Half-Effort is More Exhausting Than Whole-Effort.

  We experienced some difficulty with our oldest child when she was advancing up the ranks of math.  She is in 6th grade now, and has been sailing through pre-algebra, so our trouble really wasn't ability related. In fact, it was rooted more in a character issue than in an intellectual one.
  Let me paint the picture for you, as I 'm sure none of you have ever seen such a scene as this.  We would start the math lesson, with full attention and readiness of mind.  Five to fifteen minutes later, lesson easily learned, I would get up to help another child with her math.  Thirty to sixty minutes later, my oldest would still be sitting in front of her open math book, nowhere close to finishing.  She might have been working on a problem, or finishing up her latest doodle on the page, or staring off in to space day-dreaming.  She would get behind in her other subjects because she would waste time during math.  This became such a consistent occurrence that she would begin to dread the whole event.
  The math teacher in me became concerned to see my daughter so distraught over doing the math problems.  Please keep in mind that she was not struggling with the concepts, although she was getting a fair amount of problems wrong.  How could those two facts co-exist?  I'll tell you.  The reason she was getting so many  problems wrong was because she was only giving math a half-effort.  Ninety-five percent of the problems she missed were because she wrote the problem down incorrectly, or got distracted in the middle of working one (talking to a sister, or listening to someone else's school time readings) and she would forget where she was in her arithmetic, and make a careless mistake.  Everyone is entitled to make a few careless mistakes, but that pattern of half-effort, if left unchecked would spill over into other areas of her life.  So we sat down to have a little "Mama Talk". 
  Knowing her response, I asked her if she found math exhausting.  She assured me that she enjoyed learning about it, but that there were too many problems.  I listened, and I heard her, but I knew that she could easily whip out those problems in 30 minutes, and that she needed to do all the problems to lay a solid foundation for the math years ahead of her.  I knew it was time she heard the truth.  So I said, "The reason the math is so exhausting for you does not lie in the number of problems, but in the degree of your effort.  Presently you are giving a half-effort to your math, and allowing your brain to switch to something else with the slightest invitation.  It is so exhausting to give a half-effort on any project at hand.  It takes longer, and you make more mistakes, therefore creating more work for yourself to correct later.  But, if you determine in your mind to put forth a full-effort toward the task at hand, you will accomplish it in less time, and with fewer errors. Therefore causing you in the end to have expended less energy, and releasing yourself fully to play when you are finished."
 This helped her to see the real issue, and I am happy to say, with a bit a training, she was able to kick the half-effort habit with math, and in other areas we are seeing improvement as well.

  I share all this, because I think it relates to parenting as well as algebra.  How many times do we let a child give a half-obedience because we are too tired to make the effort to train consistently?  How often we let children obey on the 3rd or 4th time a command is given instead on the 1st.  Ever noticed how exhausting that can be?  Half-effort at anything, and especially child-training, is deceiving.  We think that consistency is too exhausting to make as a goal in our training, but I assure you it is more exhausting in the long run to be inconsistent with your children.  ( I know how hard that can be to uphold, but it pays off ten-fold for those willing to take the challenge.)
  Children will wait until you mean business.  So, if you mean business the first time you give a command and teach them to trust your consistency, you will find that you will not have to repeat yourself. (Believe me when I say that I know the ends to both scenarios!)  I find it fatiguing to say commands over and over, and when I catch myself doing so, I know it is because I have been letting consistency slip.  I apologize to the girls and commence consistency as soon as possible, and without fail I find that my once deaf children, have the ability to hear my voice again.
  Another benefit to whole-effort training, or consistent training, is that you don't allow yourself to build up a well of resentment to your childrens' lack of obedience. Because you deal with everything as quickly and cheerfully as possible, you don't have to wait until you are annoyed enough with a behavior to discipline. When we reach the frustration point, we tend to react and lose our cool, which isn't helpful to either party.
  None of us are consistent 100% of the time, but when the frustration builds inside of us, and we notice our childrens' obedience is slacking, it is time to roll up the sleeves and give it our full attention.  In the long run, we will enjoy their company more, and that makes for a stronger relationship all around.