that stay at your house), drawing, gardening or whatever. They have some excellent art and children's cookbooks at the library. My granddaughter prefers nonfiction although she reads fiction but see what she is into. Animals, joke books, arts and crafts, biographies, etc.

Is there a reason she has to earn baking? Why not let her do it? It is something she likes to do that isn't screen time so I would encourage it. If that is hard for you to be in the kitchen and still watch the other littles she could do some cooking projects that don't require cooking or very little. Could she make bread, for example? That only takes two times for you to assist her with the oven when it goes in and comes out. Give her cookbooks to look through or get some at the library. She can make her own creations and create her own cookbook or take basic recipes and add her own touches. Recently my granddaughter (9 years old) challenged us to a pizza game. We bought roll out pizza dough and then bought some oddball ingredients. 3 or 4 ingredients went into a paper bag with a number on it. Each person picked a number out of a hat and took the bag that matched their number. They could use sauce and cheese but the ingredients in the bag HAD to be used. Believe it or not canned mandarin oranges tastes wonderful on pizza.

Laurel

[childcaremom]

She has to earn screen time and I would up the price. That's the most expensive prize.

Maybe even include as a prize special art items (feathers, glitter glue, whatever she thinks is special) as something she can earn with gems. Maybe she isn't choosing baking b/c she can't visualize the prize. So maybe baking cookies is 15 gems, baking muffins 10 gems, etc

I would also add ways to earn that incorporate baking/food prep that she doesn't want to spend her gems on:
*helping to prepare snack earns 5 gems
*baking for snack (or lunch) earns 10 gems

I would also add ways to lose gems:
*whining about screen time

11 is such a tricky and tough age. I don't envy you one bit!

[BumbleBee]

If you want to motivate her more, I would make the most desirable reward cost the most.

I just had a 'duh' moment. This is exactly what I would say to someone if they posed my original question to me. Yet as I'm in the midst of this and this kid is wearing me down, the thought didn't even cross my mind. Thank you a million times!

-Taking screen time out of the picture at your house completely or limiting it to one hour a day and not having to earn it. She gets one hour but only one hour every day. If she begs for more than she loses that hour the following day.

I may take it out completely. Right now she's only earning enough gems to get 1 hour of screen time a week. If I go to one hour a day I'm afraid she's going to figure that I'm not serious about earning her screen time and see what else she can get away with.

Require her to make a list of things she would like to do (not to include screen time) and then when she gets bored she picks something off the list. Reading (pick up library books that stay at your house), drawing, gardening or whatever. They have some excellent art and children's cookbooks at the library. My granddaughter prefers nonfiction although she reads fiction but see what she is into. Animals, joke books, arts and crafts, biographies, etc.

We get library books every week and it's like pulling teeth to get her to pick out more than 1 or 2 books. She hates reading, it's what she struggles with, she will only do it if it's required of her. I did have her make a list at the beginning of summer. After complaining of being bored twice and having to pick something off of the list, she now doesn't say she's bored. She just does nothing.

Is there a reason she has to earn baking? Why not let her do it? It is something she likes to do that isn't screen time so I would encourage it. If that is hard for you to be in the kitchen and still watch the other littles she could do some cooking projects that don't require cooking or very little. Could she make bread, for example? That only takes two times for you to assist her with the oven when it goes in and comes out. Give her cookbooks to look through or get some at the library. She can make her own creations and create her own cookbook or take basic recipes and add her own touches. Recently my granddaughter (9 years old) challenged us to a pizza game. We bought roll out pizza dough and then bought some oddball ingredients. 3 or 4 ingredients went into a paper bag with a number on it. Each person picked a number out of a hat and took the bag that matched their number. They could use sauce and cheese but the ingredients in the bag HAD to be used. Believe it or not canned mandarin oranges tastes wonderful on pizza.

