Boundaries

When I realised that Luke doesn't know any of his alphabet, but can play temple run with ease, it dawned on me that perhaps we had gotten just a little too lazy in our parenting. The girls entertain themselves most days now, and often want to go and have "girl time" in their room, shutting out a teary little brother who bangs on their door. I might be making dinner or lost in a project, so the easy option is to hand him the ipad or flick the tv on to disney junior. But somehow this tv and ipad stuff had crept into our daily lives so much that Luke defaults to these things way way too much. He had not really learnt how to play alone, begging us to build towers wth (for) him or fix up a new train track. He won't even do a puzzle alone anymore.

So Marty and I decided to stop being so lazy, it was time to reeducate our children on the joys of board games, lego, make believe, books and drawing. 

Luke had an absolute meltdown when I said no to tv that first day. I tried getting him involved in stickers and drawing, building towers, and then Marty gave up his lunch break to play connect 4 with him. With my bestie over for a coffee, tv was sooo tempting - but I resisted. Eventually the house grew quiet, and upon checking why, I found our wee boy fast asleep on the couch, having given up waiting for me to push the tv on! 

The girls proclaimed "that's not fair!" When I broke the news that there would be on tv in the mornings anymore, even if they had done all their chores. And Luke had another big tantrum when we said no to temple run. But I soon spotted dusty board games appearing and jaimee got a personal best on "bop-it".  The kids all worked hard together to make a new train track layout, and they picked up books long forgotten. 

It was time for some changes around here, and it wasn't actually the kids fault - I had just gotten a bit lazy in my parenting. Luke may be in withdrawal, but he will soon figure it out.  As I sat with Luke and we traced his name together, I realised what I had been missing out on myself. So the tv is off more (we have said they can watch from 4:30-dinner time) and the ipad has a new lock code the kids don't know. Gulp. Wish me luck....