New Schedule

[bobquasit]

I've been thinking hard lately about making sure that Sebastian has good habits. It struck me that we have a very small window of opportunity to really influence him. And he's watching way too much TV.

So I just talked to Teri, and worked up this schedule:

SCHEDULE
6-7 PM – Dinner in dining room, followed by Sebastian reading aloud for at least 15 minutes. If time remains, he can get an early start on picking up his toys in order to have more TV-watching time later.

7 – 7:30 PM – TV

7:30 – 8 PM – Sebastian toy pick-up (Mom & Dad clean dishes?) & tooth-brushing (all). Once complete, Sebastian can watch TV until 8 PM.

8 PM – Bed (reading & singing).

Comments

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you are entering into the realm of 'over scheduled parents' a common thing in the current era where parents decide they must schedule every step of their child's activity and exercise control over every step of their life experience.

I'm not one of those folks who thinks that a good thing. Granted I grew up in a very different time, but I'm one of those throwbacks who believe that kids should be allowed to be kids, and don't need to be entertained/occupied every hour of their life.

And, well, this is also an era with abysmal children's programming tv and a lot less for kids to do. When I was young I'd get taken off to the public library once a week to get books to read and the like... and then encouraged to go on my own years later. I read all of the Children's section of our branch library by the time I was 12 and was granted access to the adult sections after that (and an adult rated library card). In those days Librarians had power over what you had access to as a child.

(And my playthings in my youth were Erector sets, to build complex things like castles, boats, towers, hand crank windmills and the like).

Schedules were for dinner and bedtime, with an enforcement of homework done before any tv. The rest I was left on my own to deal with.

I see my brother doing the over-scheduled over-responsibility thing with my nephew and want to smack him so badly at times for his lack of understanding these things.