Tonight it hit me like a heavy brick tossed by an angry overworked mason. The dry erase board will soon see brighter days! To hell with the itemized "chores" list for kids.
My motivation for getting right with the blog? (Thanks, Lucinda) I was told tonight, by the 13 year old boy, that if I want him to feed his animals when he has cleaned his cages early on Sunday, to "write it on the board". Are you fucking kidding me? So in addition to "clean the cages" which entails replenishing food & water, I need to whip-out my marker for clarification? Lame ass dependency and an interesting stalling technique at 9:00 p.m. on a school night. Especially when cleaning a cage & feeding the rats has gone hand in hand for years now...Call me crazy, or having expectation but "I forgot" doesn't work too well.
One can imagine how much we adults enjoy being told what to do by a child, let alone a 13 year old pre-pubescent boy.
Repetition forms habit. So shame on me! Writing essentially the same thing on Mr. Board for the past 2 months with brief deviation has run its course. Now I have kids instructing me what to write on a board because it's not specific enough? If I didn't write "wipe your ass after you poo", then you shouldn't do it?
Weekly I monitor both kids and give them direction when needed. I believed the dry erase board would be a positive, central place for all of us. I mean...it's hard core! Very militant. Super extreme. Just the way we live our lives. Haha! Most weekends as I write on Mr. Board, I laugh at my meager requests. MY parents never wrote shit on a board. I also had the pleasure of cleaning in the late 70's and 80's, when we kiddies didn't have laptops, desktops, iPhones, iTunes, iPods, cell phones, texting and xbox for inspiration. I don't think Larry & Jodie Clarke even wrote chores down. They just laid it out! I routinely had to vacuum, clean all 3.5 bathrooms including the toilets (yes, and my Dad's), cotton swab 20-30 plants and their leaves with spray, dust all the furniture, mow the lawn, help shovel and take care of my own space. Hell, they probably had me write my own damn chore list. In the end, my incentive was about downhill skiing and equipment, bits of freedom in Girdwood and Anchorage over the weekends, a very small allowance, sleepovers & lots of outdoor time with friends.
Since I'm so old now, I'm certain I'm forgetting other chores. Let's face it ~ it was a bit of a different time and I was an only child (apart from my 3 much older half sisters). I used to beg my parents to have more children. I could've sworn they were advocates for child slave labor...especially with their middle to upper class financial status! Truth? They just happened to understand that teaching an only kid some discipline would ignite the value of hard work and reward. It did! At the end of the day, my contribution was just part of the deal I had with them. But so freaking what?! How many parents focus on that today? We expect less from our kids now because they're more privileged? It's bullshit. Wait, maybe I'm bullshit.
The board that I'm so at odds with? Well...Mr. Board reads something like this...
Dear Boy & Girl,
Please do the following!
*Clean your portion of the bathroom; sink, counter & mirror
*Bedding & Clothes to the laundry room
*Fold Laundry, put it away
*Clean your hamster/chinchilla cages and vacuum your room
INSERT the quote and a thank you!
Time to change tactics and have the kids replace their chores on the dry erase with a bit of their own forward thoughts. Time to give them that responsibility without the control of a stupid board. The $5.00 allowance on a Sunday night will still be their's for the taking upon completion.
Thinking their lofty goals might look like a combination of...
Professional Paint ball Sniper with Monster Sponsorship
Lead singer in a female Rock Band
Pilot's License by Age 21
Attend Dramatic Arts School and audition in L.A. or N.Y.C.
Learning a foreign language as a student abroad
Math genius
In any case, this is a lesson in using the board more wisely as a parent and as a kid. The dry erase board still holds purpose, but that of goals & inspiration, not control.
