While you are finding it difficult to manage your responsibilities within the limited 24 hours of a day, there is a group of people who have endless excuses to lounge all day long, and do productively nothing more than raid the food supply and do small-talk, and hope to rule the world one day from their couch. It could be your husband, child or coworkers. Their passiveness can be extremely stressful for you. You cannot throw them out of your life but here are ways you can learn to deal with them better. Let us get a generalized view on them.
Do not feel tempted to clean up after them
Stay more focused on your own missions rather than feel tempted to jump and rescue your lazy friend/colleague/ family member and keep doing their jobs for them. This way they will not realize the pressure they are creating for you. Moreover, they will tend to be lazier and more relaxed, as they know you would finish the jobs for them anyway. The added stress and frustration will also cause you to fail on your own jobs and create a bigger confusion. Furthermore, if others are trying to cover up for him/her, rationalize it clearly how by doing so they are calling for worse times than any good for the lazy person in question here. Leave the lazy people to their jobs and wait for them to realize that it has to be accomplished by him alone and nobody else. In all conditions, make it clear by purpose or verbal statements that neither you nor someone else will be doing the jobs earmarked for him/her.
Complimenting rather than criticizing works best
Lazy people are never going to be stimulated out of their laziness by criticism alone. You need to think more resourcefully by actually appreciating all the small things he/she does at any point of time. Boosting their morale by appreciations and compliments will help them. Criticizing and getting into brawls over unfinished and delayed jobs will lead to discouragement, bad morale and open defiance from the accused person.
Patience followed by a confronting talk helps
Patience is the key to make the situation work positively and end up with better results. Quarrelling or confronting violently will only push them away further and make them more stubborn. Moreover, try to convince him/her to come out of the phase by being very firm but patient. Under any circumstance, do not provoke them into any sort of aggressive brawls. To try and get them to talk about the situation can also get tricky so try and be respectful and polite throughout, and avoid getting emotional or heated. However, make sure that you sound positive, helpful in the discussion, and not argumentative. Tell them they need to pull themselves up and feel more responsible towards themselves and their families. This might also open a communication platform that might not only help him/her confront his issues but also confront other problems which is causing him/her to act in such a manner. Furthermore, the person might also get a clear picture of the whole mess he/she is indulging in and try to rectify the situation.
How to deal with a lazy husband
Though in olden times men were used to ruling the house, times have changed now and women share equal responsibilities as men in being the bread winner and hence the need for sharing household chores . Here are some ways to deal with lazy husbands who just love to spend time doing nothing.
Change their attitude
Most men are not used to doing household activities and helping around the house because they are simply brought up that way. Many of them imbibe the attitudes and habits of their father, especially if they have been close to their father. If they are lazy, it just needs to be changed with gentle reminders, chiding and firmness from your part. Make them understand the need to share the responsibilities. This is especially important if you too work and have equally important responsibilities to shoulder as your husband. Instead of watching television all the time or spending time idly doing nothing particularly, you can ask him to partake in simple household activities. Make sure that you do not order him around the house which is a great put off for men. Tell him gently and in a pleasant manner that you would appreciate if he could help with the cleaning or taking care of the kids. Make sure that the jobs that you ask him to do are not difficult or long winding which can again put him off.
Communicate your needs
Sometimes, a husband does not realise how difficult it is for you to juggle your time between work and home. All you need to do is to communicate to him adequately how happy and relieved you would be if he can help around. He will be pleasantly surprised at this and would surely want to help you with the little things he can manage at home. In fact, it would be a welcome change to do things together as you get plenty of time to chat as well about the dayâs happenings and petty incidents. Doing things together will also give you a feeling of completeness as a family and a satisfaction that you never experienced before. It will also help your husband realise how difficult it was to manage things alone for you and how much of a change he has made in your life with helping around. It would also make him understand how lazy and insensitive he has been all these days.
Appreciate the little things he does
Many wives make the big mistake of not appreciating little things that their husbandâs do at home and making it sound and look unimportant. This is a major discouragement for them and they hesitate to pitch in and do their bit next time the need arises. Who does not like appreciation! Ensure that you make his effort feel valued and make sure that you appreciate every little thing he does. This will be a great encouragement for him and he will willingly make an effort to help you whenever he can. Do not forget to show your happiness when he helps you. You must also express your gratitude and let him know that how much of a help he has been and how he has made your job easy by doing that tiny bit for you. He will surely note your happiness and be encouraged to help you more and earn your approval every time he gets a chance. This is a great way to make him do things without actually telling him so and also in bringing him out of his laziness without much effort.
Never reprimand
Some women have the bad habit of pointing at the wrongs that their husbands have done and how things have become doubly difficult for them when they have tried to help. This is a very wrong approach as husbands will be immediately put off by your attitude. Remember that they are not as good as you in doing these things and mistakes do happen initially. Smile it off and appreciate that they have at least tried to help. Tell them that it is ok and they will surely do a better job next time on. By not nagging and reproaching them, you have ensured that they will make a better effort next time.
