Summers can be tough for moms, right? I know, this is no
great insight to those of you who are moms, but still, it bears statement. Summers are a special challenge.
Last year, I started working with Sammy, just a little bit
each day, on subjects his teacher suggested to help him going into first
grade. I knew that transition wouldn’t
be easy for him, so I wanted to give him a head start if I could. I think he actually enjoyed it, or at least
didn’t complain all that much. So this
year, I met with his teacher to get some ideas for the summer before second
grade, and since she is awesome, she gave me a ton of stuff to do, including
things for Sabrina if she wanted to join in (of course she wanted to join in anything
her big brother was doing, pa-leez).
I’m not a home schooling mom, hoo boy, oh no. I give much respect to those who are, but I
do not have the depth nor breadth of knowledge I’d need to feel comfortable
being in charge of my child’s education, nor do I have the patience. What I’m doing is trying to keep up the
skills the kids have already learned and maybe introduce a little bit of
something they’ll be seeing in the near future, all under the guise of spending
an hour away from the TV and computer.
And I’m no fool, they know what’s going on, and it’s not like they
coming running in every day, overflowing with joy about doing another
worksheet, and they do whine about it often. But they thrive on routine, so that’s a good
start to get them going.
But I also stumbled onto another motivating factor (in
addition to making Mama happy, natch).
Sometime during the first day, I started assigning points for each
activity they did, and they grabbed onto the concept like starving dogs on a
t-bone. I flashed back to my mom giving
us tickets on car trips for good behavior, and how she’d have this bag of treats
that we could buy with our earnings.
Well, that worked pretty well back then, so I ran with it, and decided
they could use their points in the Mommy Store.
Holy cow, has this been working. I didn’t get around to actually opening the
Mommy Store until about 3 weeks in (I’d promised a weekly shopping visit), and
it didn’t matter as long as I was still handing out and tallying their
points. Over the weeks, it’s expanded to
include points of good behavior and doing chores unbidden and can even be bestowed
by their grandparents. And because I am
the great and powerful Mommy, I can take points away, and boy does that get
them to sit up and take notice. Sammy is
on the hunt now that he’s seen what’s available to him if he saves up (I still
can’t believe he didn’t blow his stash when I opened the store), and actively
asks for ways to earn points. He cleaned
up his sister’s toys last night. This is
fantastic!
Now that I’ve written this, it will all fall apart next
week, but for now, I’m loving that I’ve finally found a positive method that
directly results in good behavior. I’m
tired of time outs and toy removal, and it doesn’t work all that well
anyway. But so far, fingers crossed,
this is.
Hopefully, they won’t figure out that most of my inventory
comes from the dollar store any time soon.
That is such a great idea! I hope it works for a very long time!
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