Things have been running along fairly smoothly here. Screamfests seem to have (knock wood!) died down quite a bit. They are so much less frequent and they are brief. It is a miracle! I really don't know what did it - I spent months leaving the room and closing the door, weeks taking away dessert, and finally sort of decided to just back off?? Everything is just plugging along - we started a different Contributions organization a month or so ago and that's working pretty well. There are two piles of tongue depressor sticks, one with daily jobs and one with as-needed jobs, and we each pick two of each type. The sticks have magnets on the back and everything goes on a magnetic white board, four jobs under each person's name, displayed in the kitchen. The kids are not doing too much on their own initiative but they do a lot with "Yes, As Soon As." Dan has been pretty content with the new arrangement. There is opportunity for trading sticks in the meeting, one of each type. We have had one week of each child planning the dinners! Very entertaining - I prompt for multiple food groups and they pick items to round out the meals. During Toby's week we had pasta three nights out of four.
Lots of different specific situations have come up that seemed interesting enough for the blog, relevant enough in regards to PonT, but I didn't get to it. Here is today's:
We have been planning to cancel our TV service, which we started a month or so ago in connection with getting faster internet service (which was the real goal, but couldn't be accessed without also purchasing the TV). Now that the internet is established, we can cancel the TV and keep the fast internet. I was going to do it today, and before I got to it, Toby announced that there is going to be an AWESOME SpongeBob special on November 11th. The kids knew that our TV service was temporary and was going to be cancelled soon. I told him that I had been planning to do it today, but perhaps we could figure out a compromise. I offered to calculate how much the TV cost per day, then the total for keeping it 9 extra days, and split that evenly with him. If it was worth that amount of money to him to keep the TV long enough to watch this show, then I would be willing to pay half. I asked if that sounded fair, and he agreed. When he found out it would only cost him $5, he was thrilled and thought he got a great deal.
Stay On the Couch
5 years ago
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I'm SO happy to hear the screamfests have been reduced. By 'back off' do you mean you're just pretending nothing is going on when they occur?
ReplyDeleteHeh heh - the TV compromise amuses me. Love that you were willing to work out something that worked for both of you!
We had a similar thing happen in our house -- we planned to switch from AT&T to Comcast to save $, but would get fewer channels. Daniel was very unhappy with this, so we suggested that if he were willing to cover the difference in cost each month, we'd be willing to keep ATT. At $65 a month difference, he wasn't willing to do it... but the conversation didn't end because he kept insisting that WE should be willing to pay out the $65 even though HE was the only one who cared about losing the channels!
By back off I mean I stopped trying to do anything about it. I stopped trying to make it stop. I think. Not sure exactly how it is different from leaving the room, but the energy is very different.
ReplyDeleteDid you tell D to bring it to Family Meeting? I would love to hear what solutions they suggest for that one!