Not saying hello when entering the house

Hello!

Continuing to chip away and work on TSG within our family, and seeing some improvements overall in the children and in our family system.

An issue we’ve had on an ongoing basis, especially with our oldest 16 year-old son, but also sometimes with our 13-year-old son, is that when they arrive home from school, they often don’t say hello (they get picked up by someone who helps us often, and they often have their earphones on listening to music, and the excuse is that they couldn’t hear because of the earphones or, they had to use the bathroom or they didn’t see us…). I understand that it’s important for us to have a family vision and this would be an opportunity to compare how this type of treatment of family could be considered rude, and does not align with the family vision. Unfortunately, I’ve been the only person who has really bought into the TSG philosophy and program, so I feel like for the rest of the family, it’s business as usual and dad is just on some “new parenting kick”.

I corrected both of our sons on this issue and reminded them that they wouldn’t do this when visiting a friend’s home, or with strangers in other peoples homes. I let them both know that if they chose to do this in the future in our home, it is a standing instruction and they would be choosing a negative consequence of loss of privileges. It doesn’t seem like simply talking it through as effective with them, and unfortunately negative consequences seem like the only way for them to have a selfish reason to at least be polite.

Would you recommend anything else, or a different approach?

Thank you!