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This morning two of my kids wanted to go on the computer before they left for school. Now we do have a rule that the computer doesn’t go on before school. But Sam and Kieren came to me with tidy rooms, their chores had been done, they were all ready for school with lunches packed. Everything had been done. Then they came to me and gave me a big cuddle and said:

“Mum, can we pleeease go on the computer before school?” I thought about my rule and then I thought about the outstanding things that the kids had done already this morning. I wanted to let my kids know that good behavior gets rewarded so I said to them, “OK, guys, it’s 10 to 7am. If you can come up with a game plan that will allow you both to have your turns on the computer and be off before 8am , and you are both happy with it I will agree and allow you on the computer”.

Now I was doing two things here. First I was letting my kids to practice their negotiating skills and seeing if they could figure it out for themselves. Second, I was getting them to police one another so I didn’t have to. The last thing I wanted to do was to say to the kids, “you have to get off the computer and leave for school now”.

The end result was that the kids came up with their solution. Kieren said that Sam could go on for the first half hour and Kieren would take the second half hour. Both kids got to enjoy their computer time and were out the door to school in plenty of time. They proved to me that they knew how to negotiate and work together so I think I might even give them the same privilege another day should they continue in their outstanding behavior.

Parents, this is what you need to know here: your kids, no matter what their age, need to learn that the quality of their life will be in direct relation to the effort they put into it. If you work hard your boss might give you a raise. If you don’t work well he will give you the sack. That is the way the world operates. And when we teach our kids how the real world operates they will be well equipped to function in the world as adults. They will also thank you later on life.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Parenting Articles.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.