How to Keep Children away from Laziness and Excuses

Lord Chesterfield once said “Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.” Laziness and excuses are the two things which spoil the self sufficiency of children. In a way we are also contributing to it by making their false attitude grow by doing things ourselves. 

Laziness makes children ‘good for nothing’ and excuses support their faults. It is an understood fact that we have to be nice with our children and shall not put any pressure on them. But at the same time we have to make sure that they are not taking it as granted. It is our ample monitoring and guidance will only bring up children in the right path. Laziness in kids can be sometimes associated with their physical illness or any mental stress. This needs to be addressed properly by parents so that we can control thing before it gets worse. If this is kept aside, the all other laziness in children is the result of their habits. At very young age we facilitate everything to our children which is a basic necessity but even then when they are grown up we continue to do the same which gives a wrong notion in the children that they need not take any pain for fulfilling their wish. It leads to ultimate laziness during studies also. 

Why do kids make excuses? It’s really not as important to know why they do it as it is to know how to deal with their behavior. When you think about it, we all make excuses from time to time. The same thing children do when they say things like, “The teacher didn’t explain the assignment that’s why I couldn’t do my homework.” And your child is not the only one—all kids try to wriggle out of consequences for their mistakes or for bad behavior. Kids see this happening everywhere on TV, in the classroom, with their friends and sometimes from us. Keep in mind that while your goal is to teach your child to take responsibility instead of blaming others, his goal is probably to get out of being punished.

The possible solution is to train children from young age to be self sufficient and to show the guts to speak out if it is their own fault. Teachers can motivate children in this as they can easily influence children. Many CBSE schools in India have inculcated such personal quality development of children as part of their curriculum.