Practical Tips To Handle Lazy Kids

If your kids are lazy, there are some things you can do today to reverse this behavior! Just a few simple things to keep in mind when trying to handle lazy kids and you can get your kids off the couch in no time at all.

Why Are Kids Lazy

There are a few reasons why your child may be acting lazy. Let’s face it, everyone struggles with getting motivated at one point or another and kids are no different.

You may think your child is just being lazy, but there are underlying issues that could be causing this, and you can nip those issues in the bud if you pay close attention and try to figure out the problem.

If your child is feeling discouraged, they may be feeling overwhelmed. If they don’t know where to start with something, as an adult you will look at the big picture and solve the problem by focusing on smaller portions of the issue at a time or trying to find a new way of looking at things.

Children do not have this ability, once they are overwhelmed, that is it, the task is now “impossible” and will never get finished.

Help your child work through overwhelm by asking your child if they know where to start (on a homework assignment or a chore) and if they don’t know where to start, you can help guide them in the right direction.

Try to think together of some possible solutions to the immediate issue. If you can melt away the overwhelm through support and encouragement they will not feel so alone in their task and will be much happier to tackle it.

The takeaway? Overwhelm leading to discouragement can make your child appear to be lazy.

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How You Can Help Your Child Not Be So Lazy

When you encounter your child acting lazy, you can handle the situation with encouragement positive words to get out of the funk. Encouragement should be all you need to tackle the lazy behavior on the spot but here are some extra tips for you as a parent to consider when learning how to handle a lazy kid.

Provide Challenge

When you are encouraging your child to get up and complete some tasks, it is important that you don’t make the job too easy, or do it for them.

Let your child understand the value of hard work, and eliminate the overwhelm of the task by encouraging them to look at the situation in a new light, or talk about how the task can be completed in bite size pieces.

You Are An Example

Your child watches you and learns how to act and behave based on how you act and behave. If you want to have kids who are not so lazy, then you must show them how to not be lazy by not being lazy yourself.

Give yourself some grace though, because parenting is difficult and there are times to be lazy and times to work hard. Balance those out and there should be no issue.

Set expectations

Let your child know what you expect from them during the task and after the task is completed. If you are asking your little one to take the garbage to the curb, explain to them that you expect the garbage to be out by 9pm and the gate to the yard to be closed with the latch before coming back into the house.

This way your child is aware that they don’t just need to take the bin to the curb, but to also close the gate properly.

I know it seems like unnecessary reminding, but children don’t remember things like adults do, and they do need that extra information given to them.

Get kids involved with daily activities around the house

I’m sure as a parent you’re pretty busy during the day looking after the house, making the meals and planning activities. Get your kids involved in all the things you do.

Breakfast time? No problem, get your kids to make their own breakfast if they are old enough, or get them to be directly involved in helping you set their breakfast out for them. There is no reason your two year old cannot grab a bowl and a spoon for you while you reach for the cereal and milk. Same goes for scrambled eggs and your tween, you can encourage them to cook, or simply get them to beat the eggs in a bowl while you heat up the pan.

There are so many ways you can involve your kids in the daily tasks that you do around the home, and while it may be easier for you to do it yourself while the kids watch tv, it is not effective when trying to raise kids who are motivated and not lazy.

Tips To Motivate Your Lazy Kid

Don’t Argue or Fight With Your Child About Motivation

When your child is having trouble completing a task such as cleaning their room, fighting, and arguing about it is just going to make things worse. If you can finally get your kid out of bed in the morning and you were fighting about it, then you’re probably going to fight about getting dressed, brushing teeth, and eating breakfast too.

Arguing with your child about motivation is a breeding ground for power struggles.

Avoid the power struggle and do this instead: stay calm and be clear with expectations, and allow natural consequences to occur if needed.

Staying Calm and Being Clear

Whenever you are trying to handle a lazy kid, it is important that you are clam and clear about your expectations. For example, if you need your child to get off the couch and put their laundry into the washing machine, then you need to say something like this.

“I need you to put your laundry into the washer so that it can be washed and dried in time for school tomorrow morning.”

If your child does not put their the laundry into the washer, then the natural consequence will be the lack of clean clothes for school in the morning.

Sometimes your child will say “I don’t care” to the consequence, and that will get you super frustrated. But this is behavior that needs to be ignored, not engaged with.

Give Effective Consequences

Providing consequences that are thought out and not “reactive” will help motivate your child to follow through with the task you are presenting.

Using negative punishment when setting consequences will work against you instead of for you in your parenting journey.

You must understand how to set consequences that work and use them in your parenting.

Patience

Parenting and patience go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly.

In order for your children to stop being lazy and become motivated, you will need to have patience and remain calm when speaking to your children.

This is one of the hardest things we face as parents, but it can be done!

Getting Less Lazy As A Family

Enjoy mother nature

You can promote an active lifestyle with your children by getting out and enjoying nature as a family. Taking a trip to the mountains, or simply walking the dog together every afternoon is a great way to show your kids what an active lifestyle looks like.

And it’s good for you too!

Have regular family activity days

After a long week of work, weekends are often for being lazy and relaxing for most parents. And while that is perfectly ok because adults work hard, it is a good idea to ensure that once a week or so you have family activity days where you go out and do special activities as a family unit.

Saturday may be for sleeping in and catching up on laundry at home, but Sunday is perfect for taking the kids to the beach, the splash pad, the mountains, or an indoor playground if it’s not great weather.

Keeping Up On The Housework

This is my least favorite thing, housework. There is so much of it, it can pile up to quickly.

But showing your children that you can keep up with the dishes even though your days are long and difficult will help your kids see that hard work is important. Get them involved in the cleanup after dinner as well…no matter how young they are.

Lazy Parenting And Lazy Kids

A lazy parenting lifestyle is a parenting style that encourages kids to be bored and come up with their own ways of keeping themselves entertained.

Lazy parenting is not uninvolved parenting, but rather about allowing your child to develop independence by mindfully stepping back and allowing your child to struggle for a moment before rescuing them. It’s all about letting your kiddo discover just how much they are capable of all on their own.

Lazy parenting does not help you raise lazy kids, in fact, it helps you raise confident and independent kids!