Monday, February 16, 2009

Late for Her Ride (Again)

This morning Ricki was late for her taxi-ride for school. The driver probably was scowling, wondering why I don’t ever seem to have Ricki ready on time. If I was him, I would rightfully, emphatically be put-out at my lack of consideration.
In actuality, I DO have Ricki ready on time, every single morning. The problem is that RICKI isn’t ready. Every day it is something else. This morning she decided to hang hair elastic bands from her eyeglasses, deciding that this looked “cool”. I disagreed.
Yesterday, she took three minutes to usher her imaginary friends out the door as the taxi was waiting. The day before, she decided, five minutes before the driver came, to take a book to school. She took ten minutes to do so, and any interruptions and protestations on my part only lengthened the process.
Last week she had to hug me ten times before embarking down the stairs. And rushing her just doesn’t work. She is NOT interested.
I am trying to get her to head out at least five minutes before the driver is expected, but even with that, she sometimes finds ways to be late.

What are you saying? That I should send her down ten minutes in advance? So then she wanders around downstairs, sees something interesting on the corner, and disappears completely!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can you include this as a criterion on her behavior mod chart- "I leave right away;" or "I am ready on time to go" or s/t like that- and reward for being ready? W/o prompting? (and if necessary, consequence for every minute late?)
You always have good ideas for things like this--
wishing you good luck!
Ricki is one smart cookie!
--galiah

RivkA with a capital A said...

How frustrating!! And challenging!!

If this is something new, maybe take a step back and ask "what is Ricki getting from this new tactic?"

Good luck!!

rickismom said...

You are both correct, of coarse! I've just been either too lazy or too busy to do either....