Popps is often up for a bribe or two.
It 's the way she likes to function.
She also watches way too much TV for my liking and I am constantly turning it off and then hiding my iPad as she is quite keen on iView too.
Two days ago she approached the bench.
She wants roller skates she says. She wants them so bad that she is willing to do any chores to earn them that day. I know she is thinking maybe set the table and hang a towel might do it.
I say, to get them, she will be required to go without any TV for the next week.
I don't expect her to agree, or if she does, I don't expect her to get through the first day.
Here we are though at day number 3, she has to last til Saturday.
She seems to be doing it easy. Trouble is, I am finding this challenge rather tough. I quite like knowing that while I am in the shower they are glued to one spot and not moving. Or if I want to do a spot of work that I can turn on ABC Kids and get an hours work done with no interruptions.
On top of that, I can't find any roller skates.
Do your children ever go technology free? How do you cope?
I try, at times to keep them screen free. But with a computer between them, an iPad, an iPhone and iPod for the younger it gets hard. I have to take all the devices away. Then they say but you're on twitter AGAIN Mum...
ReplyDeleteI bargain with the screen time, like, you can have an hour on a screen if you ride your bike to the general store. It usually works.
As for roller skates, eBay. Or an actual roller rink. We're hunting for them too.
I figure that since I'm technology FULL that it would be hypocritical of me! We do limit our youngest's wii time to weekends only.
ReplyDeleteOh and growing up I always dreamed of owning a pair of white rollerskates...
It does seem absurb the amount of technology one can find at a regular home. Lucky my child puts down the Ds, ipad and the wii remote after just about 30 mins of play & resumes back to her toy room to play plain old Lego. So so far, I'm not worried.
ReplyDeleteYou are so on the pulse Clairey!
ReplyDeleteI rarely have the TV on for the kids. I find that it makes them crazy and they just want to keep watching it. On occasion I have the TV on for about an hour or so during the evening. I never have the news on because I think they need to be supervised when it is on, and who has time to watch TV at 6pm!!!
I try and keep it as a treat and I put a limit on the show viewing and channels and give fair warning when it is going to be turned off. But having said that, the time they do watch it, they aren't annoying me, it is just the aftermath that it a struggle.
They do look forward to movie night on the weekends with a bag of popcorn, so that seems to help in addressing their TV needs. It's more about me than them though.
My boys, 9 and 13 years, go technology free during the school week.... no TV, no computer games. Only computer if needed for school work in an open, supervised living space. On the weekends, after soccer matches, music practice and the like, they chill out with computer games but I step in and get them off them if they have been zombies for more than 2 hours. Even with the freedom to watch TV on the weekends, they don't go near it. I am always rotating toys from my storage shed so my little one does something constructive after homework time during the week. This week it has been full on Hot Wheels and matchbox cars. Last week it was origami. They know the boundaries and I think appreciate them, especially when their peers at school are getting detentions for not completing assignments etc. There's a lot to do at school and after school... and when you allow for some time to just play and be boys, how would you fit tech time anyway I say!? Even when we are out, I do not allow Nintendos etc. If we are at a coffee shop, they have their word game books or joke books etc. I can't stand seeing kids in a restaurant playing computer games! or at a soccer match glued to a screen!!! Good luck. It's hard work!
ReplyDeleteA-M xx
This is the second time I've read your blog recently, and thought about the same topic... Hmmm, same wavelength?
ReplyDeleteI'm still mulling over the technology/over-stimulation issue as a new mum. Undecided, but I know I can't shelter my child completely from it.
Glad you can be open about TV being a handy babysitter when you need it.
Have I ever told you, I love your font? I do, by the way.
Lina
just give her the roller skates! then she might want to watch TV all the time .. maybe you could get a pair and go together!!
ReplyDeleteOnce she's in those roller skates, she may never watch tv again. My sister and I spent our entire pre-teens rollerskating up and down up and down up and down the footpath out the front of our house. It's the reason why I've got nothing when anyone reminisces children's television shows... x
ReplyDeleteWe don't watch TV. For a while we didn't even have one - until the inlaws decided that was because we couldn't afford one and bought the biggest darn thing I've ever seen and said "here you go". We still don't watch it!
ReplyDeleteTV annoys me. There was probably 2 programs DH and I watched together when we decided to get rid of the box, everything else was just shite. Now we still watch movies and DVD's that we select and monitor, but its a special treat not a daily event. And not on school days.
The kids watch a little music on you tube and thats the extent of their computer time too. We won't be buying them computers for their rooms as they get older either, we've already discussed that for us, computers remain in the family space - easier to monitor that way.
I am gob smacked when I see how much TV others watch - why? What do you get from it I wonder? Often they aren't really watching either... its just on in the background sucking up energy. The creativity and imagination of children who don't watch so much TV is amazing...