JOHN ROSEMOND | Parenting Daughter must learn to occupy herself

Q. I'm a single mom who works full-time from home. At noon, I pick up my 5-year-old from her half-day kindergarten program. Unfortunately, the nature of my work doesn't allow me to pay much attention to her until 5 or so, so she wants to watch television for the rest of the afternoon. We have a no-TV rule on school days, but I find myself unable to enforce it while I'm working. If she's not watching, she's at my door, complaining of how bored she is and wanting me to play with her. Impossible!
At my direction, she will read for a while, and she does chores when I want her to, but those things don't even begin to solve the problem. How would you suggest I occupy her time?
A. It's not your job to occupy your daughter's time; it's her job. Need I remind you that she's not an infant? She's 5 years old!
When I was that age, my mother, a single parent at the time (as she was for most of the first seven years of my life), was a full-time student at the College of Charleston while holding down a part-time job. When she was home, she was usually immersed in her studies. She made it calmly clear to me that I was not to disturb her unless I was in the throes of an emergency, which meant never.
If I disturbed her (which was rare), she'd simply look at me and say, "You know what I told you," and that was that. I never doubted my mom's love for me, nor did I doubt that if I made her get up from her chair, I'd be in big trouble.
Today's moms are afraid to be the kind of mom I grew up with -- loving, powerful women. Oh, today's moms have no problem holding down powerful positions in the workplace, but all too many of these same women are afraid to exercise power over their kids. They have no problem telling an adult male to back off, but they seem to think that telling a child, in no uncertain terms, to leave you alone will cause the child to leak self-esteem all over the carpet.
Cowed by psychobabble into checking their authority at the door when they come home from work (or, in your case, when you bring your daughter home from school), they make one compromise after another with their kids.
Compromise: You suspend your own no-TV rule because your daughter complains of being bored after school. The alternative, as you see it, is to entertain her yourself.
What to do
No compromise: Tell your daughter that she is old enough and smart enough to entertain herself without television; that television is for people who aren't smart enough to entertain themselves. Unplug the electronic drug.
Make a doorknob hanger of the sort one finds in hotel rooms. Color one side red and the other side green. Hang it on the outside knob of the door that leads to your home office.
When the red side of the doorknob hanger faces out, the rule is "Do not disturb me for anything other than a dire emergency." Every so often, when you can (but no more than twice a day), flip the hanger to green and call out, "Green light!" That means you are available to her for 10 minutes or so.
If she disturbs you when the red light is on, and she is not having an emergency, put her in her room, with all of her toys and playthings, for the rest of the afternoon.
Regardless, the two of you will do something creative together for 30 minutes (plenty of time) every evening -- draw, color, work in clay, read a book -- after which it will be time for her to begin getting ready for bed.
In short, you make her a very simple offer: She can either leave you alone through the afternoon and have her freedom, or she can bother you and be confined to her room. Three experiences with the latter option should solve your problem. In the meantime, your daughter will undoubtedly learn how to occupy herself, which is one of the most valuable of all life skills.
Think about it! You are able to manage yourself and therefore to work from home because you came to adulthood with that invaluable attribute. Don't deny your daughter what your parents did not deny you.
XJohn Rosemond is a family psychologist. Questions of general interest may be sent to him at Affirmative Parenting, 1020 E. 86th St., Suite 26B, Indianapolis, Ind. 46240 and at his Web site: www.rosemond.com.