Muffins with Mom – What happens when a teen procrastinates?

Don't put off until tomorrow, what you can do today

I think I was a teen once upon a time, but I don’t remember procrastinating to the extent that my son does. So, what happens when a teen procrastinates? The situation escalates.

I’ve been known to procrastinate a time or two…or three, but there comes a time when you learn a lesson. Perhaps my son learned a thing or two recently. It all began on a clear winter’s day – trash day.

My son knows it’s his responsibility to bring the empty trash can from the curb, back into the garage on trash day. After all, he walks right near it when he gets off the bus after school.

On this particular trash day, my son took the trash can onto the front porch and left it there instead of taking it all the way to the garage. His explanation was, “my hands were full I had to check the mail too.” The can stayed there another day.

As Mother Nature would have it, a winter blizzard blew our way and the trash can went missing. Wind gusts and four or five inches of snow left our area covered with a blanket of snow. The next day, I opened the vertical blinds that provided a view into our backyard and that is when I discovered the missing trash can.

Of course, my son still needed to complete his task of retrieving the trash can and returning it to its proper location. Only now he had to get through a foot of snow to complete the mission. And his boot were not tall enough to keep the snow out and his feet dry. So what does he do?

Grabbing the first pair of tall boots he saw, my son stuffed his feet in, threw his hood over his head and trekked across the yard. With the first step he took, his toes curled like claws into the cloth of the boot.

“These boot are too tight,” he yelled to me as he dashed onto the deep snow.

My son tried to run with the quickness of a Ninja, to avoid sinking into the crunchy snow. His strategy was to tip toe run and toss the trash can ahead of him so there was no extra weight. The strategy worked, but he looked silly doing it. That is what happens when a teen procrastinates.

And I recorded the end result of my sons procrastination.

Have you ever come across a teen who procrastinates? What advice would you give to a procrastinator?