Family Meeting

Back here Toby stopped borrowing books from the library. I had a lot of feelings about that because he is a huge reader and we have been using the library vigorously for years. He's continued to read books we have at home and he brings a book home from school every day, but the potential to feed his learning both in terms of curiosity and his reading skills felt like a big loss. This weekend we went to a different library which lends toys. We had an old agreement that when he returned his books on time three times in a row, we would make a special trip to this library so he could check out toys. I suggested the idea to him that we set one day after school each week to be our standing library day, we'll go to the library that day every week. It gets him there regularly so he has several opportunities to return his books before they are due - he was enticed because I explained it would take a month or less to earn the trip to the toy library. It's still up to him to check books out and remember to bring them when we go, but this will move us back into that realm. I know there's tons of stuff there he would love to read.

The Problem Solving part of our meeting this week started with voting on the effectiveness of the two solutions for avoiding loud noise - everyone agreed that they seem to be working, so we marked that one solved. Next we addressed the computer use issue. Toby's problem was that he hasn't been allowed to use the computer this week. I said that happened because the responsibilities that we agreed on for computer use weren't being met, namely that the timer wasn't being followed. I asked if he agreed that was the real problem, and he said yes - but sitting backward in his chair with his back to me (exactly like Vicki said!). Then we each gave suggestions for how to solve that:

Dan - when the timer rings, unplug everything in the room
Toby - write a note to remind himself each time
me - start with ten minutes of computer time and each time he is successful at stopping with the timer, add five minutes

He chose his own solution and we all voted that we were willing to go along with it for the week. Then he was thrilled to get back to it! I actually don't think he wrote a note, but he did stop immediately when the timer rang, so that's fine with me.

My Appreciation for Dan this week was that he used PonT methods with Hazel the other night when she was having a tantrum, and so I felt supported by him in my efforts here.