Motivating a Non-Academically-Inclined Teenager

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want to accomplish this year. One of the things I want to do is find a way to motivate Butterfly to get better grades in school.

Butterfly has a marvelous gift of easily making friends. She is a caring, kind person that attracts boys (I'm really not very comfortable with this aspect of her gift...) and girls into friendships fairly easily. The negative side of this gift is that Butterfly would much rather talk with her friends via phone or chat messaging than do her homework. She'd much rather spend time hanging out and laughing with friends than come home early enough to get her homework done. And she'd much rather think about school social drama than do complete work on any given assignment.

We go through the same routine every quarter: Butterfly starts off getting A's in all her classes, then she'll skip a few assignments and her grades rapidly begin dropping to C's and worse. I lecture her, she gets grounded, we're both grouchy, she gets sullen and rude, she frantically begins trying to catch up and ends up doing less than stellar work, I yell at her, she cries and tells me I don't understand ... you get the picture - it's ugly.

Paying her for good grades hasn't been much of an incentive. I think that 3 months has been too long for her to wait to receive a reward for good grades.

For those of you that think good grades should be their own reward, you obviously haven't worked with a non-academically inclined child. For this child, good grades are just something that makes the parent happy; for MY child, grades are simply immaterial.

I'm tired of yelling about grades. It doesn't make Butterfly WANT to get better grades, it makes us both feel terrible, and it simply isn't working for either of us.

However, since friends are a big deal for Butterfly, and she has said that her friends have treated her to fast food when they've been out together, here's the new plan: I've purchased a few gift cards from the local fast food joints and she can choose one of them when her grades are posted on edline with nothing lower than A's and B's. That should take two weeks or so. She and a friend have decorated a poster with the gift cards attached and have tacked it to the wall in front of the bathroom door. Butterfly will see the cards every time she leaves the bathroom. I'm hoping that two weeks will be a short enough time period for her to keep doing homework before the reward kicks in. As she earns them I'll use cards from different fast food restaurants to replace them. Please let this work!

I've also purchased a purse that Butterfly picked out from the website JustFab.com as another incentive. This  purse will also hang on the wall for her to see and caress while she continues to get her homework done on time. We will wait until progress reports come out before rewarding the purse for grades of only A's and B's. Butterfly asked what would happen if she DIDN'T get only A's and B's on her progress report. I said that the purse would continue to hang on the wall for her to work toward.

I'm running out of ideas. How do you get a teenager to WANT to learn? How do you get that teenager to WANT to do well in school?  How do you get that same teenager to CARE about her education?

Do YOU have any ideas that worked for you?

Job Hunting (again)

Today I simply couldn't face going in to work at the survey shop only to (almost assuredly) be sent home early; so I quit. I felt soooo relieved afterward that I THINK it was the right decision.

I spent the day job-hunting; dropping off an application here in town, driving to Waikele (Waipahu) to apply at several places there, and then driving to Ala Moana.

So here's where I've applied today:

McDonald's in Wahiawa
Lowe's, Borders, and Chili's in Waikele
Maui Divers, Macy's, Brighton Collectibles, William-Sonoma, and Barnes and Noble at Ala Moana.

That makes nine applications today.

I also stopped in at Martin & MacArthur to admire the beautiful koa wood furniture, accessories and art. A lovely sales clerk named Kanoe answered my questions about lamps. One thing led to another and soon she was giving me advice and phone numbers to call to ask about employment. Her funniest comment: "Tell her, her mother sent you."

Kanoe also suggested calling the Women's Correctional Center to offer to do volunteer work with my hypnotherapy. The idea is that the prison population really needs therapeutic help and I could get my foot in the door for future pay. I just looked up the location - Kailua. That's about a two hour drive from Wahiawa! Oh my, how could I swing that? Maybe one day a week? I'll call on Monday to inquire.

I'm grateful to everyone who's been so willing to help me. Thank you, guys!

Please cross your fingers for me!

Work's Ups and Downs

I got to work as an election official today. 13 1/2 hours worth of work at the polling place. It was a satisfying feeling as I helped people vote. AND I got paid a bit. It works out to $6.95/hr but that's so much more than I earn at the stocking job.

