If he doesn't take his nap during the day, he would be too tired to have School Time with Mommy in the evening. I took the risk to present to him two choices:
1. If he naps during the day, he gets to do School Time.
2. If he does not nap during the day, we would forego School Time.
Yesterday, he chose to forego School Time and not nap during the day. He came home so tired that he could bearly made it through dinner. He looked at his work accomplishment from the School Time the day before, and regretted his choice:
Sad though I was, I stuck to our agreement. It would be meaningless to continue School Time as he was so tired. I told him that he has opted for the choice of not napping and he has to stick to the consequences. He can still make a different choice the following day. He went straight to bed after his shower, sobbing quietly that he missed his School Time, but obeyed Mommy and slept before 7pm.
I felt sad as I came downstairs... the day had been very meaningless for me too. After working at the office for the whole day, I could not see my son, as we only had time to have dinner and J had to go to bed. Taking the risk of giving J the choice of School Time or Nap Time is very risky too, as he could choose to forego nap time over School Time. I prayed hard.
The next morning J woke up. I asked him if he would try to nap or rest in the day, so that he would be fresh by evening time, and has the surplus to do School Time with Mommy. He said he will. This evening he came back from kindergarten and said that he had taken his nap, thus he is entitled to do School Time. J celebrated his achievement - that he slept. We had a very cozy School Time. Thank you God for answering my prayers.
This is what he did for School Time, because J made his own choice that he would try to nap or rest in the day at the kindergarten today:
http://elainengfriis.blogspot.dk/2012/08/school-timeskoletid_28.html
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI have been following your blogs for inspiration to do activities with my 3 year old boy. Thanks a bunch for taking the time out and posting activities. My son has cerebral palsy and has some fine motor skills and major speech delay, he takes longer than average to understand concepts. Whenever I visit your blog I find myself recharged to something fun with my son.
Please don't get offended but I wanted to ask if your son really understand the concept of consequences in the sense no nap means tired and that means no school time. I am just trying to figure out a way for my son to understand these kind of abstract concepts. He is bright but I guess I fail often because of no speech.
Thanks a lot!
Thanks for the reply. I have tried following through the consequences but every time he got too upset and teary. As he is not able to ask question it is difficult to know what part he didn't understand. I will try again .. may be with a simpler consequence.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for your wonderful blog!