Avram,
You know what the first thing to do with a child who absolutely refuses to get up for school? ASK HIM WHY HE’S NOT GETTING UP!
Really? News flash.
In real life I do have children. They have many disparate temperaments.
Some of them will never tell you what is bothering them, you need to guess and sometimes if you get it right they will tell you sometimes not. They are that way since they were old enough to shake their heads to a yes or no question.
So asking is not always the answer.
And sometimes you may know why they don’t want to get up.
Cause they went to sleep at two o’clock so the morning. For a whole week. Cause they were reading in bed. Cause all the make nice , rewards, charts ,soft speak was not as strong as the pull of reading.
(by the way those two qualities, taciturn and book worm, often in together very much. Notice I said qualities, as most personality types, are qualities just needing to be properly channeled)
So back to the hypothetical child, who is constantly a challenge to get us in the morning,
Nothing has worked, does there ever come a time when you hit them? Or do you continue just making charts, taking away their books which they wait till you finally go to sleep so they can take it back only causing them to go to sleep later, so HE will grow up knowing that the only negative of his behavior is mild reproach or what he considers soft punishment. And then In five years when he is 14 and never goes to Minyan ,you start running to experts for help?
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