Laurel

Honestly she's not responsible enough to be left unsupervised in the kitchen. She wants all of the attention on her and gets quite jealous/manipulative if my attention isn't on her. This is why I've made her earn baking privileges so far, because she wants my undivided attention and when we bake she has my undivided attention. If I leave her alone to do it herself she will do whatever it takes to get my undivided attention (dropping eggs on the carpeted floor-5 feet away from her work area, 'accidently' knocking the open flour container over on the other kids' art projects that are drying on the next counter over, 'spilling' water or oil on my electronics on the counter-dumped a full cup of water on my battery charger that was 3 feet away from where the bowl was with the ingredients and 4 feet away from the faucet where she got the water. This happened when I went to go check on the baby who was sleeping because I thought I heard him moving around.)

She has to earn screen time and I would up the price. That's the most expensive prize.

Maybe even include as a prize special art items (feathers, glitter glue, whatever she thinks is special) as something she can earn with gems. Maybe she isn't choosing baking b/c she can't visualize the prize. So maybe baking cookies is 15 gems, baking muffins 10 gems, etc

I would also add ways to earn that incorporate baking/food prep that she doesn't want to spend her gems on:
*helping to prepare snack earns 5 gems
*baking for snack (or lunch) earns 10 gems

I would also add ways to lose gems:
*whining about screen time

11 is such a tricky and tough age. I don't envy you one bit!

As I said above, I didn't even think of upping the price! It's such a basic thing and something I would recommend to another person asking this question, yet it didn't even cross my mind!


I love all of these ideas. Definitely going to do some work this weekend and change some stuff up. Then I need to get my game face on for the backlash that will inevitably happen. Thank you everybody!

[Josiegirl]

Oh MY??!! She did all those things while baking? I don't think I'd let her bake at all. She also wouldn't be getting screen time because of all those 'accidents'.
Maybe I'm the mean one here but all those things she did while baking would leave me fuming mad. And she'd be lucky to still be at my home.

What are the ages of your other dcks? If they're all younger, I'm sure that must be playing a huge part in your behavior. She sounds almost resentful.

[BumbleBee]

Oh MY??!! She did all those things while baking? I don't think I'd let her bake at all. She also wouldn't be getting screen time because of all those 'accidents'.
Maybe I'm the mean one here but all those things she did while baking would leave me fuming mad. And she'd be lucky to still be at my home.

What are the ages of your other dcks? If they're all younger, I'm sure that must be playing a huge part in your behavior. She sounds almost resentful.

Yes, all those things while baking back during the first week of summer vacation. Just last week she earned the baking privilege back (supervised baking).

The other dck's are all younger. Unfortunately my other 2 school age dck's are off for the summer. It's like jealousy with a new sibling....for 3 years.

[Josiegirl]

Yes, all those things while baking back during the first week of summer vacation. Just last week she earned the baking privilege back (supervised baking).

The other dck's are all younger. Unfortunately my other 2 school age dck's are off for the summer. It's like jealousy with a new sibling....for 3 years.

Does she play the part of mini-mom at all? Out of my 5 older dcks, only 1 could care less about the little ones. All the others love to help them, and play with them.
Does she like to organize? Some kids love to clear out stashes of stuff and redo it all. I'm going to see if someone will clear out my big paint box tomorrow and reorganize it for me.
Maybe you could even offer to hire her as your helper(with the parents' permission of course and if it'd work for you). She could do things like clean a kitchen cupboard, dust shelves, or whatever you could find for her to do, and you could reward her with screen time(or whatever you decided). How would she like to play teacher with the smaller kids? Teach them a few signs in sign language or some yoga poses. Just about everything can be found online. Have her teach them some Spanish words.
Is there anything she has a passion for? Horses? Dogs? Creating fashion designs? You could get her a couple books and have her design fashions or write down how to care for a horse. Or let her use her imagination, write in a journal and use prompts. 'If you could travel for a year, where would you go. If you had a million dollars, what would you do? If you were the teacher, how would you do things differently? If you could travel to the moon what would you take?' So many ideas to get her thinking. If she likes to cook and bake, have her write up a week of menus. Then a grocery list.

