Overwhelming oneself...

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Does anyone else have this problem themselves or with their child/ren?

I tend to take on too much at once, or I procrastinate and then I'm faced with multiple things that need to be done NOW.

I've noticed a trend with almost 10 y/o AS DD. I give her a chore or she has an established chore to do. She doesn't do it, I think enough time has lapsed that she should have done it, so I might give her something else to do. She starts freaking out, insisting that I'm telling her to do too much at once. If I remind her to do something, then add the 2nd chore, she REALLY freaks out. It doesn't matter if I write these down on the whiteboard we use or if it's verbal instructions, she FREAKS out. Another thing is that she tends to jump to conclusions about what I'm going to say and leaves mid-instruction to go do something and doesn't do what I was going to tell her to do- right or at all. It's frustrating as heck. This afternoon it was a huge meltdown over a few quick chores that should have taken her 2 minutes. I asked her to take something out to the garage to put away, but she ran off mid-sentence and didn't listen to the WHERE part of my instructions. When she got back, I asked her to take a laundry basket to the laundry room and put it on the washer. I went to go put the baby's clothes away and found the laundry basket on the floor in the hallway, so I went to put it on the washer. That's when I found the item I told her to put in the garage on the floor in the laundry room. By this time, she'd moved onto emptying the dishwasher(a routine chore she must do before she's allowed computer time). I called for her to come back and put the item away in the garage and we're talking HUGE meltdown! AUGH! I didn't even mention the laundry basket not being put where I told her to. LOL!

What am I doing wrong here? Any suggestions other than not asking her to do anything. AUGH!

My son is a bit the same. He struggles to do jobs at random times (especially multiple jobs), and is so pre-occupied with getting back to his latest obsession that he often does it in a huge rush and not very well at that. I feel like I just harp on half the time for nothing, and it often seems less draining just to do the job myself. I find that a tick-list works for him a bit. Also most of his jobs are to be done in the morning before school - they are all on a list along with getting dressed, having breakfast etc.

I am sorry

*sitting here cracking up* I've really got to convince my mother to get on this site.

i have this issue

The written list thing works best. I ended up creating a special notebook for my chore list once i got older, when something needed added it got placed on my list. Now, this doesn't mean that everything will get done in the order that you think it should get done. Add six things to my list and I might do the last three (in backwards order) and then get distracted, but the list is still there to remind me.

When I was little we had one of those chore list charts (with star stickers and smilies) on the fridge. That was fun. Someone could get stickers of their favorite thing (horses, bears, cars, stars) and put them on her listbook so when she is done she can put stickers to mark them off.

lists have worked better than verbal instructions. too frustrating when your directions don't get followed-or get misunderstood .....as long as you make your list with clearly written, concrete instructions-you'll be fine.......

i once asked my son to wash the potatoes. i returned to the kitchen to find him using dish soap on them...