GOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!!!

OK, so soccer is over for us and we had our big family vacation before Memorial Day, so what do we do the rest of the summer. My answer for the last several years has been to make “Summer Goals” for the whole family. Sounds like fun, right? Actually, the kids get into it, and we do try to make it fun.

This year, I broke it up into “Challenges” from me, “Skills to Learn”, and “Activities.” The Challenges come with rewards, but the others are just to give us something to shoot for over the next three months. I let the kids add some activities they wanted to do, and so far, they’ve made a good start, but have a long way to go.

Here’s some of what we put on the list:

Carter (Age 9) – I challenged Carter to finish reading the Chronicles of Narnia series + 5 other novels. He read four of the Narnia books during school and has three to go. His skills include learning a song on the guitar, reviewing multiplication and division tables, and learning some kitchen tasks. He added some activities like “building a Lego planet” and “building a miniature house from wood”, so we’ll see how those go.

Andrew (Age 6) – I challenged Andrew to read 100 books this summer. This is something I did with Carter after Kindergarten, and I think it really helped going into first grade to have practiced all summer. We have a special chart to mark off the books as he reads them. Andrew’s skills are similar to Carter’s, but with addition and subtraction. For activities, we put that Andrew needs to put together several of his Lego sets. He gets to choose the game for game night or the movie for movie night when he’s done.

Mallory (Age 3) – I don’t get too crazy with Mallory, so thus far, her main challenge is to learn to use the potty. We’ll think of some other things to get on her list, but she doesn’t really get the whole thing yet.

Family – I also put down some activities that we want to do as a family, things like “have a talent show”, “write a story together”, and “entertain at a nursing home together”.

I’m not sure we’ll do everything on our list, but I know we usually get a lot more done if we’ll just write it down, so we do.

One final idea that I had just before the summer: Actually, I can’t take credit for it, because I read it in a book called “Creative Correction”. One night, I was really fed up with all the toys the kids were leaving out on the floor as they went to bed. We often tried to have a quick 5 minute clean up at the end of the day, but the kids never worked very hard at it, and it seemed like we had to yell a lot. So I set the timer, and told them whatever was left out when the timer went off, I’d pick up for them. There was a LOT left. So I picked it up into two laundry baskets and took it to my room.

I brought the boys in there and told them I was done yelling. From then on, I would stay very calm regarding cleaning up. Whatever was not picked up at the end of the day, I’d do it for them, but it stayed in my closet until they could free it. For every day that I didn’t have to pick up anything, they could get one toy back out of the baskets. When I did that the first night, I collected hundreds of toys: hot wheels cars, Nerf darts, guns, army men, and best of all, all 4 Wii remotes and several of the games.

How much do you think I’ve collected since then?...Nothing! All I have to say before they head for bed is that I’m about to do my inspection to see what I need to pick up. Usually, it’s pretty clean before I say that, and spotless immediately afterwards. It’s been great to have clear walking paths in all our rooms, and there’s something about the lack of clutter that just feels better. It’s also amusing to see the items they choose to rescue each night. The Wii remotes were first, but after that, it’s been less predictable. But the best part, I haven’t yelled at them once to clean up. They know I’m serious about keeping their stuff, and that’s real to them. I just don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner.

If you’ve got any other ideas for creative parenting or for summer goals, let me know. Until then I’m…

Just passing through,

Eric