It's got to be hard for an 11 yo to have to hang out with 'babies' (I'm sure that's what they are in her mind) instead of her friends all day during the summer.

[BumbleBee]

Does she play the part of mini-mom at all? Out of my 5 older dcks, only 1 could care less about the little ones. All the others love to help them, and play with them.
Does she like to organize? Some kids love to clear out stashes of stuff and redo it all. I'm going to see if someone will clear out my big paint box tomorrow and reorganize it for me.
Maybe you could even offer to hire her as your helper(with the parents' permission of course and if it'd work for you). She could do things like clean a kitchen cupboard, dust shelves, or whatever you could find for her to do, and you could reward her with screen time(or whatever you decided). How would she like to play teacher with the smaller kids? Teach them a few signs in sign language or some yoga poses. Just about everything can be found online. Have her teach them some Spanish words.
Is there anything she has a passion for? Horses? Dogs? Creating fashion designs? You could get her a couple books and have her design fashions or write down how to care for a horse. Or let her use her imagination, write in a journal and use prompts. 'If you could travel for a year, where would you go. If you had a million dollars, what would you do? If you were the teacher, how would you do things differently? If you could travel to the moon what would you take?' So many ideas to get her thinking. If she likes to cook and bake, have her write up a week of menus. Then a grocery list.

It's got to be hard for an 11 yo to have to hang out with 'babies' (I'm sure that's what they are in her mind) instead of her friends all day during the summer.

She hates younger kids-and has made that known on numerous occasions.

She has a journal and each day I write something in there as a prompt for her to write. Things like, if an alien came to earth, where would you take them? What would you do with them? Pick a character from a book, what would you do if you were in their shoes? How would you handle a situation from the book differently? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Why would you go there? What would you do? If you made a SpongeBob episode, what would it be about?

I get maybe 5 sentences, if that. Again, the bare minimum she can expend.

All of the stuff she can earn gems for involves either interacting with the other kids or helping me in some way. Cleaning counter tops, cleaning toy shelves, reading a book to the younger children, helping with circle time, helping the kids wash and dry their hands, etc.

I texted mom to let her know the changes being made to the gem chart. Mom's response? "I'm sure she'll work hard to earn screen time! She LOVES her movies!"

:confused:

Right, loves it so much she's earning 1 hour a week. When she could earn 6 hours a week.

*sigh* I just don't know.

I'm writing down all of these ideas you all have given and will definitely be trying them. I thank you all. I think she's wearing me down. I'd ask her mom to move her on to somewhere else but the reality is there's nowhere else for her to go and she has come a long way in 3 years of being here. There's no other daycares around here, no summer camps, no after school programs. Family won't watch this child on a regular basis. She's not responsible or mature enough to be home alone.

[Laurel]

Honestly it sounds like she has outgrown your program and is a bit spoiled.

Maybe have a heart to heart talk with her. Let her know that it must be hard for her hanging around with babies and little kids all day but that is the reality. Neither of you can change it so basically get over herself. Maybe you could think of a nicer way to say that.

If she has 'accidents' in the kitchen, then she can't bake the next week. If she wants to sit and do nothing then sit and do nothing. I think I'd have an assortment of activities suited to her age and interest and then let her go to entertain herself and do one on one things with her at YOUR convenience.

I think she needs to be with kids closer to her own age.

Laurel

[childcaremom]

Honestly it sounds like she has outgrown your program and is a bit spoiled.

Maybe have a heart to heart talk with her. Let her know that it must be hard for her hanging around with babies and little kids all day but that is the reality. Neither of you can change it so basically get over herself. Maybe you could think of a nicer way to say that.

If she has 'accidents' in the kitchen, then she can't bake the next week. If she wants to sit and do nothing then sit and do nothing. I think I'd have an assortment of activities suited to her age and interest and then let her go to entertain herself and do one on one things with her at YOUR convenience.

I think she needs to be with kids closer to her own age.

