Good Morning...
We have been having trouble with Henry getting up in time for school in the mornings. I go in and wake him up and get his clothes out for him (if I'm feeling charitable) and then leave him in a seemingly awake state to suffer the consequences of not following through and actually getting up and dressed and downstairs.
This morning, Jeff facilitated some consequences. I was in the kitchen making lunches when in walks Jeff with Henry (wearing only his underwear) in his arms. Jeff opens the front door, deposits Henry outside, then closes and locks the door! I was howling with laughter. "It's not funny." he says. "You can't carry a seven year old kid in his underwear outside and lock him out in the snow and not expect me to laugh - THAT IS FUNNY." I say.
The morning did not get much better for our boy. I let Henry inside, he ran upstairs to get dressed, then accidentally slipped on the stairs coming back downstairs and landed on his tailbone. :-( And then he accidentally smacked his sister in the face with his backpack. And no time for breakfast. And no gloves to be found (just two right hands) which meant he'd either get in trouble at recess or not be able to go outside, etc. I was feeling bad for the guy! Hopefully this morning was sufficiently uncomfortable for him to maybe get up a little earlier tomorrow.
7 comments:
I like Jeff's idea. Did it work? Was Hen crying or did he think it was fun at the time?
He was laughing, but I think that's because I was laughing. He was pretty startled, I'll tell you that much!
I can also tell you that Henry was up and at 'em this morning, no problem at all. Yay!
Brilliant move, well played. Now Henry's got a story to tell the rest of his life! And he'll probably get up a bit easier in the morning (at least the next few mornings...)
Oh moosh... if only YOU would update your blog! :-)
The biggest improvement I ever made in our previously dreadful, agonizing, fretful, fraught-with-conflict-and-nagging mornings was to purchase for each of the kids a CD alarm clock. They set it themselves, they pick out the CD they want to wake up to, they set the volume (the coolest clocks allow you to pick the track that plays when the alarm sounds) and they GET UP ON THEIR OWN! It helps them to pick out their clothes the night before so there's less decision-making to be done. There you go - your daily helping of unsolicited advice! Great consequences - clearly had some impact!
Well, when i was a kid, we didnt have no fancy alarm clocks with fancy CD playing alarms. No, we had fathers who barged in and trumpeted Revellee (sp)with their lips and banged on the door to the beat of "shave and a hair cue, two bits," and flipped the light on and off till we made motions like we were getting up.
And most of the time, the thought of taking a cold shower because everyone else who woke up before you used all the hot water, would be reason enough to set the internal alarm clock.
Kids today...
I like arnica's version of childhood. reminds me of the olds basement bathroom with the tiny little window to the back yard through which my brother would snake the garden hose to speed up my toilette...
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