Slackers Will Slack

Yesterday Little Kat played XBox video games all day. By the end of the day, I found there was a mess in his room. He was trying to watch some movie with Kit Kat. Seeing as how he needed to get up early today for high school orientation, we put him to bed. I made a note to myself that after orientation, I would put Little Kat to work. No more slacking.

It took Little Kat a while to get home from high school orientation. I was getting a little concerned about his tardiness. But he arrived home safe. Then I treated him to some Chinese food. Did not want the guy starving while he was put to work. I had him show me his chore list. It was missing some items. Those got added right away. Then I prioritized the items for Little Kat to complete.

Little Kat complained that I was making him unpack his boxes before he put up the extra shelves in his book shelves. I conceded and moved the book shelf task up higher in the list. Then I had Little Kat start his work. Things began well enough. Then I asked whether he had completed the bookshelf work. His answer was a bit non-committal. So I went upstairs and took a look for myself.

Little Kat complained that he could not access his second bookshelf. He wanted to wait until his desk was moved out before working on the bookshelf. I demonstrated that the bookshelf could be easily put into place with the desk present. Little Kat started whining. I told him he needed to get busy. If the desk was in the way, he needed to move it.

Little Kat was whining about how long it would take to move the desk. I tossed some desk items aside, and moved the thing out of the way with Little Kat. Then I made sure he understood that we were in the "no excuse" zone. He needed to get stuff done. I also demonstrated how quickly items could be moved out of his boxes to their permanent location. Little Kat has been working all afternoon on this.