Laurel

Honestly, I think she has told you what the real problem is: she doesn't want to be around the littles. She has outgrown your program and should be with kids her own age. Let mom and dad figure it out.

[Play Care]

Honestly it sounds like she has outgrown your program and is a bit spoiled.

Maybe have a heart to heart talk with her. Let her know that it must be hard for her hanging around with babies and little kids all day but that is the reality. Neither of you can change it so basically get over herself. Maybe you could think of a nicer way to say that.

If she has 'accidents' in the kitchen, then she can't bake the next week. If she wants to sit and do nothing then sit and do nothing. I think I'd have an assortment of activities suited to her age and interest and then let her go to entertain herself and do one on one things with her at YOUR convenience.

I think she needs to be with kids closer to her own age.

Laurel

This.

It's not your problem that there are not SA programs (though after a convo I had with a neighbor this weekend I think the real issue is not the lack of programs - which they could find if they were truly looking, it's the $$$ for a good SA program)

I have come to the conclusion that with in home dc, you do have to limit your age range, even if the state says you can take x amount from 6 weeks to 12 years. After sending my own dd to a SA summer camp and seeing first hand what can be offered when you don't have to stop to change a diaper or check on the baby or assist with toilet training, I'm even more convinced that SA kids have no place in mixed age day home.

I know we say that it's good for SA kids to be bored, to have to wait, learn patience, etc. But we all know that when those things happen, the poo hits the fan. I think those things are great - when they are HOME. And frankly, it's a ton of work for the provider with very little reward and a lot of liability.

And I say this as a provider who's been there, done that. I have one SA boy this year (just finished K) and this will probably be his last summer here.

[Blackcat31]

Honestly, I think she has told you what the real problem is: she doesn't want to be around the littles. She has outgrown your program and should be with kids her own age. Let mom and dad figure it out.

I agree with this too...

It sounds like you are doing an awful lot to provide entertainment to a child that isn't yours and is a lot spoiled...

Even her parents aren't putting in as much thought/effort as you are.

I'd stop allowing screen time at.all. and I would really reconsider the baking privilege too since she has shown you she can't be trusted in the kitchen.

[nannyde]

Wow that's a ton of work for a daycare kid? I hope you are getting a very high salary. Does she have younger sibs in the daycare? Usually when providers go all out for an older kid they have at least one younger full time sib. In your case it feels like it may be more than one.

If the bottom line is that she has "anchor" sibs and you are protecting their slots/income by engaging her so much, then why not just ley her have screens the whole time she is there? That would be way easier and she would be happy and you get the money. She's forcing a ton of one to one. She doesn't need her own adult in place of a tablet.

[BumbleBee]

Wow that's a ton of work for a daycare kid? I hope you are getting a very high salary. Does she have younger sibs in the daycare? Usually when providers go all out for an older kid they have at least one younger full time sib. In your case it feels like it may be more than one.

If the bottom line is that she has "anchor" sibs and you are protecting their slots/income by engaging her so much, then why not just ley her have screens the whole time she is there? That would be way easier and she would be happy and you get the money. She's forcing a ton of one to one. She doesn't need her own adult in place of a tablet.

No younger siblings. Only child. "Special Needs" and I say that in quotations not to be sarcastic but because she (and mom) use it as an excuse. She does have an official diagnosis but it basically affects school stuff. Biggest reason she's here is because she finally started progressing after starting here. Looking back she has come a long way. Doesn't mean I'm any less frustrated.

I agree I put it more than her parents and even some of her teachers. I was that kid that everybody gave up on so I'm not quite to the point of giving up on her.

There's an update to this situation but I think I'll continue it in the off-topic section sometime this week. I'm fighting a cold and feel like h*ll plus the power was out all day and I lost $300 worth of food so I'm just Totally not up for this issue and the other children's issues this week but it's time to put my game face on and get to it.

Update coming soon. Again, thank you to everybody for all of their opinions and suggestions. I've got them all written down.