Encouragement and togetherness
It is important to make the most of the time spend in sharing jobs at home. Lazy husbands can get bored easily if you do not communicate and just make them work and help around the house. Make the session as fun and interesting as possible. Talk to him, give him instructions and enjoy the togetherness by sharing and talking to him constantly so that he does not get bored with the whole thing. Make him feel good about the fact that he is helping you and encourage him in every step that he makes in improving his output. It also helps if you can involve your kids too in helping around with little tasks so that your lazy husband is not tempted to go back to his lazy ways, when kids too are busy doing their bit.
How to deal with a lazy child
No child is lazy by nature. In case you find that your child is being lazy, you must take it seriously. There must be something which is wrong with the child. What could it be? Make it a point to check that it is not a health related problem. If it is it, the there could be a lack of motivation in the kid. However, parents either do not know this, or refuse to understand this. The lazy child is always under the threat that they would fail. Hence, they avoid doing anything at all so that they do not have to face failure. Your duty as a parent should always be to motivate your kid. Whenever you sense laziness, try to dig into the core of the problem.
Why is your kid lazy?
In most cases, the cause of laziness I kids is their lack of confidence and a low self-esteem. Often parents are horrified and fear that their children have been affected by alcohol abuse or even drug abuse. However causes are more deep-rooted. Lack of self-esteem can lead to depression or even anxiety.
How to deal with it
- You can take your kid to a psychiatrist. It will help them tackle with depression, anxiety or grief.
- Let your child earn their privileges. While food and clothing are the basic necessities of our lives, which you cannot deprive your children of; electronic gadgets like television, iPods, or cell phones, video games, etc are not. The kids can very well survive without using these things. Motivate your kids – offer these things to them as privileges that they ear by fulfilling their responsibilities and meeting their obligations. In case they already have these gadgets, take these away if they are being lazy and give them the chance to win these things back by completing their duties.
- It is necessary to compliment your children and praise them. When you compliment them, it acts as a source of motivation for them and helps raise their self-esteem.
- Make the child realize that failure is the only way to success. Failure would help them succeed. Talk to them about you had failed I your endeavors. It is okay if you fail a few times. But, it must not be the case always.
- Be a good listener so that your kid does not fear to communicate with you. Be free to discuss issues which might cause frustration or is being a cause of a communication gap.
- Try and spend more time with the family. In case you are working all way and are not finding enough time to spend with your kids, they might feel neglected. Being lazy is their way of attracting your attention. It might be that they would stop being lazy once they get your attention.
- You must rule out health problems first. Some kids tend to be more active than others as a rule. If you compare yours with them, you cannot say that they are lazy. Check whether your child is getting enough rest. Your child might need more sleep than they are getting. Once his body catches up, he should be back to normal. In case you think that they are physically unfit, consult the doctor.
- It does not help to criticize them. Rather, you must always help them to find their road to success. Set short term goals for them and put a milestone for each goal that they reach. It could be a simple chocolate or a candy. Find your way to the thing that adds special meaning for your kid. Then work towards it slowly to make it a part of their life.
- It is necessary to always keep a positive attitude. You must make them realize that school is fun and useful and they must not be afraid of it. Never criticize the activities that they do in front of them. They are more likely to catch it up and try finding reasons of not attending school.
- Often your kids are completely unaware of time and about deadlines. It is our duty to make them realize about their importance and make them take deadlines seriously. Make a chart out of the things that they need to do on a daily basis. You can go with a daily chart, specifying the time frame within which you need to finish a particular task. This is a step which is absolutely essential throughout their school days. Unless such targets are chalked out, your kids might lose track of where they are moving towards. They might be nervous and start having panic attacks prior to their examinations.
- Always encourage your child about anything that they are interested in. If your kid is not interested in reading, verbally start discussing with them about topics in general. It could be about anything under the sun. Gradually, with time, through this method of discussion and storytelling, you can help them understand their lesson. They would not even know when they have learnt their studies and have even memorized them. Learning becomes fun for your child then. It might be difficult to carry this out in the classroom. But then, you can talk to the teacher of your kid so that they can help the children in bringing out the performance from them especially during their examinations.
- Always encourage your child into co-curricular activities. You can choose the activities as a part of the reward program that you present them during the short term goals. It often so happens that your kid shows greater amount of concentration in their studies when they are allowed to vent out their creativity through some extracurricular activity. It is you should motivate the children in finding new ways to explore their passion. Take them to group activities or individual activities classes – chess, cricket, table tennis, swimming, art or whatever that that makes them happy. It will naturally help them to improve in their other aspects of life.
