Today we start a new day, a new journey. There will be schedules. There will be power struggles. There will be tears. There will be fights.
But also, there will be the undeniable sacrifices made that need to be made in order to preserve the future of a child's life.
I am Lilac and my son Lex and I are going to get very close over the next several weeks/months, as we tackle the necessary "Distance Learning" required by our City for his 7th Grade education. This of course, for those of you reading this in 2020 will already know, is due to Covid-19 which is a deadly pandemic that has ripped through oue country and could cause harm to our kids in the schools where they are not socially distancing. So for now- they are all using an online model for school which is termed "Distance Learning."
It is not all that very different from Home-schooling. The one problem with such a model is that a LOT of kids are not good at it and we were ALL thrown into it. My son has his own particular issues that cause difficulty and we will talk about those at length in this blog. For now...Day One has begun. It is currently 10:00am and I am about one hour behind my schedule. Fortunately Mondays are what the Warwick Schools call, "ANYTIME Learning". It just so happens, that I have set a goal to complete certain assignments before 1:00pm and so I have things doled out in time slots. BUT...I have had some really great success so far so I am happy and satisfied.
DAY ONe began with me oversleeping. YUP. I could NOT sleep last night. My husband said it was stress. My stomach HURT and I was nauseated. I could not even drink coffee this morning so I switched to tea instead.
At 7:15am I woke Alex and started our usual routine of resistance. He refuses to get up. I set the table for breakfast- I kept it simple since both he and myself do not typically eat anything in the mornings. I made two slices of honey wheat toast and put some options on the table like butter, jelly, peanutbutter and mashmallows. At first he screamed about not eating. He "doesn't eat in the morning". I agreed that I also do not eat in the morning but maybe we should start. Eventually (about 25 minutes later), he joined me. He refused at first but eventually found my sugar bowl and milk saucer charming so he made himself a cup of tea with a bit of reluctance. He ate two peices of toast with butter and peanutbutter (the way my dad used to eat it)!
It was another 20 minutes before I could get him to take the pill. I had to stand there and persist. The meds he takes are for attentional issues related to ADHD. I would not have much success with classwork unless we started with meds. They kill his appetite, so I let him have a few cookies we had made the night before...I chatted casually to disarm him, asking if he noticed that I managed to time the cookie baking time better and so this batch was chewy and not crunchy. He cheerfully nodded in agreement that they had come out just right!.
With pill in...Quick time check. Closing in on 9:15am now. I had wanted him to be showered and working by now. Ok, no sweat. Let's get the items checked off the list NO MATTER HOW LONG THEY TAKE. Call an audible. Time to enact a gameplan:
"Alex, since we took so long to get to this point, I think you should still take your shower but before you do, you need to log your attendence. ". He opens the chromebook. No internet. He closes the computer. I ask, "is that what we are going to do? Just give up?". He nods his drowsy head affirmatively. I call my husband on speakerphone and tell him we need internet access. He agrees to check the connection. I ask Alex to reboot. He resists. Why? I don't know...just to be oppositional I suppose. Eventually, he reboots, tries to get into Google Classroom to link to email to join attendance. No internet. I try...same result...then inexplicably it connects. Alex reacts by clapping obnoxiously and sarcastically. I ignore the childish behavior and just turn the chromebook toward him and remind him to log his attendance for the 3rd time. I text hubby that we are all set and to say thanks.
I had realized it was my (step) daughter's wedding anniversary so I suggest we send them a card to let them know we were thinking of them. Alex likes this idea so I go fetch a card and return to the table. He spends at least 25 minutes drawing them a picture. But he has not drawn in ages...and his attention to detail and desire to do a nice thing really warms my heart. Why can he be so sweet and so difficult as the same time? I let him finish but while he is working, I am writing a diagram of the assignments he needs to complete today. I begin to feel stress because we are behind by over an hour at this point. We have a funeral to attend later and I need to take him shopping for some pants to wear tonight.
An idea floats through my mind...The number of assignments I would like to see done before 1:30pm at the latest...how can I make HIM care about completing the most assignments before 1:30pm? I decide to incentivize it. The diagrahm above shows the assignments. The circled numbers show the amount of assignments due per class. The blue empty box in each one of those represents the number of potential "Amazon Bucks" Lex can earn today. And there is more where that comes from...what's to say I cannot incentivize EVERY MONDAY?
I pitch the idea and then wait for him to reject it...
and he DOESNT!
He actually LOVED this idea .
He insisted that he can get these assignments done no problem...maybe more of them.
Well...we will see!
Finally showered, it's 10:30am...Day One.
More to come tomorrow.
~Namaste
Lilac
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