It's day...eleventeen at home with the kids and we're all cooped up because it's -30 with a windchill of -44. We've been stuck inside for four days now and the school is closed due to the cold. Sigh. What to do? We've already baked every cookie in the 'hood (that's motherhood, by the way) and if I have to listen to one more incessant episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants, my husband will force me into a hockey helmet so I'll still have the capacity to cook supper when I'm through banging my head against the wall!
"That's IT! I've had enough of this mind melter! The TV is off for the rest of the day. Go and do something constructive. Build a craft...clean your room...go in the basement, just DO something other than sitting there on the couch watching TV." So I've gone off on my little tirade and now it begins....
"But, but, but, Taylor just got to watch HER show, so now it's MYYYYYYYY turn!!!"
"Jordan, if you don't turn that thing off RIGHT now, you won't watch it for three days."
"So I CAN'T watch Sponge Bob?"
My eye starts to twitch. What IS it about a seven year old that makes you want to run screaming up the driveway into the arms of freedom one minute, and then turns your heart into a quivering pile of gooey, sticky love the next? At this particular moment, however, I'm searching my memory for the last known location of my sneakers. For crying out loud, how many times do I have to say it? Holding on to the LAST nerve in my frazzled head (it's been four days now, remember?) I tell him TV time is over and he needs to do something else.
"Why don't you read a book?" I suggest. Well! you'd think I'd suggested he cut off his right arm!
"NOOOOOOOO! I HATE reading! I'm not doing it and there's nothing you can do to MAKE me!" he screams back at me.
Sigh. What happened? My little man used to love books. He would sit for hours in his little chair pulling books off the shelf and just lose himself in the colourful pictures. Before he started school, he genuinely loved books. I taught him to read by the age of four and he thoroughly enjoyed leafing through any book he could get his tiny hands on. My daughter was the same way, but thankfully still reads. She too learned by the time she was four and it's rare for a day to go by without seeing her with a book on her lap.
Jordan, my son, is 7 and his sister, Taylor, is 5. Somewhere along the line I feel like I've failed my son because he views reading as a chore; almost akin to punishment. I know that once I started to get busy with my consulting firm I assumed he'd always love to read; either on his own or with one of us. I took his natural curiosity and thirst for new things for granted and spent less and less time reading to him and his sister.
Without his Mom and Dad keeping up with a lifestyle where books really ARE wonderfully important, my son's interest waned. My husband and I were busier than ever and generally completely exhausted by the end of the day. I work from home and, regrettably, it has often been easier to just let the kids turn on the TV, than to put my computer away for awhile to do something with them.
So now on this frigid, blustery day the cold, hard truth hits me in the face like a frozen snowball...and it stings. If I don't steer my kids on a strong path of readership NOW while they're still young, they may never follow it on their own.
So what do I do?
