A parent keeps nagging her kids about brushing teeth and homework. Instead of repeating commands, write a daily checklist together, explain why each task matters, and review it nightly with a star-rating system. The habits stick when kids see the list and understand the purpose.
If you feel like you're constantly nagging your child, telling them brush your teeth, have a bath, do your homework, let me tell you, your system is not working. 3 things you need to do to make sure that your child does the most basic things at one go. Number 1, make the invisible visible. You should not be telling them to do the same thing again and again. What you can do is every day in the morning, make them write a list. I need to brush my teeth, I need to study for 30 minutes. Let them write it down every day till it is set in their head. Second thing is don't just tell them, instead teach them. Why do they need to brush their teeth? Why do they need to wear fresh clothes? You know, as parents, we just want things to happen in a rush and we don't train them. When you tell them once, they expect you to tell them again. Teach them and make them make a list. And the third thing you need to do is you need to expect that you will have to revisit it. It's not a one-time thing where you told them and it will happen flawlessly. It will not. What I want you to do is, as a practice, do it every single day. Okay, write down the things they need to do and check how many things are done in that day. Do it for one week, and after that, maybe you can just have the checklist in front of them, and every night before they sleep, just review. And another system I'll tell you, on the basis of the number of things done, you can give them a red star, a gold star, or a black star. And each star can have something associated with it. Just like you don't have to remind your child who knows swimming, you don't have to tell her again and again, you know, as soon as she gets in the water, she knows how to swim. Similarly, you don't have to remind your child to do basic things. It should be muscle memory.
