kid activities
last year I was concerned about my 9yo being lost to the real world. all she wanted to do was play videogames. when school started up post-covid, her teacher said she wasn't even playing with other kids on the playground, just walked around thinking about minecraft. she didn't want to go outside with us or go on walks or go play. there was the tough parent world, telling me to limit the hell out of videogames, but I did not do that.
I tried to do the example thing instead. Just invite her on every walk, propose going to the playground, make opportunities to get off the games, find balance. and stress that the games will always be there but nice playground days might not. then I didn't really think about it. I didn't make her do anything.
It's probably been a whole year, but she was asking me what we were doing this weekend and I noticed that hey, she wants to do things again. It's magic. maybe the gaming addiction really was just a pandemic condition?
school is better. she got the student of the week award. she was one of the two kids who represented her class at the school-wide spelling bee, and made it quite a few rounds in there too!
last week she wanted to go to the science museum, so we renewed our pass and got out there. this week she asked why we never took judy to dog parks she'd heard about, so we took judy to the dog park.
side note: judy does not care about dog parks. it's weird. out on walks she wants to meet every dog, but at the dog park she just sits by us, occasionally sniffing a dog who comes up to her... very little interest in running, playing, face chewing, whatever dogs do. so our visit was typical, but olive was thrilled that judy seemed to make a few friends because she is worried that judy doesn't have friends.
back to olive. she still logs a TON of gaming hours, but her room is messy with toys again and that's a positive sign. she's going to be okay. we're making a "spring break list" of fun things to do so we're not in the house too much. it happened slowly, but I think she's learning to break out of the pandemic and I'm optimistic.