Speaking of the stocking job, I am no longer a stocker. I was told that I HAVE to work EVERY day without exception. I told my boss that I CAN'T AFFORD to drive in to work seven days a week. It costs $25 per week for gas to drive in. I got paid $174 for the last two weeks of work (that's about 40 hours of work). That equals $4.35/hr (I made more this past week!) Let's subtract the gas money: $174 - $50 = $124. $124/40hrs = $3.10 per hr. $124 for two weeks of work is NOT enough to pay bills like rent or electricity or water or ISP or phone or food. Well, I take it back; I could pay my phone bill and a bit of food, OR my ISP and a bit of food, but NOT ISP AND phone OR any of the other bills.

SO. I am being replaced at Hickham.

Well. Now I have more time to look for other work. Thursday I'll apply for welfare and food stamps. I've tried so very hard to avoid doing that, but I really have no other options available to me right now. Perhaps the extra help will allow me to keep us living indoors.

Perhaps sleeping will allow me to rest my brain enough that I can come up with some idea that will result in gainful employment.

Must rest brain. Must have light bulb go off in brain. Must make enough money to live on...

Think Positively

Okay. Enough with the whining. Tomorrow will be a better day.

Here's a feel good video for all of us. Enjoy. Be inspired.

Great Words of Advice

We find inspiration in the strangest places...

I was planning on just relaxing this weekend; cooking and cleaning and reading. Instead, I 'got' to spend a long day stocking at the Hickham commissary. I'm rather burned out and grumpy so I web surfed looking for inspiration. I found it in the following words of advice taken from Stitches in Life blog.

Great Words of Advice

1) Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
2) Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.
3) Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.
4) When you say, ‘I love you,’ mean it.
5) When you say, ‘I’m sorry,’ look the person in the eye
6) Be engaged at least six months before you get married.
7) Believe in love at first sight.
8) Never laugh at anyone’s dream. People who don’t have dreams don’t have much.
9) Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely.
10) In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.
11) Don’t judge people by their relatives.
12) Talk slowly but think quickly
13) When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and ask, ‘Why do you want to know?’
14) Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
15) Say ‘bless you’ when you hear someone sneeze.
16) When you lose, don’t lose the lesson !
17) Remember the three R’s: Respect for self; Respect for others; and responsibility for all your actions.
18) Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship…
19) When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
20) Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.
21) Spend some time alone.

Livable Wage

I have a job interview in the morning. The wage scale for this particular job is $7.95 to $9.95 per hour. I just calculated how much I need to earn per hour in order to pay my bills. If I don't have a roommate I need to earn $15/hr. If I DO have a roommate, I need to earn $11/hr. Not good.

Most jobs advertised pay less than $8/hr.

So my dilemma is, do I take a job for less than I need to earn and then find another part-time job to make up the difference, or do I call it quits and move to Utah to live with my daughter and son-in-law?

This is harder than I thought.

Geekdom

Oldest daughter sent a link to this fabulous song called The Nerd Anthem. Ooooohhhhh, this is sooooo me!!!!!

We are working on the third generation of female geekdom from me to Oldest Daughter to Only Granddaughter (who is now 6). I'm so very proud!!!!



It was odd growing up as a misfit (isn't it always?). Taking all college-prep classes in high school (okay, I cheated and took chorus as my only "get an easy A" class and that was ONLY because I loved to sing!) made me a target for the "let's beat up the weird hapa-haole girl" crowd. Fortunately, the ability to get people laughing got me out of injury on four separate occasions, so I never actually got beaten up, but they sure were close calls!

College put me in heavy male to female ratio classes. I got to experience dance partners that spent the entire dance talking about themselves without ever asking about me. Boys that asked me what I was majoring in (microbiology) who then made fun of my major (what? you aren't majoring in home ec?) were supremely annoying and all too common. The topper was the advisor that assured me that I'd never marry and have kids if I became a doctor. And I believed him (okay, I wasn't as smart as I should have been and it took many years before I grew a backbone). The Dark Ages was a really strange time to be female and smart.

BUT, I got to teach microbiology and chemistry to my kids. (Yep, I got married and had kids. I just didn't become a doctor.) I made up weird games to "increase their IQs". We had a gazillion Legos and Lego electronics long before they were mass marketed. I taught the kids to read before they went to school. We had the first CD player in the neighborhood. And the very first Mac in the area. The kids grew up with technology. Gosh it was fun to teach the kids to love science. And reading. And learning for its own sake. Geekdom for certain.

I got to program one of the first entertainment CD-ROMs in existence for the very first Sound Blaster card. That's such fun to remember. I was phone interviewed for the very first new technology director position at Microsoft. I didn't get the job but I WAS in the running. That's fun to remember, too.

