Mindy Carlson

Well, we are a week into summer vacation here in the SFC household.  As you may remember I posted about the Summer Screen Rules here and I thought I’d give an update.

It’s actually working!!!

Firstly, it helps that E is goal driven and the rules are clear.  If this is what it takes to get an iPad or movie in his hands then he is going to do it as fast as possible.   It also helps that H follows older brother lead in a lot of things.

The first few days E was up at 6:30am making his bed, doing his math page and reading his book.  He even mopped the kitchen floor and did a load of laundry while I was sleeping to complete his chores. (!?!?!?!)

Furthermore, he has not complained once about the tasks he has to do. He just does them and move on into iPad time.

And H is good with it, too.  He wakes up, does his imaginative playtime with E and a pile of Legos, makes his bed, and then I sit with him as he does his reading, his math from one of those great Brain Quest books, and his writing.  For his writing, since he is 6, he decides between a word sheet in the Brain Quest book and continuing to use his “reflections” book from school.  The teacher was having the students draw a picture and then write a sentence about the picture as their reflection of the day or weekend.  He really likes it. And he especially likes that he has a choice.

The chores we have for him are scaled to his skill level.  He dusts, he folds towels, he puts away dishes.  Not without whining, but once he gets going he’s good.  And the whining is getting less and less as this becomes “just how things are done.”

And then they sit and play the iPad.

The one area that hasn’t gone according to plan is playing outside for 30 minutes.  On the really hot days it gets hot fast.  The shutters are closed and the windows sealed by 9am.  If we don’t go to the pool in the afternoon, our practice has become to go outside in the evenings to bike or have a water fight.  The neighbor boys are home and battle can be epic.

But all-in-all it’s going really well!  Tomorrow Aunt Ellie comes and the day after Uncle Erik joins us!  We are going to take them to a mountain (also a heat avoidance maneuver) and show them around Basel.  And then a few days after they leave the boys are I are off to Edinburgh, Scotland for a week!

I hope your summer vacation is as relaxing as ours!