So what if I felt like an alien associating with almost all women and most men? I STILL feel like an alien most of the time. That's life. As I get older, I'm finding myself at the lower end of the geek spectrum. At least there are more of us girl geeks. AND it's becoming almost acceptable.

Lessons Learned While Working at Slave Labor

Being unemployed was awful. Being underemployed is not much better but at least we get to live indoors and some bills get paid.

I've been working as a night stocker at Hickham and Pearl Harbor commissaries for the last several months. Good things about the job: I've lost weight because of the physical labor; I'm getting stronger; I now understand what it takes to get a store ready for customers; I've met some really terrific people. Bad things about the job: It's sweaty, physical labor that I was certainly not used to; I get paid 35¢ per carton unpacked -- that translates to about $3 per hour. I'd make more if I was stocking large items such as cartons of juice, but I'm unpacking health and beauty aids like aspirin and vitamins. Those dang things are wrapped in enough plastic to gift wrap a car. It takes so much time to wrestle the items out of their protective coatings of plastic and then line them up on the shelves that the idea of making a decent wage is nigh impossible. Gotta get a real job...

I've learned some important ideas on this job:
1. It's important to recognize the things that are done well rather than only point out the things that need improving.
2. As important as praise is, a decent, livable wage is even more so.
3. Clear, written instructions save everyone wasted time and lessen miscommunication.
4. Job training cuts down on wasted effort.
5. Sharing time-saving shortcuts with the employee lessens frustration and improves performance.
6. A manager's job SHOULD include mentoring the employee
7. Employees are valuable assets that make money for the employer. They are NOT slaves to be taken advantage of.
8. Making money at the expense of the employee is unethical.
9. Poor people aren't lazy; most of the poor people I know work their a***s off. (This is in regards to stupid quotes from stupid public personalities:

"You know, people are poor in America ... not because they lack money; they're poor because they lack values, morals and ethics. And if government can't teach and instill that, we're wasting our time simply giving poor people money." — Radio personality Bill Cunningham

"[Y]ou gotta look people in the eye and tell 'em they're irresponsible and lazy .... Because that's what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen. In this country, you can succeed if you get educated and work hard. Period. Period." — FOX News host Bill O’Reilly

)

One of my goals is to become an employer. I swear I'll do a better job than any of the employers that I've worked for. Maybe THAT'S the take-away lesson from this experience.

Bad employers are another really good reason to be an entrepreneur.

Setting Goals

"The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret to outward success."

-- H W Beecher

I've taken on ANOTHER stocking job (that makes three) in order to make enough money to live indoors. That means I'm working from 5 p.m. until 1:30 a.m. every day - there are NO days off.  This schedule is messing with my circadian rhythm big time.  I find I'm tired all of the time these days and I'm constantly in  a brain fog. The brain fog is what's making it harder to get the blogs finished, not to mention preparing for the business meeting that's coming up on Thursday.

Business meeting? On top of everything else, I've partnered up with one of my bosses to get a shelf stocking business off the ground. She is experienced in the grocery business and I'm experienced with starting businesses. You'd think it would be easy then for me to get everything done even while I'm semi-asleep, but it just ain't so. Our targeted start date is November 1, 2010. That's six months from now; not much time, so I REALLY need to get myself into gear in spite of fatigue. That means setting goals.

I've read many articles about goal setting but this one, this morning, struck a chord with me. It comes from Patrice Dickey's website, Your Guide to the Life You Love. I'll let you know how the goal setting goes for me. In the meantime, perhaps you can set your own goals to achieve something marvelous.

SEVEN STEP GOAL SETTING
******************************************
1. Write down everything you've ever wanted to do, and choose one goal with which to engage in this process.

2. Ask yourself, "Where am I now? What strengths do I have? What experiences, skills, support, networks, belief systems and foundation will support me in achieving this?"

3. Write down the obstacles to the goal.

4. Write down the steps & paths to overcome the obstacles.

5. Write down WHEN you want to get there.  Create mini-deadlines. (Even though I'm the farthest from a football junkie, this made sense to me-- on a football field, every 10 yards the players get a new life -- plus they can even mess up twice in that process and get three downs). Mini-deadlines are easier to achieve.

6. Write down what rewards you expect--and bring them to life with a picture involving your five senses.

7. Ask yourself, and write down the answer: "Am I willing to do whatever it takes? Is it worth it?"